Solar panel fix?

[Gee]

Morning peeps,
Since my van is off the road atm, thought I'd investigate a new noise I'd heard recently from the roof. When I lifted my panel off, the junction box at the back was loose. The adhesive that must've been used to fix it on at the factory had came unstuck and as a result both (+&-) of the thin flat silver conducting tape that comes out if the panel to the terminals had snapped.
As you can see from the photo there is nothing on the panel to solder the loose ends on to as they seem to just disappear into a glued down slit.

Anyone ever fixed this before or is it a new panel. It's only 4 years old.

 

[chrismilo]

Bare Conductive Electric Paint Glue Electrical Solder Conducting PCB Repair 10ml

You should be able to repair it with this I've used it very good stuff

 

[carol]

Interesting you say it's only 4 years old. What's the shelf life for a solar panel? Do they stop working eventually or just break down?

 

[molly 2]

Give bimble or another cmpany a ring for advice ,new solar panels are cheaper and more efficient now could be a good time to upgrade ?100 w around £80 ebay

 

[molly 2]

Interesting you say it's only 4 years old. What's the shelf life for a solar panel? Do they stop working eventually or just break down?

Dont panick They deteriorate slowly over time 20 years or so, the OP panel is broken

 

[Stealthcamper99]

I have fixed this kind of issue before. It's a case of cutting the backing away until you have enough to solder on to. Re solder then paint over with something like plastidip to waterproof.

Andy

 

[Gee]

Just a quick update. I managed to fix it by carefully cutting back the white glued on backing and exposed both of the silver flat wires. I then soldered it all back together and stuck the junction box back down. Working fine.

Got to say a good word for friendly green giant whom I bought it from back in 2013. After I contacted them they offered to exchange it. However they are awaiting stock of 80w panels which won't be in till next month. Too late for me as I'm leaving Scotland on a long tour down to Croatia in 2 weeks time. As the panel was 4 years old they offered me a partial refund of 2/3rds of the initial cost which I thought was fair, as I could also keep the panel.
Great customer service and a happy ending.

 

[Byronic]

The oldest of the 3 panels on my roof is 19 years old. Very difficult to be ascertain by how
much it's deteriorated in performance over that time, but I'm not aware of deterioration in day to day use.
Mind you it is a BP Saturn, (wow) the so called best technology available at the time, Very
expensive, & guaranteed to not deteriorate more than a stated maximum % over 20 years.

My 15 year old BP Standard panel also has a similar stated % max. deterioration but over 10 years.

My 5 year old Chinese panel has bugger all quarantees on performance, but considering the cost
I hardly expected any.

The anodised aluminium frames, the glass, are all virtually as new.