Newhouse Farm

[rue_d_etropal]

That Maplin unit sounds interesting and at least they have shops you can visit. I am thinking about something to use in France, but planning regs will mean I have to mount something inside a window space.
Looking at that Maplins site I not the review is done by Mike Boxwell, so maybe he could add something here.
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Simon D
SOW a Seed,

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www.rue-d-etropal.com

[retrotecchie]

Free Solar Energy gave me a full refund back to my Paypal account yesterday, so I bought two of the Maplin 12W panels mail order, adding the extra tenner myself.

As soon as they arrive, I'll mount them on the shed roof and see how they perform. All my original FSE panels are wired in parallel pairs and fed through a single fuse per pair before going into the solar charge controller, so it is a simple matter to make current and voltage measurements from any pair.

I'm guessing, sight unseen, that pretty much any TF panel of similar dimensions (and the panel area of the Maplin unit is the same as the FSE unit) will perform exactly the same so I would imagine the only difference is mechanical and cosmetic, but I'll let you know how I get on!
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I wish I could be what I was when I wanted to be what I am

[iaintook]

Hi all, Im a bit of a forum lurker but thought i might add something to this thread. Firstly I am in no way conected with this company but.. I had a quick search and found these panels

which look similar to the 12W panels you get delivered broken.

Iain.

[retrotecchie]

Hi Iain

Very similar....I contacted the manufacturer in Czech Republic and they aren't the same thing, but yes...very similar. They are £73 each plus shipping and I'm working on a bulk discount price but it's looking like 100 units still work out at £60 a throw.

The Maplin units arrived undamaged and will be going on No2 shed tonight. I have to say, the packaging was far superior to my previous supplier.

By the look of it, the outer shipping carton (from China) holds 4 units. I bought two so the space in the carton was packed with nitrogen-filled poly bags. The panel comes in a stong cardboard outer carton which then holds the inner 'retail' carton. The panel itself is packed in a moulded polystyrene inner within this carton so shipping by mail order should be pretty secure!

They also come with three different connection cables. One has a pair of croc clips, one has a car lighter plug and the third has a pair of eyelet terminals for wiring into a charge controller.

Good stuff, and at £49.99 each (post free on all orders over £35) they aren't a bad price (£4.17 per Wp). Add to that they come complete with a set of mounting screws and mounting spacers, probably slightly better value for money than my original units.

I'm working on decoding the writing on the box to try and work out who actually makes them, but they aren't 'Nikkai' branded as a lot of the Maplin stuff often seems to be. I have a feeling in my water that Nikkai (car audio, inverters, connection leads, some solar stuff, etc.) is a Maplin 'brand' in the same way that 'Matsui' and 'Prinz' used to be brand names of Currys and Dixons....remember that far back?!!
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I wish I could be what I was when I wanted to be what I am

[iaintook]

Hi RT,

I've had a bit of a trawl through the chinese suppliers but havent seen anything like the Maplin one, there are 53000 panels listed on ali baba so its probably there somewhere (click) .

I'll keep looking

[MikeBoxwell]

I've used these Maplin panels for a while now - i.e. a couple of years. They're easy to mount and easy to use. I recently sent one across to another forum member for him to use and he has reported that it is working well.

Being thin film panels, they're about three times the size of the equivalent crystaline panel, but they work better in overcast conditions and really suit small applications. I know these small solar gadget chargers are all the rage, but unless you need something small, you'd get a far better performing system bolting one of these to the outside of your house and using cigarette lighter adapters to charge everything up instead - even in the winter you'd get enough power to rapidly charge up a mobile phone or an MP3 player or a sat nav, whilst in the summer you could run a small laptop off it.

A good piece of kit and to be honest, I can't really fault it.
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Author of the Solar Electricity Handbook.

[retrotecchie]

OK, the Maplin Panels are made by TopRay Solar in China http://www.topraysolar.com


Got my pair up last night on the shed roof. Mounted them longwise one above the other on a pair of wooden brackets I made up in the shape of a 3-4-5 triangle with the panel ends attached to the hypotenuses. Between Autumn and Spring, the short side (one leg of the 90 degree corner) is screwed to the shed roof, making the angle steeper and better for late autumn and early spring sun. As soon as spring comes round again, I'll reverse the brackets (screwing the long side to the flat roof) and optimise the panels for summer sun.



Had them wired in last night at around 6pm and facing South-West and the pair were still producing 150mA approx of charge just before sunset

I now have all 8 of my original FreeSolarEnergy 12W panels (96W) on the south facing slope of No1 shed powering the main house lighting system.



The 24W of panels on No2 shed are just for my shed lights, radio and the central heating circulator for my wood-fired central heating in the shed and occasional charging of the cordless power tools and running the soldering iron when I'm playing with electronics.



To be fair to my old panels (and the supplier) an array 8 panels wide is exactly the width of the shed roof so the fact I can't get them anymore isn't a problem. I'm up to capacity on the shed roof so couldn't add anymore the same even if I wanted to!! With an all out current of about 5.6A max, the array is also just inside the limit of my 6A charge controller.

To the left of the panels on No2 shed, the white panel is my flat plate hot water collector, which is for the hot water system...see my post Wood fired shed heating!!
https://newhousefarm.tv/forum/viewtopic.php?p=391937

The two small panels below the shed window are a couple of Maplin 2.4W panels which were the experimental panels I used right back at the beginning of my pottering. These keep my 'emergency' 28Ah VRLA battery pack topped up. The tiny grey 1.5W panel sat on the bottom left is the Maplin 1.5W solar trickle charger which is used to top up my 'emergency emergency' 12Ah VRLA battery. Worst case scenario....I can find a bit of reserve power even in an emergency!!

Happy days!
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I wish I could be what I was when I wanted to be what I am

[Debbie62140]

Talking of Maplin ... we recently purchased two of their 60w kits at £199 each http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?moduleno=223250 sadly they are back up to £299 now.

The first kit we bought from a Maplin shop when visiting the UK. We were so impressed with it that we ordered another to be delivered to our home here in the Pas de Calais. The packaging was excellent and it arrived with no dents or abrasions to the outer cardboard carton.

Because each kit came with a 10a charge controller (sufficient to run both sets of panels in parallel 120 watts 17.5 volts open circuit) we now have a spare charge controller, not a bad thing.

We have the panels on test at the moment prior to constructing a frame to mount them above the patio.

Max we've had out of them in full direct sunlight mid September was 7.5 amps.

Debbie

[Debbie62140]

By the way ... the instruction manual that came with our 60w solar kits says that they are manufactured by Topray Solar http://topray.002.idc10000.net/
I think there's a good chance that your Maplin 12w panels are from the same manufacturer.

From their website...

"Shenzhen Topray Solar Co.Ltd. is a professional manufacturer of solar cell, solar panel, solar charger, solar light, solar gardening products and solar power system. We are the only one in China that has the ability to produce amorphous silicon solar cell with 50MW capacity, and mono-crystalline & poly-crystalline solar cell with 30MW capacity.

In the meanwhile, we have over 30 models of solar related consumer products in our range .We occupied three entire buildings with a total factory area of 42,000 square meters and hire over 1000 workers. 100 of them are qualified technicians, which allow us to enforce strict quality control.

Topray Solar is honored by the local Government with the title of Hi-tech enterprise. What is more, our company is also the member of a renewable energy development project sponsored by the central government

Topray products has been sold to over 56 countries around the world. It is our sincere hope to have a chance to serve you as well.

Factory Location: Topray Solar Industrial Park, Jiazitang, Songbai Rd,
Guangming District, Shenzhen. P.R.China"

Debbie

[retrotecchie]

Yep....that's the stuff!

The 12W panel is exactly the same as the 15 W panel....4 of which make up the 60W kit. When you look at the individual boxes the panels come in, they are all model number TPS-103, but the carton has boxes labelled 12, 13 or 15W which are ticked accordingly when the units are packed.

When I contacted Topray Solar, they told me that the panels are all made as 15W panels, but the ones that are slightly below spec (when tested at the factory) are marked up as 12W or 13W (depending how much below spec) and sold slightly cheaper.



These 12W panels are normally £70 each, but on special at 49.99 right now, so four of these would normally be £280. Throw in a controller and there's the balance of the £299.

Of course, if you got the whole kit for £199.....that was a very special offer!!
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I wish I could be what I was when I wanted to be what I am

[Debbie62140]

The labels on the back of each of our panels are all TPS-204.
Will take a look at the cartons tomorrow.

They do quite frequently sell the 60w solar kit for £199.

Debbie

[pd001]