DO NOT polish them !
Warm water with a little washing up liquid, clean off and dry.
Old wet newspaper to clean and dried off with newspaper (not colour print) is excellent for cleaning glass surfaces....
old car cleaners trick.
Surely products like rain X work best on a sloping surface when the vehicle is moving. If your van is moving, presumably it will receive a charge from the alternator.
A question rather than a statement.
Davy
samih
Craic'er
Gender: Location: North Kildare Age: 52 Posts: 68 Registered: 11 / 2019 My Motorhome: Red bus (getting there) Base Vehicle: Sprinter 313 CDi LWB '14
My panel is ever so slightly tilted to reduce water pooling on it and that's where the Rain-X idea came from.
The google finds lots of threads about Rain-X on solar panels but don't really reveal any hard data. There are no horror stories, nor there are any long term success stories. As many of the glass panels at least come with anti-reflective and possibly also hydrophobic coatings it's probably best to just stick with copious amounts of plain water to clean the panels. Car shampoo often have some wax additives which may also affect the coatings so again probably best to stick with just water.
Davy
Eat's Sleep's craic
Gender: Location: Co. Down Age: 70 Posts: 1542 Registered: 09 / 2011 My Motorhome: Hymer B598 PL Base Vehicle: Fiat 130 hp multijet
Perhaps not a fair comparison, but I have 16 solar panels (total 4Kw) on the roof of my home. They of course are tilted to match the pitch of the roof. They were fitted in March 2015 and have had no maintainence or cleaning of any sort.
Each year in March I have to submit the reading of kilowatts generated in the previous 12 months. Whilst submitting the reading last month I did look at the figures for the past 5 years and they are all pretty similar, so in this unscientific post, they do not appear to be reducing output due to lack of cleaning.
As an aside, when they were first installed we were renovating the house, so there was no draw by any appliance. I was surprised to find one night having finished painting or whatever, and about to leave the house that the streetlight across the road was putting 10 watts into the panels, although this could be part of a margin of error. It made me smile anyway and perhaps we should endeavour to park under a streetlight for more than added security!!
I was in the van last night getting something and looked at the panel output It was getting 100 mA from the full moon
Something made me howl on the way back to the house 🥴🤪
The Rambler
Eat's Sleep's craic
Gender: Location: Galway Age: 50 Posts: 2346 Registered: 07 / 2017 My Motorhome: Base Vehicle: Vauxhall Movano 2.5 CDTI
I clean the solar panel with car shampoo when washing the MH and roof - I use Autoglym shampoos but have various “detailer” brands. No to washing up liquid as it contains cleaning salts that can be corrosive. No to polishes etc as they can build up layers and dull over time.
big LIam
Love's the Craic
Gender: Location: belfast Age: 63 Posts: 201 Registered: 08 / 2016 My Motorhome: d55 Dreamer Veronica Base Vehicle: Fiat Ducato 2.3 130 bhp
I clean mines with, methylated spirits and a soft cloth once you clean the panel the methylated spirits evaporates right away nothing for the dirt to stick to
baguette
Eat's Sleep's craic
Gender: Location: Cork Age: 73 Posts: 2817 Registered: 11 / 2011 My Motorhome: Rapido 963F Base Vehicle: Ducato 2.8 JTD Power
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