By Cheri Sicard
In the video below from Project of Science, our host, a custom van builder by trade, wanted to do an experiment with portable solar panels. He wanted to know if setting up solar panels inside windshields would work to power a van’s battery or devices, and he set out to find out.
Why did he want to see if putting the panel in the windshield would work? Because there are times you can’t put them outside for one reason or another. And you certainly don’t want to put them out and go away as they would likely not be there when you returned. But what kind of performance can you expect from a solar panel inside of a windshield?
Our host collected data on his inside windshield solar panel for about a week before making the video that compared its performance to a portable solar panel that was outside on the ground.
The actual experiment begins at about the 3-minute mark. Check out the video to get the specifics on how it was set up.
Unfortunately, Project of Science has their playback on other websites disabled, so you’ll have to click here and watch the video on YouTube.
If you want to cut to the chase and skip the video, the bottom line is that putting the solar panel inside the windshield reduced its efficiency by about 60%. That said, it did perform, so if you wanted things to charge while you went away for a few hours or a few days, this would, in fact, work.
Watch the video to examine the collected data more closely and analyze what worked and what did not work in this interesting portable solar panel experiment.
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