I wanted a solar panel but, having a tintop, I didn't know where to put it. In the end I decided to get an old case, hide the panel on top and put it on a roof rack. Firstly the panel, I went for a 20 watt polycrystal panel from ebay, a nice balance between cost and power and it fitted on the old metal chest I acquired. I don't have too much running off the leisure battery so this should be OK for now. Next, i got a friend of mine to knock me up a mounting bracket which I then bolted to the top of the case... ...before fitting the panel and siliconing it in place to seal. Next problem was how to get the power to the battery. In the end, to save me drilling any holes in the bodywork, I decided to run a cable down through the air intakes into the engine bay. If I used connectors this would then make the panel easily removeable so I bought a DIN connector from Hellfords... which I then fitted to the chest. The cable could then be plugged in, fed through the intake and plug in to the charge regulator that i'd stuck to the battery. Job Done! I had 19 volts coming out of the panel once everything was connected up which is more than ample. and it took me 5 minutes to take everything down again. Only job left to do is come up with a way to keep the chest in place on the roof rack but once that's done i'll have free trickle charging and a cooler than normal top box.
Nice one dude Im going to mount my solar panel into the front westy style roof rack so its flush and cant be seen
I've seen them there before. It looks like a spot made for a panel. Sometimes wish I had a pop top...
