Kingsolar 50W ETFE Semi Flexible Solar Panel Charger More Durable And More Flexible For Boat Car Battery

I'd been looking for a flexible solar panel for my campervan roof but was put off by the number of reviews from people who had bought a standard flexible panel and found they had failed after a year or so. ETFE panels are supposed to be a more robust and durable version which should last longer, and at £60 the Kingsolar 50W ETFE version looked like it would be a good choice.It arrived quickly and was fairly well packaged. Depending how you want to fix it, having reinforced eyelets round the edges is a useful option, not all panels seem to have them. After a lot of looking at other peoples installations I went with one bolt through one of the eyelets (as it coincided with an existing one on the roof), and 3M VHB 5952 acrylic tape around the edge on the underside. I filled the remaining unused eyelets with silicon so water couldn't get underneath. I don't think I needed to have bothered with the bolt, provided the area is cleaned and prepared, the VHB tape has stuck the panel to the fibreglass pop top extremely firmly. I don't have any worries about it coming off. It's worth noting that the small black box at the top of the panel, which contains the blocking diode and cable terminals, actually sticks out a couple of mm on the underside of the panel, so the panel can't sit completely flat at that point. If you are using tape or silicon it probably shouldn't be to much of a problem as it can take up the difference in thickness. (You can just see the bottom of the box sticking out underneath in the sellers last photo.)The camper was used twice last year for about 2 weeks in total. The 50 Watt panel worked well, it kept the second battery fully charged during the day very easily, but it's only used for powering interior LED lights, charging phones and camera batteries in the evening and overnight, so it's not a particularly large current draw to deal with.Fast forward to this year, the camper didn't get used at all (Coronavirus saw to that), and on doing a general check before the MOT, I found the second battery was flat, even though the solar panel should have kept it charged. A quick check showed the panel has failed. On a really sunny day with the sun directly overhead it now puts out a max of 5v. Most of the time it's about 1.5v output which is useless for charging anything. I've checked everything else (charge controller, wiring, etc) with a spare panel. Its definitely Kingsoft panel that has failed.It lasted somewhere between 14 and 16 months, so not much longer than its 12 month warranty period. It has no damage, so it's hard to know why it failed. I did contact the seller, SOSPOWEREU, but its not resulted in anything useful.Ultimately it didn't last any longer than many of the non ETFE panels are supposed too, and now I have to go through the process of getting all the VHB tape off the roof and cleaning all that up before I can fit a replacement. Maybe I was just unlucky with this panel, but the next one I buy will come with a 5 year warranty and probably cost more per watt. I guess it comes under "you get what you pay for".Good bits:Quick deliveryReasonable packagingUseful eyelets for mountingWorked well when it worked.Bad bits:Failed just after warranty ended for no obvious reason.

Item arrived promptly. But failed after 1 week of use, no output from panel. V dissapointed. Will be returning the product. Do not buy!!!I eould have given 0* but i couldn't

Nice quality panel with excellent cable termination at the panel. Works really well.

Works really well keeps my leasure battery fully charges