Anyone with real world experience with VHB tape for solar panels

[baltik]

I know a lot of people had success taping panels in the RV community, but I'm a big concerned given the surface texture of our fiberglass roofs, would love to hear feedback from others since I absolutely hate the idea of creating permanent holes. I would prefer to use 2 Renogy slim panels as opposed to the flexible ones.

I've seen a number of approaches to this from taping directly to using mounts such as these:

Obviously some aluminum angle iron could be used as well

[E1]

No "real world," sorry, but curvature of the roof and latitudinal channels are working hard in aero terms to create flight.

An RV roof is typically dead flat, level, slick, and I suspect has less wind buffeting for creating a higher airstream "hole," if you will.

I'm sure people have done this but for others' safety I determined it an unnecessary risk. I also decided I'd rather fill a few holes later over prepping out the original finish with a big glue patch when the panel configuration could well change later.

Just my $.02, and hopefully worth $.03.

Not intended to be a threadkill and maybe others have indeed successfully done this.
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[djkeev]

I'm old.

Tape to me is a means to TEMPORARILY hold two objects together until a more permanent means sets or is performed.

Double side sticky tape is great for holding dresses over breasts, car emblems on or hanging a poster on a wall.
Holding heavy objects in place while the forces of Nature work to release it?

No Way!

Screw that sucker down securely with metal hardware.

You don't want a solar panel coming off your roof like a sheet of frozen snow on the freeway!
The snow is bad enough and can serious damage a vehicle and kill a person! But a solar panel? No thanks.

"But Officer...... I taped it securely in place!"

Dave
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[newerwesty1987]

I just took this stuff off recently, off a metal dash where I had a radio mounted, and I couldn't get it off after an hour of trying and prying! I actually pulled on the mount with my entire body weight and still nothing. It got to the point that I thought I was about to bend the dash metal. I ended up inching my way to success by prying with a plastic bar. When the mount finally came off, it took another 30min to get the remaining tape off.

I'd say it would work. I'm always a fan of hardware until I used this 3M stuff. It's amazing.

[baltik]

I don't think there's a question that the tape is more than strong enough to hold, I believe this is the same tape used to fuse aerospace pieces together, it has tremendous tenstile strength. The tape is rated for Dynamic Overlap Shear: 80 pounds per square inch. But that all assumes optimal bonding, the question is whether optimal bonding can be achieved with our roofs....

[uberaudi]

I've put a few thousand miles on this setup and nothing has changed. I ended up using 80 inches of the 1x vhb on the two 40" rails, which are pressed down onto the original paint Adventurewagen fiberglass top. I'm satisfied with the results for sure.