Solar panel mounted with neodymium magnets – – success! RTR

[bcolins]

After putting about 2500 miles on my test vehicle. I thought I could confidently post it up here. I purchased Bouge RV CIGS solar panel. They have several I purchased a long narrow one with eight grommets for mounting then purchased 830 pound neo Demi magnets from Amazon and a 16 foot 10 AWG 60XTI solar cable all from Amazon. I made a couple of crossbars for the first two sets of magnets from Home Depot, aluminum barstock, then inserted the magnet through the Gromit and the bar stock with a flat washer, lock, washer and nut on the second row the crossbar goes under the solar panel, so it does not cover any of the solar segments. I taped the leading edge of the solar panel down with aluminum foil, HVAC high temperature tape . The solar cable enters, the rear hatch drip channel on the left side and is partially tucked under the weather strip around the hatch, then goes under the tail light lens to a large grommet, where enters the van and then carries on to my Eco flow Delta lithium ion battery bank and a pedestal. I built to hold my fridge freezer microwave and battery bank. Put about 25 miles on this set up on another vehicle (my van was not ready for the trip due to air-conditioning system failure.) driven speed up to 90 mph storms all over the Rocky Mountains for the last two weeks and nothing has moved one bit (Take that you naysayers who said it would not work)

[steve2sloth]

Looks great, very practical and aerodynamic. There's another driver in the UK that did something similar (no magnets just tape) and their paint got fried/bubbled after a year under the flexible panels, parked outside. Trapped heat. Hope that you have a covered place to park when you're not on an adventure.

I guess that you regularly tie gear to the rack and don't want to occupy it with hard panels?

EDIT: This was that other thread I ref'd https://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=735243