DM 145 Mounts

[Mr. Noob]

After looking a mount threads I saw several for the HF panels but virtually none for the DM145's!

 

Can we who are new to the solar world get some pics of your mount setups?

 

How are you attaching the panels to the mounts?

What sort of materials are you using for mounting?

Would be nice if someone could help us with finding correct angles and such.

 

I would enjoy an open discussion with regard to all the above!

 

Thanks,

 

Mr. Noob.

[Mr. Noob]

To be specific, I am not looking to see more of the satelight mount situations, I would like to see something else.

Noob.

[Robert]

Here is a chart for optimum tilt for solar panels. It has quite a bit of info for each latitude and what angle to use for the time of the year.

Bob

This table gives some examples for different latitudes. It also shows the average insolation on the panel over the year (in kWh/m² per day), and the energy received compared to the best possible tracker.

Latitude	Full year angle	Avg. insolation on panel	% of optimum
0° (Quito)	0.0	6.5	72%
5° (Bogotá)	4.4	6.5	72%
10° (Caracas)	8.7	6.5	72%
15° (Dakar)	13.1	6.4	72%
20° (Mérida)	17.4	6.3	72%
25° (Key West, Taipei)	22.1	6.2	72%
30° (Houston, Cairo)	25.9	6.1	71%
35° (Albuquerque, Tokyo)	29.7	6.0	71%
40° (Denver, Madrid)	33.5	5.7	71%
45° (Minneapolis, Milano)	37.3	5.4	71%
50° (Winnipeg, Prague)	41.1	5.1	70%

[Mr. Noob]

Looks like the place to get my "tilt" on!  Thanks.

[Norm Caron]

I used super strut bought at lowes and mounted my dm145 panels to the super strut which I mounted to a 2x4 frame at 34 degree angle for my area (Northern Florida). The super strut allows me to take the panels down in 15 min which I do when a tropical storm approaches. I used galvanized bolts and put 1 and 1/4 inch pvc pipe spacers to make it to where the panels are tightened down evenly on the edges. I will take some close up photos soon and post them so you can see how I did it. 

[Norm Caron]

I used super strut bought at lowes and mounted my dm145 panels to the super strut which I mounted to a 2x4 frame at 34 degree angle for my area (Northern Florida). The super strut allows me to take the panels down in 15 min which I do when a tropical storm approaches. I used galvanized bolts and put 1 and 1/4 inch pvc pipe spacers to make it to where the panels are tightened down evenly on the edges. I will take some close up photos soon and post them so you can see how I did it.  I have to figure out how to downsize my pics as the ones I have are too large and will not load. If you look at my past post I have some photos posted.

[Joe Taylor]

I just mounted 2 panels to my RV. I used some aluminum 2" x 2" x 2" X 1/8" Z stock. I cut it in to 4 pcs of 12 inch lengths so I could use 2 of the bolt holes, I used 1/4 SS bolts, flat washers and lock nuts to bolt the panels to the Z angle then used 3 ss screws to hook to the roof.

It sets the panels up for good air flow under and room to keep your wire connections out of the weather. You can get the Z angle at a local supplier.like Medal by the Foot. SS bolt and screws at ACE hardware.

hope this helps Joe

[Big Moe]

Hello Mr. Noob,

I have not mounted my DM panels yet, but I plan on mounting them similar to my HF panels.

As you can see in my pictures, I used PVC board as the base frame so that it would rot ( have a bit more of a detailed description in an older blog called "random ramblings") and mounted these board on composite deck boards cut down to 2 1/2 " wide blocks.

 

The difference is the thickness of the panels. I used J channel with the HF panels because it was a perfect thickness, but with these panels I will most likely use L brackets or something of the sort. I will screw them to the PVC board and it will bend over the panel frame to hold them down.

 

When I'm trying to figure out something like this, I usually walk around the home improvement store until I find something that will fit the bill.  It usually has nothing to do with the intended purpose of the item, but I can see how it will work for me.

 

Moe 

[Mr. Noob]

I have decided to use aluminum angle of some kind to build a mount bracket system for the panels to help prevent lightening strikes, I  just don't know what to use to mount that to into the ground. It wont do any good to mount the aluminum frame to a steel pole in the ground...that's just another lightening rod "tweaked". I thought about a 6" pole mounted into the ground but just don't know.

 

Thanks for all your input guys!

 

Mr. Noob.

 

 

[Kenny Kemp]

Mr Noob,

 

I'm going to pattern my mount from this.

 

Kenny