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hi everyone jeff cote here

with a unboxing video uh here we have a

solgo 160 solar panel and by the way

this is a flexible solar panel

a hot seller item

um so this solar panel

is and i'm going to take off the wrap by

the way we sort of removed it from its

sleeve the solar panel this sogo 160

actually comes with a protective sleeve

which is kind of nice

and so

they all come like that you can also

apparently buy them with a box we've

never done that before

when we ship them out of course we

create boxes for them and that's not

unusual

you'll also notice and it's worth

bringing to your attention that there is

a plastic film on top of this panel

right now that is protective and so they

remind us of that with a little sticker

in the corner so you not only have to

remove the small little sticker but you

also have to remove the plastic film on

top of this you don't want to leave this

plastic film there for too long because

eventually it gets really sticky and

it's really hard to remove

so the plastic film is a protective sort

of film to just as you're positioning

the panel

by the way this solar panel weighs

around seven pounds or six point eight

pounds which is around probably around

three kilograms a little bit more than

three kilograms so it's basically super

lightweight

compared to origin

on the topic of weight this is a clear

winner

um 160 watts um is basically so all

solar panels have this sort of rating

and what you see isn't what you get

you're not going to get 160 watts so if

you have a boat that is powered by 12

volts you can't just do 160 divided by

12 and bang you're going to have an

output of you know

above 10 below 15 amps i don't know

maybe 12 13 it's not going to be like

that

but here's the thing um when you connect

the solar panel the sogo 160 to a for

example a solar controller generally the

rule of math and this always depends

also on where you are on earth

because you know around the equator

obviously the days are on average the

same there might be a little bit shorter

and longer obviously summer or winter

but as you go further north or south

away from the equator like for example

we're around the 49th 50th parallel here

where we are in british columbia in

canada

and the sun in june

is basically we're talking about maybe a

15 16 hour day of sunlight

so depending on when you're boating of

course in the winter here it's the very

opposite so instead of winning in the

winter in the summer we actually lose a

lot in the winter so the days are

terrible there's a lot of rain they're

much shorter there's only eight or nine

hours of sunlight but if you're cruising

in the summer and this might be the med

or again in northern latitudes the days

are longer and now those longer days

mean that you're getting more output of

your solar panels than another location

where the hours of sunlight are only 12

hours so that's a factor of play but

here in the pacific northwest so again

europe about the same sort of

uh latitude

what we're talking about is

you generally the rule of of thumb that

we use is a factor of four so if you've

got 160 watt solar panel on average in

the summer months when the days are

longer you're going to get about a

factor about 40

amp hours of output from this 160 watt

solar panel so 40 amp hours might offset

refrigeration might not do all of your

refrigeration again depends on how big

your refrigeration system is but on a

sailboat you know refrigeration might be

between 40 80 100 120 so you might need

a couple of these solar panels to offset

the refrigeration system on your boat

the great advantage with this solar

panel is the fact that it's obviously

quite flexible but not too much so it's

got a really strong backing there's

other uh flexible solar panels that are

trying to reduce weight and the backing

of the panel is less heavy so they're

doing that for weight savings this one

certainly feels a little bit heavier but

what's good about that is it's also it

is flexible as you can see and that's

plenty for any curvature of a boat

but you don't you also feel like you

can't go further you know you just feel

that you know beyond this angle this

doesn't feel natural so normally what

you're going to see is you might see it

like this on a

maybe a medium or a dodger something

like this right and that's a natural

curve um so it feels like it can

actually

handle a curve without being so fragile

that it's going to break

the other thing to note is you actually

have 10 different stainless steel

grommets on this panel this panel is 22

inches wide by 62 inches long

so often i was talking to another boater

today and i was reminding the cross

bores in on a bimini normally have about

about this amount of spacing so quite

often we'll actually be putting these

in between the crossbar spacings on a

bimini

um a thor chip big word for me here

today a thwart chip and so we're gonna

have maybe one two or three or four

panels on a long

bimini and this is what's going to be on

top in terms of fastening what are your

options well um on my own boat we use

zippers

some folks use velcro some other folks

and by the way the zippers would

actually be sewn with a pretty heavy

industrial obviously sewing machine on

the edges

some other folks are actually fastening

the panels and we've done that actually

using

some nice stainless steel hardware with

a rubberized washer and i talked about

that in other places on our website so

if you're curious and generally

fasteners are the easiest thing because

you actually can cauterize or cauterize

the the canvas so it doesn't sort of

open more and you're literally i know

and this is nerve-wracking you're making

holes in your canvas and i get it you

know as a boater making a hole anywhere

is just nerve-wracking but the flip side

is you have to find a way to attach this

panel to your canvas either your bimini

your dodger you've got to find a way to

attach this or even an awning

on your canvas so

again you're either going to do with

zippers but if you're going to do a half

of a zipper on this panel you've got to

do another half of the zipper on your

canvas and that means that if you're

sewing zippers on your canvas you're

making holes in your canvas the older

the canvas gets one of the challenges

that we all face is that they get more

brittle the fabric again i'm not an

expert at this but i've seen it over

time and sometimes you're you might be

inducing a little bit of leak

so that's a factor at play and you've

got to be willing to suffer a little bit

to get the gains from a solar panel the

other thing too is this panel has a

five-year warranty designed in the states in silicon

valley which is great it's got the

highest sort of density for solar output

based on the size of the panel which is

great

one other thing too is monocrystalline

cells that's worth noting right some

people are always asking is it mono or

poly in this case this is a mono

and

because the backing is so it's flexible

but still rigid it really minimizes the

chances of actually cracking and also

having compromising the output of the

panel

the pigtail again

is pretty standard length um it's about

maybe a couple feet you can see that

right

maybe over here on the camera forward

camera so you know again a couple feet

and then you would extend that to the

controller

and you would do that uh with solar wire

so super important to have solar wires

between the solar panel because

generally these panels are going to be

on the outside and solar wire is

protected for uv it feels almost like a

gauge 8 wire so it almost looks double

jacketed actually the inside is only a

10 gauge wire but the outside feels like

a number eight wire

again you got to do that to the not

necessarily to the controller but to the

inside of the boat and then on the

inside of the boat you can go all the

way to the controller with solar wire or

sometimes i've seen boaters and i've

done that too on my boat i'll terminate

the solar wires on the terminal strips

which i'm a big fan of i love terminal

strips and then i'll take basically

duplex 102 to the controller and then

from the controller i'll take that all

the way to the battery

so you absolutely need a controller and

with this panel we absolutely recommend

the victron 7515 naturally you can also

go with the genisyn gv10 that would be

another panel uh suited for this but

we're a big fan of the victron 7515

it's customizable you can change all the

settings you can make it agm you can

make it whatever your battery wants you

can actually pre-configure into the

controller and we did that today for

another boater that bought one of these

so this is a solgo 160 160 stands for

watts and uh seven pounds and great size

this is our number one seller of solar

panels in terms with the best value you

can have at the price point right now so

if you've got further questions please

see down below we've got literally

hundreds of articles on solar panels and

flexible solar panels lots of videos

we also have our boarding tech talk

where we talk about

flexible solar panels as well

and if you've got a question that's

unanswered post it and potentially on

one of my evenings or early mornings i'm

going to take the time to answer as well

thanks for watching also if you're found

this video interesting please subscribe

um it honestly does it does help us to

know that all this time that we're

investing is actually reaching a lot of

voters and i want to thank all of you

for watching thanks for spending some

time with me

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