Larry wrote:
" wrote in
:

On Dec 23, 12:00 pm, Larry wrote:
...
Solar panels have a long warranty period.....unless some idiot starts
usi
ng
his drill to "fix" them, of course.....

Just swap it!
You are a wise man, it seems. Just got a note from the warranty
dept. They offered to swap all the panels I bought, not just the
defective one! We'll see what really happens and how the
international logistics work out, but that's a pretty nice opening
offer. They are closed for the holidays so it will takes some weeks
at the least.. Bummer about that. Too, ripping the rack out and then
re-glassing it is a major so I don't really want to replace the whole
array.

--Tom.


Swap out them all. They probably had a bad run of a few thousand panels
that are all coming apart and trying to save face. Congratulations!

Don't just replace the one....the warranty dept knows the others will come
apart soon enough and are offering you all new ones. Glassing them is of
no consequence. CHANGE THEM ALL!

Now you have the chance of putting the new ones back where you can service
them....not glassing them into some unserviceable place. Do a better job
of planning on replacing them, this time.

Well, I'll make a note of Kyocera for solar stuff. Companies that stand
behind their products like that deserve our support and are the only
ones that come out smelling like roses from a customer difficulty on
USENET :-) I've seen it go otherwise with other companies and it isn't
pretty . . .

Might be worth asking them very nicely if they will reset the clock on
your warranty with the new panels. After all, you are going to be out
the cost of fitting the new panels and got less than half the design
life out of the old ones.

While you are swapping them over, if its a nice day, it might be
interesting to compare the output side by side and see how that ratio
compares to the ratio between the data-sheet ratings. That should tell
us if there has been any unseen degradation of the other old panels
which may be of interest to other users.