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.

On Tue, 23 Dec 2008 06:13:11 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

On Dec 23, 4:41*am, pirate wrote:
*How old are the panels??

They are just under 9 years old. They are supposed to be warranted
for 20 but there may not be a practical way to get a replacement to me
here in Baja Mexico... I just don't know yet. I have sent Kyocera an
email and attempted a phone call but no joy. It is the holiday season
so there may not be anyone in the office...

--Tom.

It may be possible to solder new connections to the cells. I have
never done this but there was a guy here that "specialized" in finding
scrapped panels and repairing them. He told me that you could solder
to the traces between cells.

Cheers,

Bruce
(bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom)

On Dec 23, 3:01*pm, Larry wrote:
....
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.

Yes, yes, yes. I know I'm being lazy. Still, I resent having to
stick around one place for a month or whatever. They will not even be
back to work until the 5th and then the panels need to get through
customs and then out to the frontier... The replacement panels are
slightly differently sized so everything will need to be re-done.
And, I didn't make taking them off easy because they were supposed to
last 25 years -- I figured it would be some other guys problem. I
hate it when my sins come back to bite me in the fleshy bits...

All that said, the offer, unsolicited, to replace all of the panels
and cover all the shipping costs is a hell of a fine way to treat a
customer. I'm very impressed.

--Tom.

" wrote in news:117bf234-b8d7-4076-
:

All that said, the offer, unsolicited, to replace all of the panels
and cover all the shipping costs is a hell of a fine way to treat a
customer. I'm very impressed.

--Tom.



I am, too. I bought a nice Canon A70 digital camera from a thrift shop for
$10 that didn't work. The CCD image sensor was dead. I went to Canon's
website looking to send it back in for service. What I found was they had
a bad spate of CCDs and would replace them for life with a new, improved
CCD. So, I filled in the form and explained I wasn't the original owner
and had bought it as-is. Canon responded by sending me a UPS 2-day
shipping label, at their expense, with instructions on how to pack the
camera safely for shipment. They replaced the CCD, cleaned the camera like
new replacing a scratched bezel, I think they also worked on the shutter
that covers the lens when you turn the camera off as it worked much better
after it came back. The lenses had been re-surfaced and the camera works
perfectly, now. Didn't cost me a dime....What a great company Canon is.