Solar panels

I asked about the difference between flexible and rigid solar panels on the General forum and Optimistic Paranoid responded saying that he thought the rigid ones were more efficient and less susceptible to heat. My question came about because I noticed that the 2017 Winnie ERA models came with the flexible panels and the 2018 came with the rigid ones and I did not know why.

Does anyone know what the specific reason that Winnebago changed from flexible to rigid? Or was the change only for 2018 as I did not look at the 2019 models. Does anyone have any experience (good or bad) with solar panels on the Winnebago models? The rigid ones seem to offer more wind resistance and I can not help but wonder if they will effect the fuel economy adversely.

I personally haven't used the flexible panels, but I have seen a lot of bad reviews. There also isn't any room for air passage under them so they heat up and become less efficient.

You know we can all see posts on each of the forums. One post is sufficient, even if you don't like the answer the first guy gave. 

Lots of possible reasons, with cost likely to be at or near the top of the list.

As for fuel economy, any difference is sure to be negligible compared to frontal area and other larger protrusions.  It's all but impossible to predict wind resistance differences by eyeball and seemingly obvious protrusions often end up insignificant because the air flow travels above them anyway.

John Hilley said:

I personally haven't used the flexible panels, but I have seen a lot of bad reviews. There also isn't any room for air passage under them so they heat up and become less efficient.

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What John said.

Hanr3 said:

You know we can all see posts on each of the forums. One post is sufficient, even if you don't like the answer the first guy gave. 

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That thread asked about the difference between flexible and rigid solar panels. This one asked if people knew why Winnebago made the change. I did not think that they were asking the same thing and, since this one was about Winnebago, this one was posted on the Winnebago forum.

MikeFromMesa said:

Does anyone know what the specific reason that Winnebago changed from flexible to rigid? Or was the change only for 2018 as I did not look at the 2019 models. Does anyone have any experience (good or bad) with solar panels on the Winnebago models? The rigid ones seem to offer more wind resistance and I can not help but wonder if they will effect the fuel economy adversely.

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I used both flexible and solid panels on my sailing catamaran.  The mast and rigging would sometimes shade all of my hard panels so I would temporarily put a couple flexible panels on the deck as I had wiring set up to do that. The flexible panels were therefore almost always in storage.

One of the high $$ catamaran manufacturers permanently mounted flexible panels to their hardtops.  After a couple of years in the sun, the UV would break down the flexible panels and cause them to fail.

I assume Winnebago had the same problems with flexible panel failures.

scgator2001 said:

I used both flexible and solid panels on my sailing catamaran.  The mast and rigging would sometimes shade all of my hard panels so I would temporarily put a couple flexible panels on the deck as I had wiring set up to do that. The flexible panels were therefore almost always in storage.

One of the high $$ catamaran manufacturers permanently mounted flexible panels to their hardtops.  After a couple of years in the sun, the UV would break down the flexible panels and cause them to fail.

I assume Winnebago had the same problems with flexible panel failures.

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The flexible panels seem to have a much shorter warranty than the rigid ones, but the new Winnebago Fuses all seem to have flexible panels, not rigid ones, and that puzzles me. The new Winnie Era Class B RVs use rigid panels while the Fuses use flexible ones and it does not seem to make much sense to me. If Winnebago knows of problems with the flexible ones, why are they still installing them on new RVs?

Perhaps too many still in stock?

Flexible ones are much lighter, when every pound counts on a Sprinter chassis class B with an 11,030 GVWR they are the obvious choice.

Isaac-1 said:

Flexible ones are much lighter, when every pound counts on a Sprinter chassis class B with an 11,030 GVWR they are the obvious choice.

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Yes, but the Sprinter chassis Class B RVs (the Winnebago Era) use the rigid panels. It is the Ford Transit chassis in the Winnebago Fuse that uses the flexible ones.

In this case the Fuse with its 10,360 GVWR is likely even more weight limited than the 11,030 GVWR Sprinter based Era's