I've bought three of these panels, but had to send the second one back. With a solar panel, either it works or it doesn't. The two I've kept are working great, even though it's winter right now, and my panels aren't on a tracker. It's cloudy and raining as I write, and they are charging at one third of an amp. When the sun is out, my batteries are back to fully charged in no time. I use my system to listen to Sirius radio, and to watch two to three hours of TV on a 32-inch flat panel LCD screen daily. The price is right, and the quality top notch!
Now, I am producing 220 to 240 watts consistently. I purchased a second 100 watt panel and just installed it. I am producing 380 watts on a cloudy day. I can't wait until I have steady sunshine. But, to get to the point, once I had received the Ramsond panel and inspected it, it looked to be of lower quality. Boy, was I schocked!
After what I have experienced so far, Ramsond has won me over as a long term customer. I plan to purchase 12 more panels from
Ramsond and three charge controllers. I am also checking into their wind turbines. The one I purchased from Northern is not performing very well.
I had also received a call from Grant with Ramsond just to see if the product had arrived in good condition and was operating properly. In this day and age, I was impressed that I would receive personal service on such a small purchase. The company is very interested in assuring that their products meet their customer's expectations. I will not hesitate to recommend this comapny or their products.
In short Great Product,Great Company!impressed by the quality of the panel and for the price you really can create your own home solar system on a budget. They were shipped very fast and packaged above and beyond to ensure the panel arrives safe.100 percent satisfied I plan on making another purchase of these panels before 2012 arrives to also get a tax credit which lowers the price. start saving the world by going green and cut your electric bills.I received two initial panels with defects.
1) Shifted cell that almost touches an adjacent cell had the tabbing wire in a bind as well as the tabbing wire being off of the cell buss traces and covering part of the light sensitive area of cell itself. Poor silicon sealing around back of panel.
2) The other panel had better tabbing quality. Most obvious glaring problem was an approx 5mmx5mm piece of opaque debris trapped between the glass and a cell partially blocking part of the light sensitive area of the cell.
I contacted RAMSOND and sent pictures of the defects to alert their QC people in China. After sending another follow up email they responded and offered a credit of $30 for both of the defective panels or to replace them. I opted for the credit as the defects did not render the panels useless... They said this QC problem was atypical and I could tell it was, so I ordered more panels when they went on sale...
Subsequent 100W panels I purchased from RAMSOND had no trapped debris but tabbing gets off of a tad from the cells buss trace covering some of the light sensitive areas of the cells but an improvement over pervious panels overall. Blue coating they use on the new cells seems inconsistent so you get different shades of cell color from black to light blue, strange looking. THe first panels were more consistant with the coating. The new panels I received use physically different shape cells than the first two I received just a few weeks apart so they aesthetically don't match...minor issue though. I will be testing the newest ones I just received fully for electrical specs and follow up later.
Overall the panels are not a bad deal if you get them on sale. RAMSOND ran a sale of $184 for the 100W panels recently on their website, which is a super great deal for monocrystalline panels, but it is now back to $269 per panel. I'll wait for another sale at $184 with free shipping to buy more.
Update: tested all panels with watts up meter in full clear near summer sun and a setup for max power point. 80w best these can do on average...Will be contacting Ramsond, but I dread it as their customer service has not been a positive experience the numerous times I have tried to deal with them... They had 80w panels around this time but had just discontinued them, I wonder if I receive "mislabeled" 80w panels sold as 100w panels....would make sense since the price was much lower than it is now...who knows.This panel is well made. Puts out power in low light conditions. It comes with MC-4 connectors attached. At this price it is a very good deal for a 100 watt panel.
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