2nd Gen Hood Mounted Solar

Anyone have any experience with these? Cascadia seems like they’ve got a solid unit, but Lensun offers an option for the Sport hood.
Anyone have this installed? What’s your experience with quality? And is the solar output from the split panels worth it?

 

That’s a lot of money for very little output.

 

That’s kind of what I was thinking - but I do like that it makes use of otherwise unusable space.

 

So all the heat from the engine compartment is below it and then it gets heat from the sun directly reflecting off it lol.

 

Right.

Flexible panels are very inefficient as is.

No airflow and all that engine heat is going to to really kill their lifespan.

 

Flexible panels are inefficient. Heat reduces efficiency.

put solid panels on a rack. More power less money.

 

The best mobile solar setup I've seen is running rigid panels on the top of a Sprinter van. Tons of free space that usually goes unused and is high enough that vandals are not going to notice it from ground level. PLUS it shields the roof from heat which keeps the interior cooler.

Trucks (especially Tacomas) being turned into overlanding rigs is just an exercise in futility since you have to store a bunch of your gear outside of the cab and thus lose that space and open yourself up to vandalism and theft.

 

just don’t bring so much stuff

 

That’s not overlanding. If you don’t have a bunch of shiny new stuff strapped all over the truck then are you really a super cool overlander expert? If you don’t do that it’s just car camping and means you’re poor and don’t drink the finest craft brew super double bitter IPAs made with organic free range water.

 

so they’re going to steal my $20 axe with a shovel and cable locked to do im not sure what with

Theres something called insurance