[RE-wrenches] "Name that solar module" guessing game!

[James A. Hartley]

Could these modules be old Motorola Solavolts possibly?  That's what Photocomm switched to marketing at one point in between its ARCO days and their later Kyocera times.  That was when Motorola sold the entire Solavolt operation to us.  I  was the person who managed the Motorola account for Photocomm then and that was during the late 1980s and early 1990s.  That was also a very strange time as well.  My Motorola client had discovered that Pcomm was bootlegging Kyocera modules to them with the Solavolt labels attached after Pcomm ran out of their purchased Solavolt inventory and suddenly had no "official" module supplier anymore.  Did the Solavolts have round J-boxes?  I don't recall now.  Maybe so.  What's the module application involved?  Is it telecom or something else?
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Bob-O Schultze 
  To: RE-wrenches 
  Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2009 10:43 PM
  Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] "Name that solar module" guessing game!


  Mick,
  The predecessor to the K-51 was the J-51 which had round Jboxes as you describe. They were located about 1/3rd of the way down from the edge of the module. Before those were the J48 and before those were the J45. That would be circa 1988-1994. Haven't seen any recently, but I recall the EVA would brown right in front of the Jbox. Looked like a coffee cup stain. Dunno about the yellowing.
  Quite a few of us old grey beards sold them for some time back in the days when Al Panton ran Kyocera US. Then they had a bright idea, got into bed with Photocomm exclusively and quite selling directly to us. Japanese marketing 101. Pissed everybody off and worked out so well for Kyo that they had to eventually take over PComm to keep it from going under.
  Bonus points AND a history lesson!
  Cheers, Bob-O




  On Oct 22, 2009, at 2:59 PM, Mick Abraham wrote:

  Set the dials on the Wayback Machine, Wrenches!

  The modules which I wish to identify had bright blue polycrystal square cells, before the yellowing and discoloration occurred. 

  They are 50' high on a 12:12 metal roof, and 45 minutes from the nearest emergency room. I am not anxious to make that climb but a friendly helper was going up anyway, so he took some photos. Unfortunately, the labels could not be read or photographed. Dimensions of the frames are, sadly, unavailable.

  There is one telltale clue, however, which will no doubt yield the Correct Answer from one of the Mechanics: The junction boxes are round with a bayonet mount cover that rotates to liberate the cover. The boxes are big and deep. (I hate to mention that because some of us liked things better when we had big and deep junction boxes, and I don't want this thread to go off topic.)

  My own guess is Kyocera brand, possibly earlier than the venerable K-51. Alas, my little gray cells are not what they used to be, so I'm polling the group. The yellowing does point away from my own guess because I had not seen that on Kyocera brand, nor on other polycrystal brands.

  All Correct Respondents have my permission to take the rest of the day off! Bonus Points if a Correct Respondent can also state approximate time of manufacture.

  Thanks for helping,

  Mick Abraham, Proprietor
  www.abrahamsolar.com






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