Customer Rating: 
Summary: An excellent bargain for either battery usage or grid tie - great size too
Comment: QUICK UPDATE: Sunforce is selling obsolete Sharp 12% efficient panels no longer in production at
123W/panel, 2 panels to a kit with a junky inverter and charge controller.. See my review at
Sunforce 39126 246-Watt High-Efficiency Polycrystalline Solar Power Kit but choose cautiosly as that
product is from 2008 and is now obsolete which makes expansion of your system difficult due to the
efficiency change.
---back to the review as it stood originally---
In
evaluating solar panels (and systems of many panels) the typical pricepoint is $5.10/watt in high
volume production. If you are finding better pricing than that something is wrong.
An
example may be inefficient panels that use larger panels, causing massive panel size such that it is
4-8 times larger than this panel with the same output.
Other inefficiencies to watch
out for are caused by voltages that are not useful. You could, for example, have a panel that
output 500V at 1/10 A for 50W sold for $250 - looks good financially but very few charge controllers
go much over 250 volts (and many dont make 250 volts - some are 12 or 48 volt systems). So that
panel is not much use
This panel is in the sweet spot - enough power to be useful
(80W/3 is a simple approximation for what useful power you can get with a battery all day long -
about 25W or so given inefficiences. So theoretically it could support a 25W load 24x7 with an 8
hour day of sun.
The last inefficiencies to watch out for are panels that need heavy
sun before they produce any output. Some panels produce usable (1-2 amps) output with just ambient
scattered light such as a foggy day, while others give near zero output unless the sunlight strikes
them head on. This panel design gives output whenever there is light, which is good. More light is
always better, but it could be worse.
So to sum it up - there are no pitfalls here. It
passes all the checks for pricing and performance. We load tested a string of 12 of these for a
customer to profile their output to help decide if a rotator would help and it showed that very
little gain would come from the expense of an automatic rotation system due to the panel's
efficiency at many angles. With 12 panels we produced 1KW for 8 hours with taper up and down on
both sides.
Best of all this can be used in series strings for grid tie systems or
with battery maintainers
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Rising force in the market
Comment: 80 Watts/4.67 Amps = 17 volts.
Be sure to size your system appropriately to minimize
voltage drop to your inverter.
Sunforce isnt the cheapest, but still a good price and a
nice, solid product with a 25-year warranty.
Note: GET A SOLAR SURVEY - you might not
qualify for any tax rebates if you dont get one!
Also do the math yourself. If you live
on the 43rd paralell and get 4.4 sun hours per day average, do NOT place these at 43 degrees! Tilt
them closer to the SUMMER sun angle. You'll get more sun in summer and less in winter, but you arent
getting much in winter anyways! You'll get more yearly output (or get a tracker and not do any
math)
The technology is getting better; cheaper manufacturing processes and better
spectrum band as well as improvements leading to higher efficiencies. If you want better stuff, I
dont know how "long" you should wait. It can only get so good, the potput isnt going to duble or
anything. Laws of physics
Customer Rating: Summary: 80 watts of pure power
Comment: As my first venture into solar energy this has been a nice panel. I've had it about a month. I
paired it with a "Xantrex Technologies 802-1500 XPower Powerpack 1,500-Watt Portable Backup Power
System" and a "Sunforce 60032 30 Amp Digital Charge Controller". The panel is 12 volt, 4.6 amps
though at this point I'm seeing up to 13.6 volts and 5 amps. I suspect over time as the panel
weakens it will be more toward the 12 volt, 4.6 amp. The panel was simple to hook up and came with
what was needed. I did go purchase new wire as I needed more distance for where I mounted it. I'm
able to charge the battery from dead to full in 2 days. If I were to rotate the panel through the
day I feel I could fully charge in 1 day.
Nice for backup charging and learning. For
any real application you would need a ton of these though.
