Grrrrr! Lots of air bubbles in solar panel - Q-Sil

[jmag]

Man this is frustrating!! I encapsulated my 72 watt solar panel yesterday and spent quite a bit of time pushing the air bubbles out. I covered it with plastic and set a board with weights on it to cure. When I checked on it this morning there were large bubbles everywhere!! I tried pushing them out but only ended up cracking a few cells. Anything I can do at this point? Or maybe this is more of a vent...

[indie]

Live and learn. You can find top tier 72 cell panels for around a dollar a watt now. Much cheaper then you will be able to build them for.

[solarix]

We keep saying that building your own solar panels is a difficult, failure-prone, unprofitable endeavor - but you all keep trying. Let us know how that works for you.

[bcroe]

I encapsulated my 72 watt solar panel yesterday and spent quite a bit of time pushing the air bubbles out. I covered it with plastic and set a board with weights on it to cure. When I checked on it this morning there were large bubbles everywhere!! I tried pushing them out but only ended up cracking a few cells. Anything I can do at this point?

I finally resorted to using a vibrator. An old hand vibrator mounted on a block, which was bolted
to the panel angle aluminum frame. I powered it with a variable voltage trans, turned it up till it
seemed about right. Also tried tilting the panel very slightly one way and the other. No bubbles,
though no one has told me that bubbles are very bad. Can't show you a picture, because my
pictures got wiped out by the list upgrade. Bruce Roe