How to Repair Solar Panel Broken Glass

This time I'll show you, how to repair solar panel broken glass.
How I did it - you can check by looking DIY video or you can follow up instructions bellow.

For this project you will need:

Materials:

Laminating film

Solar panel

Tools:

Squeegee

Heat gun

I always wanted to play with solar panels, but after looking at new panels prices - I was pushing this project for future. Until I got a very attractive offer - to buy solar panel with broken glass for ⅓ of good panel price.

This Suntech 255W panel is totally fine and operates without any problems, except, that it have broken glass. Plus it have really nice specs. So I took that deal. It cost me 50 euros for one panel, when good panel price starts from 120 euros.
When tempered glass was damaged - panel still works fine and could be used as it is. But broken glass will cause two problems. First - solar cells are no more protected from moisture. And second - some loose glass pieces time to time are falling out.

I saw, how people are covering this surface with polyurethane, but it won't stick very well and after some time starts peeling off. There’s an option to cover panel with new piece of glass - but that will be expensive and panel became very heavy.

I found a better solution - to wrap all panel surface with transparent laminating film. This piece of film cost me only 9 euros. It's very popular to wrap cars with such type of films to get new body color without painting or to get extra paint protection.

This was my first time when I was working with such size film, so I made a little mess and got few folds. Because film is transparent - thats don’t affect panel performance, so that’s only aesthetic thing.
Used squeegee and heat gun to form and stick film over all edges.

And that’s it. Panel surface is sealed again. And there’s no risk - that any piece of broken glass will start falling out.

I hope this was helpful:)