LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?

solardan
solardan Solar Expert Posts: 36
Hi. We recently installed 20 x LG300N1C-G3 (LG 300W) panels, and were surprised to find that all the panels appear to have a gooey substance on them in streaks that accumulates dirt:

Attachment not found.

The streaks span the panels horizontally, and can't be removed with water, soap & water, or isopropyl alcohol. Has anyone seen such a thing before? What might be best way to remove this goo? (afraid to try Goo Gone) thanks
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Comments

  • jcheil
    jcheil Solar Expert Posts: 722 ✭✭✭
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?

    WD-40 removes pretty much any adhesive I ever had a problem with. I doubt it will hurt the glass. perhaps clean it with the alcohol after the WD-40 gets the sticky stuff off.
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  • jaggedben
    jaggedben Solar Expert Posts: 230 ✭✭
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?
    solardan wrote: »
    (afraid to try Goo Gone)

    Why afraid? I've done it before. It's great for removing asphalt streaks from accidental scraping across roofing material.
  • solardan
    solardan Solar Expert Posts: 36
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?
    jcheil wrote: »
    WD-40 removes pretty much any adhesive I ever had a problem with. I doubt it will hurt the glass. perhaps clean it with the alcohol after the WD-40 gets the sticky stuff off.

    Thanks. Will try that later today in a small area.

    Have several lines of inquiry going, and will report what I find.

    By "soap & water", I meant that the outdoor Windex stuff that you attach to a hose, plus use of a microfiber mop, had no effect. However, use of regular Windex plus a lot of rubbing removed about 80% of the stuff, so that's what makes me think it is some form of goo that is an artifact of manufacturing or shipping. Sucks that it was invisible until getting exposed to dirt several days after the installation was completed.
  • solardan
    solardan Solar Expert Posts: 36
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?
    jaggedben wrote: »
    Why afraid? I've done it before. It's great for removing asphalt streaks from accidental scraping across roofing material.
    Hi jaggedben. So the panel tops are pure glass? No fancy coating that might get damaged by the Goo Gone? And how would you clean up the Goo Gone from the panel? There are a lot of streaks on a lot of panels, so I was trying to be a bit cautious before attacking them all. Also concerned that I'll just be spreading a thinner layer of the goo all over the place.

    Someone also suggested that the goo might be decomposed by sunlight over time, but seems like the reverse might also be true (bakes onto panel surface permanently).

    btw, the panels are otherwise performing as expected. (Edit: Well, I guess I can't really tell that in any detail, since the panels have always had the goo on them. :roll: )
  • WillBkool
    WillBkool Solar Expert Posts: 35 ✭✭
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?

    If the goo is some kind of glue, you might want to try an ammonia based cleaner. I'm a homebrewer and I used to use ammonia on beer bottles to remove the labels and it works really well. Now I keg most of my brew and don't mess with bottles too much, but you might want to try ammonia before going to the more heavy duty cleansers. It rinses off easily with plain water.
    1220 Watts, 4 Evergreen 120 watt, 1 Eoplly 190 watt; 1 Sungold 200 watt; 2 175 Watt; M-Star 15A MPPT; C40 PWM; 6 105 AH AGM Configured to 315@24V
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  • solardan
    solardan Solar Expert Posts: 36
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?
    WillBkool wrote: »
    If the goo is some kind of glue, you might want to try an ammonia based cleaner.
    I think the original Windex is ammonia-based, and it cleaned about 80% of the goo off, but only with intense rubbing. The prospect of doing this for all 20 panels, with multiple lines per panel, is a bit daunting.

    Am going up now to test the various suggestions (on a single panel). Suspect the oil-based stuff will work well, but still not sure how to clean up the oil or goo-gone from such a large area, or where all the dissolved goo is going to end up...
  • niel
    niel Solar Expert Posts: 10,300 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?

    try a bit of nail polish remover on a rag and only put it to the glass and nowhere else.

    i'm a bit curious if the pvs came with the gooey streaks or do you have another source of it like trees?
  • Cariboocoot
    Cariboocoot Banned Posts: 17,615 ✭✭✭
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?

    Observations:

    Windex is not pure ammonia. You can get pure ammonia.
    WD-40 will dissolve most glues and can be removed with good dish washing detergent like Dawn (has alcohol in it which will dissolve the fish oil base of WD-40).
    Nail polish remover is acetone-based. Acetone can be bought at most hardware stores. It may damage the anti-glare coating of the panels in such a high concentration. It will dissolve many paints for example.
    Mechanical action such as a razor scraper is most likely to damage panels.
  • techntrek
    techntrek Solar Expert Posts: 1,372 ✭✭✭
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?
    solardan wrote: »
    I think the original Windex is ammonia-based, and it cleaned about 80% of the goo off, but only with intense rubbing. The prospect of doing this for all 20 panels, with multiple lines per panel, is a bit daunting.

    Am going up now to test the various suggestions (on a single panel). Suspect the oil-based stuff will work well, but still not sure how to clean up the oil or goo-gone from such a large area, or where all the dissolved goo is going to end up...

    I've always used Laquer Thinner to get sticky stuff like that off.
    4.5 kw APC UPS powered by a Prius, 12 kw Generac, Honda EU3000is
  • niel
    niel Solar Expert Posts: 10,300 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?
    Observations:

    Nail polish remover is acetone-based. Acetone can be bought at most hardware stores. It may damage the anti-glare coating of the panels in such a high concentration. It will dissolve many paints for example.

    to me the gooey stuff is most likely doing something to the anti-glare coating anyway. most chemicals will affect that to some degree or another too. if in doubt you can contact the pv manufacturer for their recommendations and keep it within warranty at the same time.
  • solardan
    solardan Solar Expert Posts: 36
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?
    niel wrote: »
    i'm a bit curious if the pvs came with the gooey streaks or do you have another source of it like trees?

    No trees, and panels have been up there less than 2 weeks. Can't tell if panels came with the streaks, since only showed up when dirt/dust got on the panels once on the roof.
  • solardan
    solardan Solar Expert Posts: 36
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?

    Before cleaning:

    Attachment not found.

    After cleaning:

    Attachment not found.

    left square cleaned with WD40
    middle square cleaned with Goo-Gone
    right square cleaned with classic Windex (and elbow grease)

    (after taking pictures, I then went back and used the Windex to clean up the oils, and rinsed panel with water)

    So I guess we are not dealing with "goo" in any simple sense. Looks like the panel surface is corrupted/modified in some way in a pattern of horizontal streaks that tend to collect water. If that water is dirty or hard, then deposits appear along the streaks.

    When viewed from the panel edge, I don't see any obvious deformation of the panels along the streak lines, but water definitely settles/sticks there and dries. Makes me wonder too if I'm actually doing any good with the Windex (i.e., am just cleaning dirt/deposits, and not affecting the surface anomaly that is collecting the dirt). Hmmm... how about a damaged or ill-formed anti-glare coating?
  • DanS26
    DanS26 Solar Expert Posts: 264 ✭✭✭
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?

    Would by any chance your panels sat out in the weather with the cardboard packing getting wet before installation?

    Apparently the chemicals in the cardboard will etch the glass surface of the panels when the cardboard is wetted and left to sit for a few days or weeks in contact with the panel surfaces.

    If so, you may want to talk to your supplier/installer.
    23.16kW Kyocera panels; 2 Fronius 7.5kW inverters; Nyle hot water; Steffes ETS; Great Lakes RO; Generac 10kW w/ATS, TED Pro System monitoring
  • solardan
    solardan Solar Expert Posts: 36
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?
    DanS26 wrote: »
    Would by any chance your panels sat out in the weather with the cardboard packing getting wet before installation?

    Apparently the chemicals in the cardboard will etch the glass surface of the panels when the cardboard is wetted and left to sit for a few days or weeks in contact with the panel surfaces.

    If so, you may want to talk to your supplier/installer.

    Good point. We are currently following up with the supplier. The panels were purchased in January, but couldn't be installed until April due to the severe winter, and I'm not familiar with how they were being stored. I guess there may be a clue in where the streaks are on the panels, but these vary from panel to panel, although always horizontal. I hope for LG's sake it is some sort of storage/delivery issue, and not a manufacturing defect.

    Question: Do you guys think this problem is reason enough for someone up the line to replace the panels? Or is this the type of thing you just have to live with (a significant screwup but too small a performance impact to warrant panel replacement)?
  • DanS26
    DanS26 Solar Expert Posts: 264 ✭✭✭
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?
    solardan wrote: »
    Good point. We are currently following up with the supplier. The panels were purchased in January, but couldn't be installed until April due to the severe winter, and I'm not familiar with how they were being stored. I guess there may be a clue in where the streaks are on the panels, but these vary from panel to panel, although always horizontal. I hope for LG's sake it is some sort of storage/delivery issue, and not a manufacturing defect.

    Question: Do you guys think this problem is reason enough for someone up the line to replace the panels? Or is this the type of thing you just have to live with (a significant screwup but too small a performance impact to warrant panel replacement)?

    Its been my experience with wet cardboard etching that the performance of the panel is not seriously affected. It is more of a cosmetic issue.
    23.16kW Kyocera panels; 2 Fronius 7.5kW inverters; Nyle hot water; Steffes ETS; Great Lakes RO; Generac 10kW w/ATS, TED Pro System monitoring
  • solardan
    solardan Solar Expert Posts: 36
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?
    DanS26 wrote: »
    Its been my experience with wet cardboard etching that the performance of the panel is not seriously affected. It is more of a cosmetic issue.

    If these were cheap panels, I'd probably let it go. But these were relatively expensive, and sold for their high quality, so I'll probably try to get them replaced if there is a path to do that. LG has made a huge deal about how they are fighting the solar panel "quality crisis", so we'll see if they are serious.

    Pondering the cardboard theory: The fact that the corruption is in the form of horizontal streaks, several per panel, and that their vertical location varies from panel to panel, makes it hard for me to see how any systematic type of cardboard packing material could be involved, but I'm not familiar with how exactly they are packed on the long trip from Korea, and perhaps there are other ways the panel surface can be damaged during shipping or storage.
  • DanS26
    DanS26 Solar Expert Posts: 264 ✭✭✭
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?
    solardan wrote: »
    If these were cheap panels, I'd probably let it go. But these were relatively expensive, and sold for their high quality, so I'll probably try to get them replaced if there is a path to do that. LG has made a huge deal about how they are fighting the solar panel "quality crisis", so we'll see if they are serious.

    Pondering the cardboard theory: The fact that the corruption is in the form of horizontal streaks, several per panel, and that their vertical location varies from panel to panel, makes it hard for me to see how any systematic type of cardboard packing material could be involved, but I'm not familiar with how exactly they are packed on the long trip from Korea, and perhaps there are other ways the panel surface can be damaged during shipping or storage.

    If the cardboard was bound to the panels with banding, that could explain the horizontal streaks. The bands could have held the wet cardboard in closer proximity to the panel surface and and did not allow for drying. Also the stacking method could have cause the horizontal streaks. The cardboard has to be compressed onto the panel surface.
    23.16kW Kyocera panels; 2 Fronius 7.5kW inverters; Nyle hot water; Steffes ETS; Great Lakes RO; Generac 10kW w/ATS, TED Pro System monitoring
  • solardan
    solardan Solar Expert Posts: 36
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?
    DanS26 wrote: »
    If the cardboard was bound to the panels with banding, that could explain the horizontal streaks. The bands could have held the wet cardboard in closer proximity to the panel surface and and did not allow for drying. Also the stacking method could have cause the horizontal streaks. The cardboard has to be compressed onto the panel surface.

    Ahh, yes, that makes sense. Am passing these thoughts up the line, and it should be apparent to someone more familiar with the exact packing method, and storage history, whether the cardboard theory is a good hypothesis. Thanks DanS26.
  • Blackcherry04
    Blackcherry04 Solar Expert Posts: 2,490 ✭✭✭
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?

    Where I have seen them palletized, they are horizontal unwrapped with plastic spacers that keep them apart and with lips that keep them stacked. The only cardboard is around the edge of the stack and top. Some may put them in boxes for retail sales.
  • solardan
    solardan Solar Expert Posts: 36
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?
    Where I have seen them palletized, they are horizontal unwrapped with plastic spacers that keep them apart and with lips that keep them stacked. The only cardboard is around the edge of the stack and top. Some may put them in boxes for retail sales.

    This image of a different model of LG panels being unpacked from another site is similar to what I saw when the panels arrived, with plastic spacers at corners (confirmed by wife, who recycled them), and cardboard spacers along frame (have pictures of that). The packing straps, also seen here, would then wrap the whole box, not individual panels. So not sure how wet cardboard could account for the streaks. Also, the one side of the cardboard box used to ship the panels that I was left with shows no signs of water damage, or even impressions of the packing straps.

    Attachment not found.
  • DanS26
    DanS26 Solar Expert Posts: 264 ✭✭✭
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?

    A picture is worth a thousand words.....if your panels were packed like that and were kept dry then wet cardboard did not cause the streaks.
    23.16kW Kyocera panels; 2 Fronius 7.5kW inverters; Nyle hot water; Steffes ETS; Great Lakes RO; Generac 10kW w/ATS, TED Pro System monitoring
  • solardan
    solardan Solar Expert Posts: 36
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?
    DanS26 wrote: »
    A picture is worth a thousand words.....if your panels were packed like that and were kept dry then wet cardboard did not cause the streaks.

    I guess there could be some complex storage history by the supplier that we're not aware of, but seems unlikely.

    LG just got back to me and wants to know all about the problem, including questions from engineers in Korea, so hopefully they are as serious about panel quality as they claim to be in promotional materials, and will get to the bottom of this. Thanks again to everyone who's contributed to the thread.
  • solardan
    solardan Solar Expert Posts: 36
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?

    After describing for LG all the things we've tried to remove the streaks, their response is to next try xylene, allowing the xylene, with a covering cloth, to sit on the panel for 20-30 minutes before scrubbing it with a dry cloth (I assume a microfiber cloth).

    Before going down this road, I wanted to check with you guys whether that sounds like a sensible thing to be doing. Recall that there are, on average, about 5 streaks per panel (one with 20+), distributed over the surface of each panel, so we are talking about a lot of xylene on all 20 panels. Assuming that the xylene even works (Goo-Gone did not), is this something you would do to your panels? (They'll pay to have someone else do it, so my own safety is not a concern.) What do you think? thanks
  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,431 admin
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?

    You probably do not want the solvent to seep around to the back of the panel and possibly delaminating.

    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
  • niel
    niel Solar Expert Posts: 10,300 ✭✭✭✭
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?

    they told you to moisten the rags with the xylene so it won't get to contaminate other areas and ruin the pv. the rags are not to be soaking wet with it so it will not be allowed to run or pool from the rag, but merely be in contact to the gooey area through the rag only. there is not to be a xylene bath for the pvs, but only a short lived contact through the rag for that 20-30 minutes they stated.

    i don't envy that you must do this for that many pvs, but take your time and do it right as that is what the pv manufacturer would want you to do. did they say what it was likely to be on there?
  • solardan
    solardan Solar Expert Posts: 36
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?

    Thanks Bill & Niel. So the major concern so far is to keep the xylene away from the edges of the panel (even though the streaks extend to the edges), with less concern about damaging the surface of the panels, or with the practicality of the procedure.

    They haven't suggested what the streaks may be due to, but they may have some idea, and just not want to get into that for various commercial reasons.

    Will be doing preliminary testing on a small area this morning, and will report what I find.
  • solardan
    solardan Solar Expert Posts: 36
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?

    Well, that was a bust. Treatment with xylene for 25 minutes, cloth covered, followed by vigorous scrubbing with a microfiber cloth had no effect on the streaks. Not really surprised given that neither WD40 nor Goo-Gone had any effect. (Nor did soap & water, or isopropyl alcohol.)

    The only thing that has had a significant impact is Windex, which I confirmed again today, testing it on the same cells on which the xylene failed. This led me to try pure ammonia solution, but, surprisingly, this had little effect on the streaks' tendency to collect water.

    Latest theory/facts: There is a surface defect in the form of horizontal lines on all of the panels, varying from 1 to 20 lines per panel (4 or 5 being typical). These lines have a strong tendency to collect water, and if that water is hard or dirty/dusty, then a streak appears which, if due to a mineral precipitate from the water, cannot be removed with any organic cleaning agents (WD40, Goo-Gone, xylene), and is resistant to removal with ordinary soap and water (or simply reforms as the hard tap water dries again). The only cleaning agent that both removed dirt/scum from the streak, and reduced the tendency of the streak to collect water, was Windex (ammonia alone didn't reduce water collection). However, this may be due to agents in Windex that are simply coating the surface and reducing water collection/beading at the streak lines, without affecting the underlying panel defect (still investigating).

    So I'm leaning toward thinking that the "streaks" are indicative of a panel defect that cannot be permanently fixed with any cleaning agent.
  • mike95490
    mike95490 Solar Expert Posts: 9,583 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?

    maybe defects in AR coating ?
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  • mike95490
    mike95490 Solar Expert Posts: 9,583 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?
    .....You can get pure ammonia.....

    uh, not really. you can buy up to about 5% ammonia, nearly all ammonia is way diluted before it reaches the consumer (like hydrogen peroxide, very hard to get more than 3%)
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  • Slappy
    Slappy Solar Expert Posts: 251 ✭✭✭✭✭✭
    Re: LG 300, gooey stuff on panels?

    Try (0000) steel wool (that is 4 zeros) rub with gentle pressure, do not bare down. Dont know about the glass coating. But clean all grit off first then dry then use the wool. I do this to my truck windows all the timeit get the oily road film off the out side and ciggerette tar from the inside.