Thread: F-Body Ideas - Camaro and Firebird

I think the idea with putting it under the spare tire cover would be the easiest, at least to try first. One side or the other behind the rear speaker. Mine is just to the right of the instrument cluster at the top of the dash and works great. That instrument panel frame just pops off to push it up in there.

Has anyone tried putting solar panels (photovoltaics) between the T-Top headliner inserts, and the glass?

I don't drive my car often, even in the summer. (most of my travel is to and from work over frequently rough roads and in lots of traffic, why waste the car on that? That's the abuse the daily driver is for - if you can afford one, I had 2 3rd Gen T/As as daily drivers (only car) before I got this one, and this time I was adamant that I would have a second car and "do it right". lol)

I'm thinking that some solar panels might help the electrical system, and maybe even let it be useable more quickly, or perhaps help run a cooling/heating system so there is no delay.

As far as I know, one doesn't have to wait to use the OEM satnavs, nor should we have to wait to use our PCs (even for boot). This might be a way to get around that. (works out well for us since so many have T-Tops )

i dont think many solar panels that are cost-effective right now, can run anything for that long, and the size your talking about restricts the power output..

so keeping the pc on?, dont know if u can get that, maybe let it stay suspended if it doesnt draw too much, but, dunno too much about that idea, although if u connect it to your battery, you could leave it longer without having to worry about the battery draining so fast, lol

How much does it draw in standby? That's the kind of thing I was thinking of. Just enough power to keep the battery up by charging the battery to replace the trickle pull, via the panels.

That's a good point. I normally start it up and let it warm up a bit anyway before I leave the driveway for the first time, often using that time to hit it with the Kalifornia duster. That could be initial boot time, and then from that point, just use whatever form of power off state is the quickest to recover from until it's time to put it away for the week again.

Still, it's nice to keep no drain on the battery. Another thing I mentioned was the possiblity of heating or cooling the unit while it's waiting outside in the parking lot. That would take much more power than standby, but much less than having it running.

Originally Posted by JasonWW

What are you talking about, keeping the cars interior cool or warm? I don't follow you.

No, I meant the PC. For instance, if it gets over X temp, kick the (PC) cooling system on (processor, PS/u, and HDD). Likewise, vice versa, one could hook up a heating system and use, say, peltier coolers flipped over, to warm it up if it gets below a certain temp.

The latter is less of an issue, and you could switch between the 2 as part of winterizing or summerizing the car.

Basically just running some fans over the computer if it gets too warm inside so that you don't have to wait for the A/C to bring things down to the operating range.