I would like to introduce my next development in the Power Series (models of items related to production and transmission of electric power; my first model was a wind turbine: viewtopic.php?p=224726) – solar panels. After some research, it became obvious to me that nothing similar exists in Z scale, and I decided to fill this gap on my own. I started from industrial type panels for building solar farms. Roof-type panels will come later.
I refused to use any kind of plastic for this purpose – 3D printed either CNC milled, as assembled structure would be too brittle, and decided to use thick photo etched metal – 0.3 mm nickel silver.
At solar farms, photovoltaic panels arranged in blocks in many different ways. I chose 5 x 2 variant as, in my opinion, the most optimal in terms of size and overall look on Z scale layouts. Solar panels come in 3-piece sets and feature half-etched elements. They are airbrushed with semi-gloss silver lacquer on both sides.
I decided to use UV-printing technology to simulate photovoltaic cells – I printed them directly onto the metal surface on Mimaki UV printer. Combination of semi-transparent UV inks and silver base layer delivers a very good visual effect common to most metallic surfaces – variable reflectivity, depending on viewing angle:
What is important, solar panels can be assembled manually, without a help of any tools and with only one small drop of CA glue. I included detailed assembly instructions in the package. Finished panels look like this:
Solar panels should be installed to a depth of 5 mm in the surface of the layout. For easy installation, 5 x 2 paper drilling template supplied with each set. Bigger printable drilling template (12 x 8) is available for downloading here:
I made a small diorama with a nice rural backdrop to show how these solar panels can look on the real layout: