Bimini mods for Solar Panel

Fools rush in where angels fear to thread.

The solar panel project has progressed but with an unexpected DIY turn or two, driven by Covid-19 and the difficulty finding local marine canvas people.   After having trouble getting a response from several such Canvasistas, I decided that I'd take a chance on a bargain-priced industrial sewing machine on Kijiji and give it a shot myself.  Naturally, the machine became its own project,  but with some cleaning and adjustment and a few small repairs it works fine.  (Update - I replaced the obsolete monster clutch motor with a modern servo motor- if you are contemplating the same  don’t hesitate.)   It's a walking foot model and is rather mighty.  I can now join the local  marine canvas fraternity!  I too can create a website offering my services, and then ignore any email inquiries I might receive!

Upgraded motor is a ‘sewquiet’ from Reliable Sewing’ in Toronto.

The approach to panel mounting was inspired by the approach taken at the link below (Great site!)

https://marinehowto.com/installing-a-solbian-semi-flexible-solar-panel/

 I purchased some materials.  

https://www.jtsoutdoorfabrics.com/

I checked out a few useful videos from Sailrite on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/c/SailriteDIY/videos

For background, Here's the prior post on this solar project. 

https://cncwindstar.blogspot.com/2020/09/4-chargers-controllers-and-monitoring.html

Finally after procrastinating awhile I overcame my fear of the unknown and tackled the project. 

Industrial Velcro (from Amazon)  - strong stuff!

For the rest, he photos tell the story:

Almost done.   Still required is the velcro on the top perimeter of the solar panel that will hold the folded lapels in place, and a bit of tweaking to permit the cables to be routed down the exterior of the bimini frame.  Am now imagining a pile of  clever canvas projects, and am contemplating the addition of another panel on my dodger.