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X-ray Machine for Solar Panel
If you require an X-ray machine for solar quality control, always trust in UNI X-ray.
- Enable you to quickly identify hard-to-reach defects, increasing the inspection efficiency of solar panel
- Improved image quality makes it easy to spot defects, reducing the number of bad solar panels manufacturing
- Ensure no-error production to reduce rejections and recalls
- Help you guarantee the product quality and safety, avoiding harmful incidents
X-ray Machine for Solar Panel Inspection
How much effort and cost does it take you to inspect your solar panels?
The truth is that even a tiny defect can have far-reaching adverse effects on the effectiveness of the photovoltaic cells in your solar panels.
A return of your solar panel does not look good on you or your organization, and the cost of return and repairs can be expensive.
Uni X-ray can save you huge costs on returns and repairs with innovative and bespoke X-ray solutions that can also save you from embarrassment.
Why Global Clients Choose Us?
20 Years of Expertise
We have over 18 years of experience that specializes in X-ray Technology.
Excellent Image Quality
Uni X-ray produces X-ray machines that offer excellent and ultra-sharp image qualities.
High Degree of Safety
Our X-ray machine is one of the safest choices you can make because it ensures maximum safety.
Extremely User-friendly
Uni X-ray produces machines that have an easy mode of operation.
Services We Provide
Installation Guideline
We offer you free and quick installation instruction with online video tutorials. The tutorial explains detailed and important steps to get your machine started. Any questions about installation, feel free to contact us!
Customer Support
We work to provide the best customer support. We are here to help you solve any problems you may encounter. Feel free to contact us Uni X-ray team online via video chat, phone, or email anytime.
Quick Delivery
Online equipment shipped within 45 days and offline equipment within 20 days after payment confirmation. The customized machine is supposed to be deliveded in less than 90 days.
Warranty Service
Uni X-ray machine comes with a one-year warranty. In the warranty period, machine defects, repairs, and part changes are free. Unexpected damage issues due to shipment, handling, storage, abuse, or misuse will not be covered.
Installation Guideline
We offer you free and quick installation instruction with online video tutorials. The tutorial explains detailed and important steps to get your machine started. Any questions about installation, feel free to contact us!
Customer Support
We work to provide the best customer support. We are here to help you solve any problems you may encounter. Feel free to contact us Uni X-ray team online via video chat, phone, or email anytime.
Quick Delivery
Online equipment shipped within 45 days and offline equipment within 20 days after payment confirmation. The customized machine is supposed to be deliveded in less than 90 days.
Warranty Service
Uni X-ray machine comes with a one-year warranty. In the warranty period, machine defects, repairs, and part changes are free. Unexpected damage issues due to shipment, handling, storage, abuse, or misuse will not be covered.
X-ray Machine for Solar Panel Inspection: the Complete Guide
Table of Contents
1. What is a Solar Panel?
Solar panels are an alternative source of power generation that converts the energy from sun rays using photovoltaic cells installed in panels.
These photovoltaic cells are semiconductors made from silicon and arranged in modules to form solar panels for easy carrying and assembling.
Nonetheless, the complete package to generate power isn’t just made up of solar panels alone. Still, the layers of glass coupled with the metals and connecting wires all add to produce electricity.
The sun rays loosen up the cells in the photovoltaic cells giving them the ability to move around and create charges which makes up the electric current for generating the power.
Lastly, the panels consist of polymer or plastic supports for rooftop installation and coatings that help against reflection that might damage the cells.
2. What is an X-ray Machine for Solar Panel Inspection?
The solar panel manufacturing industry has high standards for product quality, and safety and products must satisfy these standards, and inspectors must certify them before products are released.
Manufacturers use different inspection methods and testing to ascertain the level of compliance of the solar panels with set quality and safety requirements.
One effective way to ascertain this compliance is by using non-destructive technologies like X-ray machines.
X-ray machines use radiation energy to spot any anomaly and offer various benefits over other testing techniques.
One of these benefits is the accuracy and the speed at detecting errors in solar panels, as even a minute defect can reduce the integrity of solar panels.
The ability to spot hidden defects is perhaps the most significant benefit that X-ray machines offer, as they can effectively inspect both internal and external parts of a solar panel.
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3. Do Solar Panels need to be Inspected?
Due to the sensitive nature of the solar cells, which are the power generating components of the solar panels, a minor defect can adversely affect the efficiency of these solar cells.
Defects often cause resistance to the free flow of current within the solar panel, hindering the quality and the quantity of the electricity generated.
The resistance caused by the defects can lead to loss of both revenues and eventually the loss of the solar panel if the fault is left for long without repair.
Hence, it is essential to identify any defect that may contribute to these inefficiencies during the manufacturing process before the panels are released for installation.
4. Why do you need an X-ray Machine for Solar Panel Inspection?
A sensitive component like solar cells will need a sensitive tool to accurately identify errors or defects within its module.
X-ray machines are highly accurate in detecting defects, even in very awkward places that are often difficult for other inspection methods to see.
X-ray machines are also a non-destructive test tool that ensures that you can use samples after testing once it is inevitable that no defect is present.
The timely and cost-effectiveness of an X-ray machine also makes it an excellent tool for providing quality assessments for your solar panel.
5. Common Solar Panel Defects
Manufacturing errors can take different shapes and can occur at various times during manufacture. However, the inability to know these defects, especially the common ones, will make it challenging to identify and correct these anomalies before they are released for sales.
Here are the most common defects that are often found in solar panels.
- Microcracks in Solar Cell
Microcracks are part of defects that often result in poor power generation as it prevents the effective mobilization of the solar cells by sun rays.
It happens because of the brittleness of the solar cells due to the manufacturing process involved in producing the thin-sized solar cells.
The solar cells are often as thin as 170 micrometers, approximately two times the size of human hair.
However, with improvement in technology, it has become possible to produce such tiny cells with great precision.
Additionally, the advancement in technology has also made it possible to detect any flaws during production with non-destructive quality assessment methods like the X-ray machine.
- Cell Mismatch Defect
Cell mismatch is an assemblage error, and its early identification is critical to achieving effective power generation with solar panels.
It involves the incorrect installation of solar cells in the wrong position within the solar panel, making it impossible to get enough energy from the sun’s rays.
It also makes it very difficult to achieve the right amount of energy from the solar panel as designed.
Early detection using the X-ray machine can avert this error as it can accurately identify every solar cell installed in the solar panel.
- Dust Build-Up
Over time, environmental factors such as wind and rain can contribute to dust buildup on solar panels.
The dust often forms a barrier and disturbs the sun’s rays from effectively reaching the solar panels, which limits the energy available for the solar cells.
If the slope of the solar panels is not adequate during installation, there is the possibility that water from rain will not drain off completely and form small puddles on the panels.
The puddles will often trap dust carried by the wind and form a source of obstruction once the water dries up.
Giving enough inclination to the panels during installation and periodic cleaning of the solar panels are practical ways to solve this challenge.
- Uneven Cell Color
The color of the panels is essential to the accumulation of energy from the sun’s rays, and it is necessary to ensure that the colors remain even.
The black color is excellent for absorbing energy which is why solar panels are usually black to maximize the energy from the sun rays.
However, colors may fade over time due to environmental factors and the ultraviolet rays from the sun.
Another reason for keeping solar panels’ color even is the aesthetics of the roofs on which they are installed so that the roof does not look ugly.
- Cracked Solar Cells
Sometimes a cracked cell might not be identified during manufacturing and mistakenly installed in the solar panel.
This error will introduce an inefficient power generating part that reduces the power output of the whole solar panel.
Introducing an X-ray machine into the production line of the solar panels can help identify cracked cells in time so that it is not laminated along with other good solar cells.
- Poor String Connection
The connection between solar cells is often using soldering, which ensures that energy passes effectively from one cell to the other.
However, poor soldering can affect the effective passage of the current and reduce the amount of power generated by the solar panels.
You can identify and avoid the open circuit that results from poor soldering and bad connection by checking the soldering integrity with an X-ray machine.
This method is cheaper and faster than the loss in recall and repair of already laminated solar cells and the loss in power generation using poorly connected solar cells.
- Hot Spots
The cause of hot spots can be several defects, including cracks and mismatches, which can cause additional resistance to the flow of current within the solar panel.
This resistance is added to the cells’ already present resistance that reduces the output power from the solar panel.
However, the heat generated by these resistances can deteriorate the solar cells and even fires if left to go on for too long.
Nonetheless, an effective quality inspection using an X-ray machine is one way to avoid this anomaly and the resulting losses associated with these defects.
6. Methods of Solar Panel Inspection
Naturally, you will want to produce high-quality solar panels, and like most manufacturers, you might be wondering what options are available for you to carry out adequate quality inspections.
There are various solar panels inspection methods available in the industry today, with each having its merits and demerits.
Here are the most common methods of solar panel inspection presently used in the industry.
- Visual Inspection
Visual inspection is the most basic form of inspection for solar panels. It involves the use of only the eyes to identify any defects in the solar panel during assembly.
Using visual inspection is especially effective for manufacturers with a limited number of solar panel production.
Furthermore, it is helpful as a final form of inspection just to give it a human assessment after using other inspection methods, especially for the identification of large components like glass laminates and backplates.
Nonetheless, visual inspection is prone to human errors, and it is not very practical for tiny components like solar cells and high-volume manufacturing of solar panels.
- Infrared Thermography
The use of infrared rays is another popular inspection method manufacturers use in identifying defects in solar panels.
Infrared rays are projected on the solar panels, and any anomaly is revealed on the screen of the infrared scanner.
Infrared thermography is essential for detecting errors in connection, open circuits, and poor soldering works.
However, infrared is limited in the types of defects it can detect. For instance, it is not practical for identifying inherent imperfections like solar cell cracks.
- Electroluminescence
This method uses a combination of light and electrical properties to spot faults present in solar panels.
The passage of electric current through the sample excites the electron and causes the sample to emit light, which an external detector can detect to form an image.
It is often used to identify other defects like microcracks that are difficult for visual inspection to spot.
Electroluminescence is a relatively fast way of inspection. Nonetheless, it is limited to using electric current on the sample and is unsuitable for field testing.
- X-Ray Inspection
X-ray inspection is the most effective method for solar panels mainly because it is very accurate in identifying flaws in solar cells.
It uses the projection of radiation on the sample of solar panels, which in turn absorbs this radiation according to its density.
The remaining unabsorbed radiation reaches the detector on the opposite side of the test sample, and the detector uses this remaining radiation to generate an image of the sample.
A trained technician analyzes this image to assess the solar cells’ quality and identify if there are mistakes in their production.
It is essential to always use an X-ray machine to generate quality images which in most cases is dependent on the quality of the X-ray tube.
7. Benefits of X-Ray Machine for Solar Panel Inspection
Of all the methods and tools available for ascertaining the quality of solar cells, manufacturers seem to prefer X-ray machines for solar panel inspection.
It might not be surprising since the X-ray inspection method offers many benefits, including cost-effectiveness, as it helps save a lot of costs.
However, this benefit is one of many, and you’ll find some of them in the list below.
- Increased Efficiency
X-ray machines offer the inspector the ability to quickly identify defects in places that are difficult to assess for other methods like visual inspections.
When X-ray radiation is projected on solar panels, it penetrates hidden points and hard-to-reach places, making it easy to generate accurate images and analyze them accordingly.
Also, it can enlarge images to reveal tiny details that are easy to miss when using only visual inspection, which gives precise results.
All these tools and capabilities give the X-ray machine increased efficiencies over other forms of solar panel inspection.
- Improved Quality
X-ray machines help manufacturers quickly identify errors during production. This ability to spot defects rapidly reduces the number of bad solar panels during manufacturing.
It becomes easy to standardize the production process to reduce errors as you can quickly identify the point where the error occurred in the production and fix it.
Fixing the faulty process improves solar panels’ quality as the frequency of recalls and rejection will drop significantly.
- Guarantee Safety
Hot spots result from defects in the solar cells, which can cause additional resistance to the flow of currents in the solar cells.
When these defects are left unrepaired, and the hot spots go on for so long, the result is often fire, and this can cause harm for installers, maintenance personnel, and other support personnel.
X-ray machines can help you guarantee the safety of lives and avoid harmful incidents like fire which can result in significant losses.
- Reduce Defects
The presence of defects in the production of solar panels can have significant cost implications as it often results in rejections and recalls.
Every manufacturer puts a lot of effort into ensuring that there are no errors during production that might lead to defective components.
The use of X-ray machines in the inspection of solar panels ensures that defective production is significantly reduced to avoid accruing unnecessary repair or recall costs.
8. Your Best X-ray Machine Supplier in China – Uni X-ray
One advantage of Chinese X-ray machine suppliers is the availability of a pool of X-ray industry experts who make quality manufacturing cheaper than manufacturing in the US or Europe.
Uni X-ray is one Chinese X-ray manufacturer that has been in the industry for close to two decades, supplying X-ray machines both to local and international clients.
Uni X-ray’s facility is in Shenzhen, China, which is often referred to as the Silicon Valley of Asia, with numerous technology professionals. This opportunity has enabled Uni X-ray to find some of the brightest minds to carry out research and development in the radiography field.
The exceptional after-sales service of Uni X-ray ensures that you get support if you run into any challenges while using the X-ray machine.
The good news is that you don’t have to take the machine back to their facility as they solve all your challenges on their online platform that is available round the clock.
Conclusion
To sum up, solar panels are made from very sensitive components that even the slightest bit of defects can reduce their ability to generate power.
X-ray machines can help ensure that you detect any defect during the manufacture of the solar cells, thereby avoiding unnecessary associated losses.
However, getting an exceptional Chinese X-ray machine manufacturer like Uni X-ray can help you achieve your goal of practical quality assessment of your solar panels.
With close to two decades of research and development, a consistent track record of delivering quality, and competitive prices with a reliable after-sales service, what could be better?