Amtrak Solar 12-Inch 50W Solar Attic Fan with Thermostat – Quiet, Powerful Gable Vent Fan for Attic, Garage, Shed, Greenhouse – Plug & Play Installation – Reduces Heat & Moisture

I needed to create air flow in my garage attic and went with this fan as the solution.It is performing better than expected. I'm guessing the temperature in that attic is at least 20 degrees cooler now if not more. Even though it is a relatively small fan (12") it seems to do the job needed.The solar panel itself seems pretty solid. This is my first solar project and I did notice that even with the shadow from my hand crossing the panel the fan would slow down. As long as there is enough sunlight hitting it, the flow of power is good.I did two modifications while installing:1: I created a 'rain shield' for the fan itself. Just in an effort to prevent any rain from coming in through the opening. Just took some sheet metal, bent it over the top of the unit and bent some tabs to connect it through the tabs on the fan itself.2: I shortened the length of the wire provided to connect the fan to the solar panel itself. I believe it was 15 feet in length but I only needed about 3 feet. The fan seems way stronger after shortening that line.Only real complaint I can offer is that the way the wire connects to the solar panel is less than ideal. The line attached to the panel is sturdy and has proper connectors. However, the line that you run from the panel to the fan is just very thin wire with crimp connectors at the ends. Those connectors could have been far more robust to connect to the panel and would seemingly be much better sealed against the weather.The one, somewhat related, item is that Amazon suggested the these louvers: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001E6DMEK?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_detailsDo *NOT* do that. The fan does not have the power to open those louvers.

After reading the reviews, I decided to go with this model.The construction of the fan seems to be acceptable, I have no concerns of it falling apart. It is all metal unlike one reviewer who stated it was plastic.As far as the other reviews go, I cannot say what the circumstances were that led to the comments, but I do agree with some of them. One is the size of the fan blade, it does seem small compared to the housing, but this blade for its size does push a lot of air. I am not too concerned about cfm's since this is a shed or the size of the blade, I just cut the opening slightly smaller than the frame to improve the performance.Does it have some running noise, sure as most fans do, but no more than expected. If I had this installed in my attic over my bedroom and slept during the day, there may be some concerns. However, since it is solar it will not run at night eliminating any noise concerns.. It sounds like a regular fan on high. 12' away I can just barely hear it.I am using it to evacuate heat from a small garden shed, which this works perfectly.It does need full sun to operate as it will run slower when partly cloudy and not at all in full cloud cover, but it is cooler when cloudy anyway.Do I recommend this fan? Absolutely, it does exactly as described. As long as Amtrak stands behind the product warranty, I see no problems. It would be helpful to have a thermostat for the wintertime when I would like to keep the heat in the shed, but I can also wear a jacket as needed.Since posting this review I did install a self closing louver to keep rain out. The fan is powerful enough to push open the louvers, so I am still satisfied.

Received a nice reply from the company offering some tech support advice (the fan motor can be tested with a car battery - emergency jumper box in my case). Tested the motor and it works fine, although fast and loud off of a car battery. So now it had to be the wire in-between the panel and the motor. On the panel side the bullet plugs were placed on the wrong polarity, but I covered that. Today I go up to where I have the fan mounted, and come to find out neither end was stripped prior to putting on the bullet plugs, but the polarity was correct. I cut off the plugs, hard wired it, then hard wired it to the panel, and Waa laa, it works.Thanks to the folks at Amtrack for following their Amazon messages, offering the trouble shooting advice, as well as the offer to replace anything that did not work. I moved the review from a 1 star to a 4 star because of the after the sale support, but can't give it a 5 because who ever is doing their wiring is missing the boat, and that falls to the purchaser. P.s. At the power supplied by the panel, the fan motor spins at a very mellow pace, and is quiet, but it moves all the air we need moved, so I'm happy.Update: I went out and tested the panel and it is producing 18.4 vdc, and the specs show it at 12 vdc. So now I suspect the motor on the fan, or the 18 volts being supplied is too much for the motor. If I can find a 40 watt 12v source I will test the motor without the panel. If both test out then it is the 2 conductor cable they provided. Regardless, I should not have to be trouble shooting the product to find the failure.We bought this back in Jan to install in the new walk-in chicken coop that we were building. Finally finished the coop, and went to install the solar fan today. Prior to installing it I wanted to test it, and no go. At first I thought there was a start up delay, but after 15 minutes I went back out and nothing. Then I noticed the wiring plugs on the panel side were incorrectly fitted. From the factory they had the bullet plugs with the incorrect polarity. So from the factory, they had the red lead connecting to the black. I would have noticed this if there was not a sleeve on the panel side wiring covering the red and black cables. When I checked it I pulled the sleeve back and found the issue. I put new plugs on the wire ends so the color polarity was now correct and again, nothing. I'm guessing a bad panel. The fan does not move. $150 down the toilet.