Was originally going with Hein's adapters, but they weren't available. Tried the 8020 pivot setup; but it just wasn't as solid as I wanted. With nudging from posters here that plastic isn't hard to work with, I ordered some plastic and went after it. I tried to take a few photos in case someone wants to follow my amateur / dumb direction.
If you don't mind the work, the price of all this stuff PLUS the table saw is less than Hein's adapters. I'm sure his are much prettier. But these work and - if I only did it for this, it would be like getting a free table saw in exchange for my work. (I bought it because the old saw left a while ago and a table saw is a critical tool for building stuff.)
Evolution - RAGE5-S Power Tools RAGE5S 10" TCT Multi-Material Table Saw, 10 - - Amazon.com
amzn.com
The metal mount portions are some 3" angle-aluminum I had left from the bed project on the last van. Worked out fine and plenty strong. Looks just like this:
Amazon.com: 6061 T651 Aluminum Angle 3"X 5"X 12" Long 1/4" Thick: Home Improvement
I ordered a few different HDPE pieces, but this cutting board became the final material:
https://amzn.com/B003HEWUFO
Using the table saw, I cut into 3x3 blocks (or close-ish) and tested the angle a bunch of times and finally settled on 6.5-degree working best.
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FTR, that was a pain: get four angles ready, cut four bases, mount it all on the roof, test for angle and clearance. Not quite right... repeat. Now that I know the angle and the 3x3 combo, the rest of them went really fast. It would take very little time to do another 10 of the bases - longer to drill the holes in that beefy aluminum angle.
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Was going with the 1" HDPE cut in half but it wasn't enough clearance on the roof and required another bar. Moved to shaving the smallest amount off the 1" to make the angle and I've got about 1/4" clearance from the cross-bars on the roof. Perfect. Not expecting much weight on the cross-bars. Solar panel weight will be carried on the edges.
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Cleaned the roof with a blade and scrubby thing. Dabbed the bare metal from the nibbler with paint.
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Used the clear Proflex stuff. Hope it keeps. Seems good.
https://amzn.com/B00YBG3NXU
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