The 2 holes came from a fan-less design… cold air enters the bottom, warms & rises, and exits the top. I’m not sure how a 1-hole system would work.

The baffles is to allow the air time to warm before coming back into the house… again, from the fan-less design. Do I need them with a fan? Who knows.

However, as I think about it, the baffles should not be parallel to the ground - they should angle up a bit, to allow the hot air to rise vertically and move horizontally at the same time. Think of the opposite… dropping a golf ball down a series of planks, going back & forth until it hits the bottom. If the planks are parallel to the ground, the ball stops. If the planks are too vertical, the ball picks up speed. I want the air to slowly move up, so it heats up. But again, with the fan, I may not need this.

The hinge will push the bottom of the unit away from the house, causing the suns rays to hit the entire unit more directly. Ideally, the angle between the sun and the unit should be 90*. I’ve read this is best done by angling the unit 10* + your latitude. Therefore, the farther North you are, the less the angle. Folks in Alaska will have a slight angle - Miami has a large angle. Picture the sun as it moves across the Alaskan winter sky - it doesn’t go very far above the horizon. In Miami, it’s high up.

So now, I have to think if I need the baffles if I have a fan, since the air will only re-enter the house if the fan is activated, and the fan will only activate if the thermostat is triggered.

I assume the maze of baffles is to stop the air from circulating too much so that you end up mixing it?

Not quite visualizing why the unit needs to be on a hinge…

I would suggest hitting up an HVAC supplier for insulated duct, they have it in a variety of sizes.

~B