You’ve seen the advertisements, “Build your own solar panels”, you’ve seen the kits, now you wonder, just how hard is it to do? Well, that depends, mostly on your skills and patience. It would seem that the solar cells that are sold for this purpose is very delicate, they break very easily. I always see on eBay, lots of listings for broken solar cells, they still work, but they obviously do not put out as much juice as it did when it was unbroken. It is possible to piece together broken cells and get a perfectly good working solar panel, again, it takes skills and patience.
So you have looked around and found a source or two for solar cells, you want to start using solar power
The good news is now you can see how these panels are put together, with the help of YouTube, you can see what is involved, you can see real people piecing these cells together, not the polished and perfect videos made by someone who has done lots and lots of these, sure after you make a few, you will get better, but there is always that first one you make and if you have spent lots of money on your kit, you will want to know if it’s even feasible to do this.
So here it is, watch and learn. I hope that after watching this video, you are better prepared to know whether or not you can or should try to tackle this type of project. Check out the other videos by Green Power Science, they are really good.
Just for fun, here is a couple of videos of my property, taken a couple of days ago. We have completed the front part of the concrete wall on the south facing side of the cabin, while I was up on the scaffold, I decided to do a 360 and let you see the view that we are blessed with. We had our first good rain of the season so the clouds and sky were spectacular! There are 2 videos, the second one plays right after the first.
Enjoy!
Here’s something you can check out for fun, this teaches you how to make your own solar cell using household items, though in reality this is not much more than a novelty, you couldn’t really power much with it.
http://scitoys.com/scitoys/scitoys/echem/echem2.html
Image sources
1. http://www.reuk.co.uk/DIY-Solar-Panel-Kits.htm
2. http://www.ninfinger.org/models/vault2006/index.html
3. http://www.discovercircuits.com/H-Corner/brokensp.htm
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{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Apparently only doctors will be any good at this as they are the only ones with patients.!!!
As you might guess I have no patience (hee hee) with poor spelling…No offence
Thanks Vee, darned spell checker! No offence, oh I mean offense taken. :)
Hey, thanks for the post, I’m looking for more of a step by step guide that I can download and print. Know of anything?
1) Get pre-tabbed cells. This cuts the soldering to 1/3 or less because you are only doing the 6 on the back, not the pain in the wazoo strips on the front.
2) Here is a good writeup on one way of doing it. http://www.instructables.com/id/Build_a_60_Watt_Solar_Panel/ I followed this but with two changes. I used new, good cells, rather than factory defect ones, because they are relatively cheap; and I divided it into 3 sections of 12 cells, in a 4 high, 3 wide, configuration, because it made the overall unit more structurally sound.
Thanks Eric, that’s food info to have. :)
I have used both new cells and factory defects. I favor the factory defects due to price and often not much efficiency lost.
I wish you could speak louder and the music softer. Thanks for the Instructions though.
Thanks Imran for commenting, sorry about the music on my videos, the camera I had at the time was a cheap, very cheap camera and didn’t record audio, YouTube offers the option of adding music to videos so that’s what I did… if the music is not agreeable then it’s easily turned down or off. I’m glad you enjoyed the instruction though. :)
Wretha
Can I get the name of the company where I can buy new or defect cells?
Hi Tony, thanks for writing. I have found the best source for new and broken solar cells are on eBay, follow this link http://tinyurl.com/ebay-solar-cells, I’ll leave it up to you to decide which eBay deal to go for.