Ryder Posted January 23, 2011 Report Share Posted January 23, 2011 Building your own solar panel grants you autonomy from purchasing one off the shelf. Bought commerically these can cost a fortune but by being able to make one yourself you can save yourself money, learn and gain knowledge instead of being lazy and having someone else do the work. http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc174/Ulysses3100/Solartron/P1020699.jpg The Suns rays are free, in Thailand there's an abundance of solar energy compared to the cloudy islands and nations of Europe. Yet, to harness them adequately, takes some work. Here's how you do it... Firstly you'll need a small workshop or area where you can work uncluttered. A flat surface is essential. In the shade is important, not only for comfort but you don't want your panel it 'go live' while your working on it. Especially in the case of a very large panel. The right tools are also necessary. Solar cells - 0.5 volt 3.6 amp polycrystaline. At least enough for 7 - 10 volts per array. If you're wanting to charge up a lead acid battery you'll need to build two or more of these. Otherwise re-charging it will be difficult. SOURCE: Ebay Stuff you'll need for one array / panel. 1. Soldering Iron 2. Thin Solder 3. Clear, see-through perspex in a minimum of 2 equal sections. Make sure you have the dimensions of AT LEAST 350mm x 750mm x 4mm. Any less and you're cutting it fine for margins to the edge with a 2 column displacement on your cells. 4. EVA (ethal vynal acetate), this what you need to seal in the cells to one another so they are crack resistant and will hold them together if they do crack (thus retaining conductivity. 5. A method to raise the perspex clear of each other. This may involve wooden beading (you'll need a table saw for ultra accuracy). DIY methods or use fine sections of perspex. 6. Araldite glue (plenty of it!) 7. Surgical Gloves. 8. A heatgun (used for paintstripping) or a hairdryer http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc174/Ulysses3100/Solartron/P1020684.jpg First thing you need to do is order in some perspex and source your solar cells. I used Plastic People (URL at bottom of page) for my clear perspex and ordered 2 sheets of equal dimensions. For the cells you can get these off eBay and they are quite cheap too. Roughly $0.75 per cell which is 0.5 volts each at peak power. Be VERY gently handling them as they snap with ease. Solar Panels being soldered http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc174/Ulysses3100/Solartron/P1020684.jpg So by the picture above you can see that I've soldered a fair few and am coming to the end of the main soldering. You want to have the 2 rows (or more) in a configuration where it runs like a railway track. One-way from top to bottom; The top being where you'll be making a 'bus' wire bridging the contacts, the bottom where you'll have the + and - wires running out of the array to be heatshrinked and joined by your voltage regulator wiring. Once the soldering is done you need to sort the EVA out. This needs to be laid out on top of and underneath the cells. Be careful as you'll have to move them back and forth as you go about soldering and placing the eva underneath etc. You can't solder the cells with the EVA in place though as the heat will melt it. Once you've got the EVA laid out you need to first get the feel on a sample section by heating it up and seeing how much heat you need etc. http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc174/Ulysses3100/Solartron/P1020689.jpg At the other end you'll have the + and - wires running out of the array to be heatshrinked and to wherever you are having them go. These are the OUTPUT WIRES. An easy way is to wire the output wires direct onto an appliance, but that only works as long as there is a sunlight. You'll need a lead acid battery and voltage regulator wiring for power-on-demand. That's for another day though... Stage 2 - EVA Encapsulant. Once the soldering is done you need to sort the EVA out. This needs to be laid out on top of and underneath the cells. Be careful as you'll have to move them back and forth as you go about soldering and placing the eva underneath etc. You can't solder the cells with the EVA in place though as the heat will melt it. Once you've got the EVA laid out you need to first get the feel on a sample section by heating it up and seeing how much heat you need etc. This all sounds complicated, but once you get your head around the mental gymnastics it's not that difficult. The soldering of the cells isn't for a clumsy hand though, take your time with this. The video guide at the bottom of the page will help you understand better. http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/c...n/P1020698.jpg The EVA is like soft and slightly squigy rubber that you order in rolls. Cruicially it's see-through and when direct heat is applied it shrinks and bonds to whatever it's in contact with. In our case the solar panel cells, being very flimsy and delicate will be strengthened greatly by this material being used to bolster the structure. http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/c...n/P1020697.jpg The EVA needs to be laid out on top of and underneath the cells. Be careful as you'll have to move them back and forth as you go about soldering and placing the eva underneath etc. Once you've got it laid out (ensure it overlaps slightly.) You can't solder the cells with the EVA in place though as the heat will melt it so this is why you've already got your soldering out of the way. Once you've got the EVA laid out you need to first get the feel on a sample section by heating it up and seeing how much heat you need for when you go to put the heat on the main cell array. It'll take you about 15 minutes to do, don't over heat the EVA material, you are after a bond, not a melted mess. Stage 3 - Encasing the Cells in Perspex At this point you want to have your Perspex sheets that you ordered from your supplier. There are two you can use. One is the Plastic People in the UK. Another is a firm in Oz. If you need their urls let me know. With the EVA bonding the cells together they will not crack or break easily. With the perspex sheets encasing the panels, you make them much more robust and able to stand up to the rigors of outdoor use and operation. Even so, directly applying the sheets onto the soldered and bonded cells is not wise, the slight flex-effect may crack cells during transport and installation. What you can do to maintain rigidity is to have 'beading' or a 'spacer' to keep the perspex raised off the cells slightly. In the picture to the side you can see the beading for the long lengthways sections. You don't need much height on them, a couple of mm should do it. It is essential your perspex measurements take into consideration any 'spacer' or beading along the sides as otherwise it could mean you've not enough space for your cells. http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/c...n/P1020700.jpg Perspex Application Final Phase After first laying the EVA cells down on the bottom perspex we lay the beading onto the edges. Then use the araldite glue for sticking on the beading. As it's long lengths you may find the beading doesn't want to fully flatten down, you ought to give it a helping hand while the araldite is curing... In the picture here you can see that we're using clamps, weights and the like to keep the beading pressed down. http://i2.squidoocdn.com/resize/squi...el_Clamped.jpg After giving this about 8 hours to fully dry onto the bottom sheet apply more araldite to the top of the now-glued on beading. Onto this put the top-sheet of perspex. Allow about half a day for the the glue to dry. Your panel is now complete and ready for testing. http://www.ontheroadcambodia.com/P1020710.JPG This Solar Panel that a friend and I built kicked out nearly 10 volts. With several of these together you'll easily have enough to recharge a 12 volt lead acid battery in Thailands weather Thanks for reading, hope it's interesting to those of you interested in solar projects out in LOS Materials such as the EVA, Extra tabbing wire, solar cells and Perspex is best ordered in from outside Thailand... Source: http://www.squidoo.com/solar-panels-sun-diy Video Guide Part 1 5VNkFgCjjHc Video Guide Part 2 Pf-1Rxmp8MY Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coss Posted January 23, 2011 Report Share Posted January 23, 2011 Excellent! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCorinthian Posted January 23, 2011 Report Share Posted January 23, 2011 crap. See key point below. For the cells you can get these off eBay and they are quite cheap too.Roughly $0.75 per cell which is 0.5 volts each at peak power. Be VERY gently handling them as they snap with ease. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radioman Posted January 24, 2011 Report Share Posted January 24, 2011 Huh? How come? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nervous God Posted January 24, 2011 Report Share Posted January 24, 2011 Commercial is about $8 a volt last time I looked, but remember you can amortize that over 10 - 20 years. Multy layer works in cloudy weather quite well also. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCorinthian Posted January 24, 2011 Report Share Posted January 24, 2011 For a interesting science project, it is cool. But you are not going to help anything larger. Max output is 0.5v. So figure you will get .025 avg during about 8 hours of peek daylight. To run an energy star fridge you are going to need 543,000 watts per year. So just to run that one item is going to take your roof, your neighbors roof and a good part of the yard covered. Also, you will have to have some impressive batteries to power it at night. Also, you all know the cloud cover during the rainy season? Take that power output to about .01 or less v per hour. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skydiver1 Posted January 24, 2011 Report Share Posted January 24, 2011 This is not even wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unit731 Posted January 25, 2011 Report Share Posted January 25, 2011 Nikola Tesla would be pleased. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shygye Posted January 25, 2011 Report Share Posted January 25, 2011 For a interesting science project, it is cool. But you are not going to help anything larger. Max output is 0.5v. So figure you will get .025 avg during about 8 hours of peek daylight. To run an energy star fridge you are going to need 543,000 watts per year. So just to run that one item is going to take your roof, your neighbors roof and a good part of the yard covered. Also, you will have to have some impressive batteries to power it at night. Also, you all know the cloud cover during the rainy season? Take that power output to about .01 or less v per hour. Well, you need to know the voltage and current of the solar cell to calculate the power. On a solar cell, the voltage is constant, but the current varies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
radioman Posted January 25, 2011 Report Share Posted January 25, 2011 Well see now there's the thing. As you draw more current the available voltage does drop, but not in proportion so there is a sweet spot for maximum power available from the cell. Efficiency is low but very useable. Now I don't see people likely running their whole houses, aircon and what not from such a system anytime soon but charging batteries to run smaller low power devices is very feasible. In South Africa we have a number of remote radio sites powered by solar, same in Morocco. These are base stations for en-route aircraft coverage so lowish power and intermittent service but worky worky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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