DIY Solar Panel

On October 26, 2007 in photovoltaics

Well I finally got around to wiring together some of these solar cells I got on eBay back in August. First up is the .5v 1750mA silicon cells.

Unfortunately it was late and I wired them up so that it will only be putting out 3v in its current configuration. I’ll fix that tomorrow after work. The strings of cells will be connected as shown in red on the image, and the long strips along each side will be removed. That should give me a healthy 18v for charging a 12v battery.

Soldered these together Thursday night but I haven’t been at home while the sun was shining since then, and won’t be again until Sunday afternoon. I’ll get some data up about how it performs sometime on Monday.

Keep in mind that this is not in its finished state. It will be resoldered to produce 18v, 1750mA and placed in an aluminum frame with double glazing. End cost will be around $70.

Not bad even if it only puts out 20 watts. If you try to buy a 20w panel from anyone online it is going to cost you way more than that and you might as well buy a bigger one for a few hundred bucks.

Like I read somewhere earlier today, you can get a 10w panel for a little more than a 5w panel, and you can get a 20w for a little more than a 10w. If you spend a little bit more than you would on the 20w you can get a 30w, and so on and so forth.

I figure that I learned something and didn’t spend nearly as much as if I just bought a panel (unless it was a small one)

Comments (0)