DIY Solar Panel (PV) Mount
On April 18, 2008 in photovoltaics
I got a 15w panel, a charge controller, and a pretty nice battery as a christmas gift this year, and now that the snow is gone I decided to put it to use powering the couple of compact fluorescent bulbs that we use throughout our part of the old farm house that we live in.
The first thing I had to decide was how to mount the panel. I didn’t really want to put in a form and pour concrete to do a pole mount just for a 15w panel. I also didn’t want to mount it on ground level as we have dogs, cats, horses, cows, etc, not to mention the amount of snow we get in the wintertime.
With these things in mind I decided to mount it on the house. However I also didn’t want to mount it on the roof as the house we live in is huge, making installation/service a real pain.
Of course, wanting to be able to save money was a big part. I could have gotten on the internet, pulled out a credit card, and bought some fancy several hundred dollar mount.
But this is a 15w panel powering some light bulbs..
So I tore a satellite dish off it’s mount and used that to put my solar panel on.
The satellite dish mount has elevation angles marked in degrees and is easily adjustable. It is not extremely sturdy, but I felt that it would do perfectly for what I need.
I decided to make the mount large enough for two of these 15w panels. I will get another one to bump this up to 30w. I also had another charge controller that will allow easier expansion than the one I got with this, so I have a spare/something for another project.
The good news is that I still have another one of these satellite dish mounts, so I can make another mount to hold another two 15w panels, for 60w total. 60w isn’t a lot, but it should power all the lights that we use in the farm house, with another battery the size of the one I have.
A large part of that though is reduction in use. For us, there is no need to have every light in the house on. Why have a light on in a room you aren’t using? I know there have been studies regarding the energy required to start a bulb vs. energy required to leave a bulb on, but I don’t feel this really applies to us due to infrequency of running around between rooms.
In total this project only took me a few hours from pile-of-junk to mounted panel. The rack for the panels is made of re-bar, some pieces of steel plate, a couple of pieces of pipe, a piece of angle iron, and some bolts.
This could be simplified greatly but I was literally trying to work with what I could find laying around. The pieces of pipe were used to space a cross bar of plate for mounting the panels off of the re-bar, in order to make it the same height as the strangely shaped piece of angle iron I used for the bottom panel mounting point.
Sometimes you really have to scrounge around to find what you need..
Sometimes your workspace is also messy, and your tools too small for the job..
I didn’t have proper stuff for attaching the output wires, so I used some fencing staples and had to leave them loose so as to not chafe the wire. I’ll fix that up later.
Total cost for this was $2.90 for bolts/nuts/washers, and $6 for beer to drink after I got it done. Everything else was laying around.
Theoretically that means most handy folks should be able to eliminate the cost of a mount for most small PV applications. This could be made to mount on a pole or RV pretty easily, and would also be easy to move around if you had more than one location. All you would need is two satellite mounts, then you could switch the panels between the two locations as needed.
This is, of course, assuming that you are on a limited budget like me.
Apologies for not making this more of a “how-to”, but I was trying to get it up before the sun went down. If you have any questions on how to install / mount a solar panel on a small satellite dish mount, drop me a line by email or a comment on this post. I also have higher res versions of the pictures if you would like to see the mounting points better or anything like that.
As always, I appreciate comments, so let me know what you think. I didn’t paint the mount yet because I didn’t want to spend money on paint 
this is low cost high effectiveness stuff here, not made to be pretty.
I should add a disclaimer in here as well. I’m not suggesting that you do any of this as it could harm both you and your personal property. If you do manage to hurt yourself or break stuff, don’t blame me. Not everyone has the aptitude or ability to dangle from a ladder with a big metal frame and solar panel above their head and off to the side.
To whom it may concern,
I am writing on behalf of the Web Development Team here at Silicon Solar, a company located in upstate New York and we are promoting Renewable Energy. We offer an extensive line of home electric and hot water systems to garden lights and fountains, great for any budget. In addition to home décor, we also offer an exclusive line of DIY kits from cells to solar cars, which are great for educational purposes.
Silicon Solar includes an active and involved staff that wants to make a difference. A main priority Silicon Solar focuses on, is educating today’s youth. Renewable Energy is starting to become more and more popular, it is important these youth are educated-it is their future! Silicon Solar dedicates time and resources to local area schools, providing them the educational tools to learn and understand the benefits. These students are putting together the systems with the help of Silicon Solar’s Team and will continue to observe data. What better way than to learn firsthand and experience the educational benefit.
Silicon Solar has donated a SunMaxx Thermosyphon Solar Hot Water System to a local school for the educational purposes. The Solar Hot Water System allows the students to work first hand with cutting-edge technology along with understanding the economic and ecological benefits. Through research and understanding, the students plan to monitor the Solar Hot Water System readings and will be gaining more and more understanding of the future technology.
This past fall, Silicon Solar installed its own SunMaxx Solar Hot Water System and a PV System to charge a battery bank in our Bainbridge, NY facility. Having this set-up is great for viewers and visitors to see exactly how the Solar Hot Water System and the PV System ties into your home. Viewers and visitors get the opportunity to see firsthand the installations, along with the benefit of speak with a highly educated representative.
You can visit our News & Press Releases at http://www.siliconsolar.com/news-and-press-releases.php for more featured news articles on Silicon Solar.
Educating today’s society on Renewable Energy is a big task however, very beneficial. With having Silicon Solar as a link on your webpage, the word of Renewable Energy can be spread - one click at a time.
We appreciate your time and consideration and we look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Silicon Solar Web Department
Becky,
In my opinion, this is bordering on spam.
Luckily for you it is from SiliconSolar and I’ll let it slide this time. (especially due to you being in NY, although I wouldn’t call it upstate :P)
Feel free to drop by and leave a message/comment rather than a form letter, as I’m sure it will leave a better impression on the site’s visitors.
Just wanted to say that this DIY solar panel mount is working out very nicely!
We have had several storms in the recent past where winds reached above 60mph in some places. Trees were coming down all over, and my solar panel was barely wiggling on the side of the house.
I am in the process of doing a very similar thing. I have a workshop that I am going to be lighting with a couple of solar panels that I have bought over the last few years. It is great to see that someone else is trying to do this type of thing on a limited budget too. I am hoping to expand my system over the next year or so to take care of some of the lighting in my house too. If you have any pointers please let me know.
Short and sweet, I may be wrong but “Admin” is bording on being a “Dickhead”
nuf said.
Thanks Rodney, at least I know people are still coming to the site!
Thanks for the first website I came to that I could understand. We have some solar panels in the back forty that my husband retrieved out of the dumpster at workl. They no longer needed them and gave him two more. Now we have a total of 4, 40 watt kyocera panels already mounted on poles and no idea how to get them to light a bulb for the barn. This was encouraging and I am especially impressed by the attitude of getting your usage down instead of trying to build enough to power for all the indulgences one desires. We are a family of eight and our family current uses around 500 kw per month. This Feburary in Ohio we used 431 KW. This has accelerated our desire to adapt our solar panels to the house so we are trying to learn how on a low budget(as in what we have on hand-which is much but we just don’t know which of the junk to use). Thanks for the spark, we will continue to look for answers and see what we come up with.
Sounds like a good idea, But anyone know where we could get a few panels dirt cheap. We are a senior living on minimal income and it’s dificult to save enough for these panels. Could use several. We were given several big batteries for storage. emial, to
cma(dot)energy(at)gmail(dot)com
Thanks, David
Hello Global warming,
I’ve picked up a few panels at Harbor Freight, 15watt panel will set you back about 79 bucks, and a 25watt monocrystaline I believe goes for about 159.
If you prefer to order from the net, here’s a site that may fit your bill http://www.solarblvd.com, there you can pick up a 40watt multicrystaline panel for 159 bucks.
All these prices are in US funds by the way, hope this helped.
please provide how wiring run from the panels to the battery & outlets.
Thanks,
Rodd
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