Author Topic: Homebuilt solar cells  (Read 2385 times)

Offline gapatriot

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Homebuilt solar cells
« on: April 30, 2012, 11:53:45 PM »
I did this write up last summer on LnL, but there have been some questions about it so i thought i would re-write it. The cells I'm using are off of ebay we got 120 of them i think (it was a year ago). Any way.....

This is what you start out with


Take your ribbon


And solder it to the front of the solar cell like this


Then flip the cell and another cell (only one cell with leads soldered on shown)


And solder leads to white each white square and the end product will be this


It goes front to back front to back, i did them in pairs and stacked them untill i placed them. The continue to solder the same way. Place them on your glass blue side up, and do the math to figure out wattage, voltage and amps. Super easy we used an old sliding glass door to mount on. Wonder why there are no finished pictures? My dad was mounting the leads to hold the wires and drilled into the frame of the door, it hit the glass and shattered. We have a 5 gallon bucket of solar cell and glass to show for all the work so be careful!!!!!!! Any questions just post up i will try to answer as best i can!
« Last Edit: May 01, 2012, 12:00:52 AM by gapatriot »

doppleganger

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Re: Homebuilt solar cells
« Reply #1 on: May 01, 2012, 02:08:11 AM »
You are a better man than I. I tried that making your own panels gig once and realized it's not for me. Those things are more fragile than potatoes chips. I bought some off ebay and I was excited because they sent me 5 extra. Then I took them out and they started breaking left and right. I only got one ribbon. Attatched and then lost ALL interest in it.

Offline gapatriot

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Re: Homebuilt solar cells
« Reply #2 on: May 01, 2012, 02:09:30 AM »
I sucks to do but if you want to save money, you do what you gotta do!

Offline crudos

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Re: Homebuilt solar cells
« Reply #3 on: May 01, 2012, 11:04:01 AM »
So you were going to take your gang of solar panels and mount them blue side against window glass? How were you going to finish the back side? When the glass shattered, did it ruin the solar panels also? Interesting project for sure, thanks for sharing what you did.

Offline gapatriot

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Re: Homebuilt solar cells
« Reply #4 on: May 01, 2012, 12:00:43 PM »
We sat them blue side on the glass finished soldering them all together. When that is all done there is a special resin you pour over them, i cant remember what it was called. And yes when the glass shattered we lost it all.  [img]http://www.arrse.co.uk/at But shit happened nothing to do but move on