DIY Solar Panel

Step 10 Hope this helped

Please leave a comment if you have any questions, suggestions or ideas.

Comments

[mariomario64]

Could you explain the functionality of your last photo? thanks

[geekdude]

ive heard of people pressing rocks and bits of glass bottles and stuff into concrete for sidewalks I but you could do the same thing with these. mix em in with black pebbles and they would look right at home. Then your sidewalk could be generating electricity. you might want to coat them with epoxy  or put them under bits of broken glass because the wair and tair of being a sidewalk might break them down. also you would want to make doubly sure your wireing is right because when the concrete dries you wont be able to fix it.

[shoffman3]

There's a guy working on this already - but he's taken it to the logical ultimate conclusion: http://www.solarroadways.com/main.html

[Da Person who plays paintball.]

Also, I read the ``our vision`` thing, their idea for EV`s to recharge in parking lots, we could find a way to make tires conductive, so they leech power off the road.

[alex young]

hello how is everyone. Can I use ordinary 60/40 solder to solder up my cells together to make a panel

[catdawg426]

Nice instructable! But I have the same question as george16888. What wattage could we get out of these?

[bobtannica]

Very nice instructable! Clear and informative. I, too, have a question. You are connecting the front(neg) side of one piece to the back(pos) side of the next. What then is the purpose of mounting on the large piece of conductive metal mesh as in your last picture? Wouldn't this short out the circuit? Or were these first coated with silicon and the mesh merely for aesthetics? Again, really enjoyed the instructable and thanks for your time.

[mini_pwn]

 How do you put a silicon coating??

and nice instruct-able you made

[yyyoshiii]

 yes i second eorges comment. 

if i made say, 1-5 sqr yards of this material (u pick how much), how much light would that produce? i think its a brilliant idea, pls get back to me!

(i live in florida, so plenty of sun)

[rpvanpatt]

I am wondering how much power you can get from something like this. Also, what you could power or charge with it. Thanks

[mel1215]

At the equator you get 1000 watts per square yard (approx)@100% E. solar cells are around 15% and if north or south of the equator you get less.

[rpvanpatt]

also i was wondering if the power is flowing through the mesh or what? I am new at this but I have an idea that I want to do, but i hafta figure out how it all can work first

[floydianslip]

Has anyone created a solar device which produces voltages & amperages in the
range of say - 30-40v @ 10amps, or is this just foolish thinking on my part? I live
in the Las Vegas Sunbelt.

Thanks

Randy

[Zafner]

You can create whatever voltage you want, and whatever current you want. It's a question of how much surface area, light intensity, and cell efficiency you have. In the desert, you have lots of light, but you still need a pretty large surface area to get that much juice.

[mel1215]

By the way the higher the temperature the lower the current in a solar cell.

[ZeroTruths]

What your talking about is using Solar cells to harness 300-400 Watts. No offense, but that does seem quite ambitious, as most solar cells that I know of produce electricity with low voltages and currents. For what your asking for, I think you'd need a part of a roof. Basically, if you have the space, then you can generate enough electricity for your needs. Realize tho, that solar cells are still improving in efficiency, and still require a good amount of space.

[formweaver]

I have a single panel 250 watts, sits on the ground outside my motor home in the woods. Northwest USA, gets full sun about 1/2 day on a sunny day and powers my laptop for several hours in the evening. If I just use it to run my LED lights then it lasts much longer. This was under $600 total (panel, battery, controller, converter, wires). But it would be nicely supplemented by one of these. Solar power isn't as hard as they want us to believe, it's not as expensive either if you Google and read through all of the choices. Good deals can be had. It just takes a little perseverance. If you don't have a TV, fridge, air-conditioning, etc you really don't need that much electric.

[1oooop]

why not epoxy... like max CLR(on ebay)... well it isn't flexible... but it does protect from the weather if you plan to use the solar panel outside... and it looks cool with the silicon encased inside... and little children can't peel the silicon off... (0.o) (++)

[yanggers]

unpainted epoxy is prone to UV damage, I think.

[1oooop]

oh yea huh :P... forgot. Most small solar panels actually have epoxy on them :P. I guess glass is the best bet, possibly vinyl.

[Ausi319]

hey how much are the cells How would you charge a 12V battery with a motor running?

[faborange]

it would be nice if you can cut up the solar panels to square shapes of different sizes to be laid as tiles on the floors around the house that face the sun. Clear coating can be applied and resurfaced For a transparent smooth polish. Maybe can be used to power the lights around the garden or probably different led-lited light paths along the floor (to show direction), or even like dimly lited stars path while u are walk on them. crazily ambitious but its a thought. no one thought it was possible to get to the moon either.. ;)

[sing1ejack]

2nd the coment on shaping these cells. is it as simple as scoring & snaping them or using a dremel or something?

[chippy15]

if u live in an apt., could u put let's say 500 of thos sized panels on a piece of paper and duct tape to the railing?? could it still work??

[sandiemom]

I just stumbled into this site and it is absolutely amazing! My son is in 4th grade and this project seems like something he could enter in our homeschool science fair. We have never 'played' with solar before but this has really tweaked our science passion. Thanks and Kudos!

[george16888]

Hello There, I am very impressed with what you have achieved. Can you tell us, for 3 dollar worth of solar cells, how much power could we expect to get out of the finished system? Would it be more than 1 or 2 watt under bright sun light? Thanks George