Introduction: Making Solar Cells With No Soldering Points Usable

About: I love solar energy and building homemade diy solar panels, that is why i put together a solar diy free E-Book at sites.google.com/site/earthforsolar and a solar and wind forum at http://www.ear…

How to make solar cells, By taking junk Solar Cells, that have no soldering,tabs / points, and make them usable for DIY solar panels or science projects.
 What is nice about this is you can get solar cells like this at a much cheaper price, so this would bring the project cost down.
  In the next steps I will show step by step how I did this and how they work.   I have made a video of this and I am really happy with the results of the experiment . I will be making a cheap DIY solar panel with this and I will post it when i am finished. 

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Check out my Video on this at
http://www.youtube.com/user/SOLARCELLS101?feature=mhum#p/a/u/0/YSv6hVhweeA


my website   www.solarcells101.com


Step 1: Adding Wire to a Solar Cell With No Soldering Points Pos Side

I am showing the top of the solar cell this is the neg side and it has no spot to solder to, Normaly this would be junk.  I got some clear transparent tape from wallmart it looks off brand its just called TRANSPARENT Tape get the clear stuff!!  Use thin wire, the best is flat tabbing wire and tape it down as flat as you can and try to hit all the collector grids.  If you can run two strips across the top or negative - side, and two strips across the bottom or positive + side.  This will work much nicer just incase you miss a collector or it was not down flat the other will hit it.  You need to get as many amps as you can to make this worth it.  In this step this is how the negative - side is done.  In the next step I will show how I did the positive + side of the solar cell.


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Step 2: Adding Tabbing Wire to the Junk Solar Cells

On this page I show the back side or positive + side of the solar cell.  I scrap a path with a screw driver until I see a silver shiney look and then tape your tabbing wire as flat as you can all the way across the path you scraped off.  if you can add two strips it will work much better.
This is pretty simple an very easy to do.  I will show video and some heat test too.  This tape with a heat light was able to withstand temps of 190 degrees F and the tape did not melt.  I did this for 1 hour and the solar cell tested great !!




My website  www.solarcells101.com

Step 3: Testing the Solar Cell for Amps and Volts

On this page I show a running amp test and volt test on the junk solar cell I just brought back to life.
This process with tape you can do fast and just as fast as soldering, without the cost. 
So far I have tried five solar cells like this and they all  performed very well.  I am very excited about this because solar cells like this are very cheap, and therefore, you could make your own DIY solar panel very affordable. This also would make countries with limited resources able to make solar panels with alot less money. This process works great and I have ran many tests with heat and the tape is holding up as well. 



My website, Free diy solar panel info    www.solarcells101.com

Step 4: Heat Test With the Tape on the Junk Solar Cell

On this page I ran a heat test for one hour at a temp of 185 degrees F to 191 degrees F and the solar cell and tape held up great.
After the test I checked the volts and amps they were at specs I am very happy with this so far.  Another good thing about using the tape is that it makes the solar cell stronger with the tape going across, and  if it does crack the tape holds it together and still puts out the same power. 



David Eberly
at  www.solarcells101.com

Step 5: VIDEO OF HOW TO MAKE JUNK SOLAR CELLS USABLE AGAIN

Make solar cell ,On this page if you would like to see the video please click the link below 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSv6hVhweeA


I hope some of this helps

David      www.solarcells101.com