PV Gap

Tommy Said:

Is it possible, and if so, then how can I, get a free guide to making cheap, efficient solar panels?

We Answered:

Everything in the body of your question is laudable, and possible, except for the part about "cheap."

Solar electric is generally a large ($10k or more) up-front investment, and a cost savings over time, as well as environmental benefit. And in many areas, it would never recover its initial investment, not at today's prices. Costs continue to fall, though.

The internet is full of sites that suggest you can power your whole house with just $200 or less of homemade panels. As to the information, you could probably find it through a bittorrent search site, by looking for "solar panel", and would see that the kind of information being sold is not practical at all. See http://www.nlcpr.com/Deceptions6.php for a rebuttal to these scams.

You could build your own solar water heater, and plans will come up in Google.

Allen Said:

Where can I get cheap and reliable solar panels for my caravan?

We Answered:

£219 is about $340.

A panel like the following is 170 watts (a little more than you wanted), and $302:

http://sunelec.com/index.php?main_page=p…

That's just a data point to suggest that you should shop thoroughly - it might actually be impractical to buy from a US company and ship to the UK.

Terry Said:

Where do you get cheap solar panels and are they hard to install?

We Answered:

What are you trying to do? Heat water? A House? Generate electricity? Heat a swimming pool?

We need more information.

Whatever it is you are doing, try going to www.motherearthnews.com.

When it comes to solar panels, they have covered it. Every type and for every purpose.

Plus they will have links to dozens of other sites on the subject.

Micheal Said:

how can i build my own, cheap, solar panels at home?

We Answered:

The idea behind building your own was to get defective and broken solar cells from the manufacturer, preferably for free though many now charge for them. These are cells that are either cosmetically blemished, cracked or otherwise broken during manufacturing and transportation.

As each cell fragment could have very different voltage and current characteristics, you have to manually measure the voltage and current characteristics, sort them and then wire them in parallel or in serial to achieve the desired voltage and current characteristics for the panel. Wiring in parallel increases the current while wiring in series increases the voltage, the current capacity of cells in series will be that of the lowest current capacity cell in that series hence you need to match fragments up to wire in parallel till you have enough current capacity to participate as a cell in the series. Cell fragments can only be wired in parallel if they have the same voltage output. It's painstaking work and it's difficult to place all the irregular shaped cells onto the solar panel in a layout that efficiently uses the space so your solar panels will likely be much larger than commercial ones. You could augment them with Fresnel lenses since the cells don't occupy as much of the available surface area hence focusing the light onto the cells rather than the board will help with efficiency. Practice your soldering skills cause you don't want to have to go back in to figure out where that cold solder joint is. If you're real lucky you can get a supply of blemished cells but the cheapest ones are the broken cells.

Kay Said:

Where can I get cheap solar panels?

We Answered:

try home depot or lowes

Renee Said:

Where to buy cheap solar panels?

We Answered:

Grimcho..I'm going to give you a secret that no-one I know of has ever spoken of..Call Your local railroad maintenance yard and/or your local oil production company..I know your probably in another part of the world where this will not apply but here its like this.. BNSF changes out every 2-5 years their 100w 24v panels...they still have a good 15years of lifetime..Oil companies change them out on their well sites every 2 years 2x 160w 24v (actually they are 2 +12vdc grids series) now if your in Italy sorry this didn't work but if your in New Mexico ..they are in Santa FE...also they have way good batteries that are wet cell and run about 600$ each that they just dump many times on the guy for asking..try it....From the E....