How to make DIY Solar Panels

Watch Ryder

You'll need:

Solar Cells (The 0.5 volt / 3.6 Amp type) - (Source these on Ebay)

Soldering Iron

2 x Perspex sheets at least 3mm thick (Plasticpeople website)

EVA material (as above)

Araldite or silicon sealant (Hardware store)

Hair Dryer (Your wife / gf or mum's bedroom)
or

Heat Gun (Hardware store)

Material for spacer 'beading' (Use your initiative)

This part will be covering the soldering, wire connections and EVA applying to the solar panels.
The cells are wired up in a series configuration resulting in a theoretical 8 volts from 16 cells. However in extreme sunshine this can result in a 10 volt reading.

Cost for all materials was approx 50 Euro's or thereabouts.

Watch Ryder

This part will be covering the 'beading' spacer material, perspex fixing, environmentally sealing, confirmation voltages and the grand unveiling

Any questions on this let me know and I'll try answering them during this busy time!

eth2

How many watts would 50e worth of materials get you? I'd try to get the voltage a bit higher - 18 volts or so. More useful that way, charge car batteries with only a buck converter.

Watch Ryder

eth2 wrote: »

How many watts would 50e worth of materials get you? I'd try to get the voltage a bit higher - 18 volts or so. More useful that way, charge car batteries with only a buck converter.

You'd get about 60 - 70 watts worth for that price (roughly).

lenny palmer

If you were to make this what would be the best way to store the power. Some sort of battery system. And would you be able to set up a plug like system so you can use the power

mawk

12v deep cycle batteries, and by plug like system, do you mean like mains/house electricity?

If so, yes.

You need an inverter and away you go

ShadowFox

Off grid calculator to work out what you need to get the watts you need
http://www.altestore.com/store/calculators/off_grid_calculator/

Cliona99

One of these sites might be useful too. (I don't know enough about electricity to say for sure!)

http://www.solar-facts.com/power-calculations/

http://www.keralaenergy.gov.in/emc-energy-calc-en.html

ShadowFox

Someone here might be able to help me ive rigged up alarm and cctv with batteries and solar panels that was easy enough
My new plan is to run a chest freezer fridge and 1 light from solar panels and batteries What i want to know is what wattage solar panel and how many batteries i would need to run these 24/7 im unsure of the power of the chest freezer and fridge at present but both are a+ energy rated any help in basic english (idiot proof) would be great I know i need an inverter and a control panel but thats as far as ive got

Watch Ryder

Work out the Ampere Hours that you'll be needed, so get a generic rate of consumption on that fridge-freezer, calculate next what wattage your panels will be getting each day from typical light. As long as your average input from the day is enough to cover the drain from the batteries during the day and night you'll be ok.

However for 24 hr demand that will be a tall order from Irish sunlight, especially right now. So you'll need a good number of panels imho to cover the battery bank as well.

Going fully off-the-grid is a formidable challenge in Europe, not only is it more expensive but the sunlight is less in the UK / Eire areas...

ShadowFox

Watch Ryder wrote: »

Work out the Ampere Hours that you'll be needed, so get a generic rate of consumption on that fridge-freezer, calculate next what wattage your panels will be getting each day from typical light. As long as your average input from the day is enough to cover the drain from the batteries during the day and night you'll be ok.

However for 24 hr demand that will be a tall order from Irish sunlight, especially right now. So you'll need a good number of panels imho to cover the battery bank as well.

Going fully off-the-grid is a formidable challenge in Europe, not only is it more expensive but the sunlight is less in the UK / Eire areas...

I seen something about daylight solar panels and direct sunlight solar panels is there any truth to this or was the sales man just trying to hit me for extra cash ? Im really starting to think that a small wind turbine would be better for what im looking for

waterfordham

To get a closer picture of the load, you could measure how much it is already using, say over a week. You can get measuring unit from Maplins.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/plug-in-mains-power-and-energy-monitor-38343

That will give you watt (or kilowatt) hours. Which you can then work with to figure out the requirements for a 12 Volt System.

eirator

I've been playing around with the Solar Power Calculator here and slowly going off the idea of using just solar power . Not sure of that calculators acuracy but it seems to indicate a winter senario of daily output being somewhat less than the hourly rated max of the units. So a 100Watt panel might produce a max of 0.1 Kilowatts on a winters day.

I still might persue the idea as we have a static caravan and I've plans to work out the costs of powering that from just solar, wind and possibly water power. The requirements would be for lighting, fridge and lower powered gadgets the most power hungry being a laptop. The electic kettle and toaster would have to go! Then scale up the results to see if there is any merit other than Self Sufficiency in doing the same for the house?

Edit also found this site http://www.freesunpower.com/ useful for jargon busting and basic setup info.

ShadowFox

waterfordham wrote: »

To get a closer picture of the load, you could measure how much it is already using, say over a week. You can get measuring unit from Maplins.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/plug-in-mains-power-and-energy-monitor-38343

That will give you watt (or kilowatt) hours. Which you can then work with to figure out the requirements for a 12 Volt System.

I ordered one last week in maplin just waiting on the call to collect it

waterfordham

eirator wrote: »

I've been playing around with the Solar Power Calculator here and slowly going off the idea of using just solar power . Not sure of that calculators acuracy but it seems to indicate a winter senario of daily output being somewhat less than the hourly rated max of the units. So a 100Watt panel might produce a max of 0.1 Kilowatts on a winters day.

This may or may not help. I have two 180watt panels. Facing South/South West lying back at about 10 degrees (maybe less). They are shaded from the Sun during the Winter, so produce very little usable power. (I'm backfeeding the grid with a Micro Inverter)

In July 2013, the system produced a peak of 357 watts on one day, with an overall monthly average for July of 66Watts (i.e. including darkness)

In January 2013, it produced 178 watts peak, with 21 Watts as the overall monthly average. Comparison figures for January 2012 are 170 peak and 9 average.