Does anyone have experience with solar panels and putting them together?
Asked by
Steve_A (
5130
)
May 26th, 2010
I have been wanting to do a “Do it yourself” type thing with solar panels when I ran across this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR4phYUiGQs&feature=fvw
I assumed you needed one whole piece of solar panel to make it work but apparently you can have broken pieces and solder them together.
Then I seen a calculator with a broken little solar panel popped out at work and thought I could probably find a bunch of broken and left over solar panels from devices that people throw away….right?(Well I guess there is not that many but hey…)
Do only certain solar panels connect? Are they all built off the same design or is there a difference?
Anyone have some insight or ideas? Things I should know ahead of time?
What will this likely cost me? One last question how hard is it to just build one from scratch, if that is even possible with DIY that is.
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7 Answers
Those aren’t broken pieces of solar panels. They’re just small solar panels and they’re all soldered together. Solar panels are give out direct current. So you can connect them up just like you would connect up batteries. You connect them in parallel and/or in series depending on whether you want to make a bigger voltage or bigger current.
This video explains in more detail
@LeotCol Oh I see the guy in the video probably meant it that way then.
@Steve_A They have some chips off the corners and stuff like that too. They’ll work like that but you need to have enough of it left for the positive and negative pads to be in contact.
Looks like @LeotCol has got it covered pretty well. To clarify terminology: the small units are called Cells, they are wired together to form PV Panels of a specified voltage and wattage, they are then connected together to form a PV Array which can power a DC load directly or charge a Battery Bank through a Charger/Monitor. If the load to be powered is AC, the output from the battery must be run through an Inverter. A special Interface Inverter is needed to feed this power into the electric utility grid.
Steve_A what he is removing are not the solar panels those are solar cells the solar cell is what actually generates the electricity by converting the sunlight’s energy (photons) into a flow of electrons (electricity). The solar cells are then connected together and encased in one unit that is the solar panel. Just be aware of the risk of building your own solar panels, that if you don’t know exactly what you are doing you could build something that might later catch on fire and burn whatever you attach them to to the ground. So please be careful. If you are looking to provide your home with power I strongly suggest finding a professional solar installer to do the job right. Hope that helps. Don’t mean to discourage you, I am just concerned for your safety :-)
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