Made a silly mistake and purchased 72 1.8w solar cells...

boltneck123

I need to make a solar panel now, how...? I need to figure that bit out now, I should be able to generate 140w if I wire them in series.

Any thoughts?

stef73

Any help? http://www.all-recycling-facts.com/build-your-own-solar-panel.html

[Deleted User]

I have met someone on my rounds who bodged together a full allowance of the solar panel limit by just getting them cheap off ebay, never registed them with his supplier and just wired them in himself. He erected them only on his large garage.

boltneck123

thank you stef73 that is a great help, I have been reading various sites since I bought them and the more info the better.

sacsquacco, what do you mean the solar power limit? Are we only allowed so many panels ?

lstar337

There is a guy on Youtube that does a full video on making a solar panel from individual cells. I would start there.

WestonDave

boltneck123 wrote: »

thank you stef73 that is a great help, I have been reading various sites since I bought them and the more info the better.

sacsquacco, what do you mean the solar power limit? Are we only allowed so many panels ?

If you get too close to (and certainly over) 4kW in generation power your supply entering the grid could cause problems with local substations. Technically you are supposed to inform the local network maintainer if you connect any generator to the grid for safety (for example if you had a lot of solar power feeding into the grid when they thought it was all switch off, someone working on it could get a nasty shock!).

That said I don't think your 140W is going to trouble anyone especially if its not going to be wired into your mains supply (e.g. put on a shed to power a light via a battery etc)

boltneck123

Ahh I am with you.

Yes Istar337 thank you , I found some videos on youtube, there are some really good ones. I know how to string the cells together now and what I need to do it. I think I could very easily build a housing for them and source some glass.

Yeah WestonDave, I am not going to be really able to produce much worth worrying about if I was to even bother connecting to the grid. Which I wont be, don't see any point.

Yeah it is looking like the shed will be making use of them, luckily for me, I haven't built my shed yet so I can take the time to find the most sun covered spot. It can also act as my experimental system, while I start the learning process to fully understand how a decent system should be set up, inverters, series or parallel wiring etc etc.

Going to need a battery bank, or maybe just even one battery with such a small generation. Obviously has to be cheap, but I need to weigh the cost up against quality and long term durability..... anyone got any suggestions?

macman

This may be a fascinating and highly educational project. But don't even begin to kid yourself that it will ever return your investment. Especially if you are intending to store the power you produce in batteries.

boltneck123

No, not with 140 watts lol of course not. Everyone needs a hobby though I guess.

I might start a thread and keep a diary on it or post my progress on this thread. Told my father about my silly purchase and he has some thoughts, he is an electrician so I should get it wired right at least .

boltneck123

I may as well detail how much I paid for the cells.

I got them for £23.99.

That is the first cost of this project.

boltneck123

ok so I know that I now need a pure sine wave inverter if I want a clean AC supply to say charge a phone and at a push maybe use a laptop or watch a very small TV screen and that is optimistic!