PART 7: $100 70w Solar Panel DIY project

After having good success with adding a small solar panel at my home, I thought I would try to design and built one myself with the goal of having it near as good as a commercially purchased panel. No wood. No paint.

In PART 1 I covered project objectives and I went over the design alternatives.
In PART 2 I covered the basic parts and initial frame concept.
In PART 3 I covered aluminum frame design considerations, options, and selection of approach.
In PART 4 I covered cutting out the backing material and early cell tabbing work.
In PART 5 I covered cutting out the aluminum frame, and then I shared my tabbing results.
In PART 6 I covered some backing and adhesive test results and set a plan for final panel assembly.

In this PART 7 I show the final finished panel.

Video capture was done with a Casio EX-S12 camera. Video editing was done with Microsoft's Movie maker.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• solar
• solar panel
• solar energy
• diy
• how to
• engineering
• solar cells
• tabbing
• aluminum frame

[shartne]

wow you did a great job on that how is it doing still. You should make a bunch of those.

[Fearlessthinker]

@shartne Well, it didn't last. One of the cells broke in the high heat and that broke the connection. In the process of opening it up and trying to fix it more cells broke so I junked it. You are the expert now my friend! Carry on! Thanks for the comment. I enjoy your videos.

[koolb2112]

I have most of the materials and held out on the glass and encapsulation method so far. I must see a non Slyguard/EVA system out in the weather for months before Ii commit to that version. How's it going so far and how much weather has this been exposed to? Also did you measure the VxA at the beginning to compare with after being outside for a few months?

[Fearlessthinker]

@koolb2112 It has held up just fine but I expect the glass to break eventually due to hail. I would also use 10 AWG wire if I were to do it again as I have seen 8A spikes. The FRP also gets very hot since it is thick vs a thin backing such as tedlar or eva. That heat severely reduces watts. I now can get commercial panels delivered for about $1.75/w so DIY is hard to justify.

[wiboater4]

That is a nice looking panel.

[Fearlessthinker]

@wiboater4  Thanks.

[Fearlessthinker]

@wiboater4 No, I soldered a string of 10 cells firstt, then laid them on top of the FRP after applying a small dab of silicon on the FRP in the center of where each cell would go. I just used a 6" x 36" piece of cardboard to carefully transport each string to the FRP.

[Fearlessthinker]

@ormonddude Per part 1 the EVA or Sylgard is too expensive so I went with a silicon sealed cavity with minimim air instead.  So far so good!

[wiboater4]

Did you do your soldering with the cells layed face down on the glass then glue the FRP on? Biggest problem I had was being careful not to break cells when moving them around. Are those 3 X 6 cells a little thicker than the 5 X 5 s?

[wiboater4]

@ormonddude The EVA with shipping is almost the same price as the syl gard. The sylgard 184 is probably easier to use but I did have air bubbles when I did mine but I used 5 X 5 cells . weight the cells with plastic water bottles or soda cans filled with water til the sylgard is cured.