GreenerBusiness 20: Broken Solar Panels

This week on the GreenerBusiness podcast we solder together broken solar panels, giving them new life as a functional AA battery charger (which produces about 6 volts in direct sunlight and about 3 volts indoors).

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• solar
• panel
• power
• solder
• break
• broken
• AA
• battery
• charger
• how-to
• project
• design
• make
• build
• sun
• sunlight

[LiquidChem]

ahhhhh! ftw! SOLDER gas IS POISONOUS!

[rccosmos]

@LiquidChem Don't breathe.

[LiquidChem]

@rccosmos sucha simple solution, just dont breathe! LOL and here I am wearing a respirator in my lab. :D I wish I could hold my breath for chemical experiments

[rccosmos]

@LiquidChem Well, it takes some practice.

[eraldorh]

Itd be cheaper and easyier to use one of those car trickle chargers as they are perfect, you can hook them up to a usb cable or car charger and that will convert the 12v into 5v for small devices like phones, mp4s ect.

[LiquidChem]

@matteo311 i agree, except i am certain there is not a solder that wouldnt be toxic when burned. all solders are made of metal yes? smoke from any burning sunbstance is toxic, metal is worse than most

[matteo311]

@LiquidChem It depends of the type of solder, but I don't recommend breathing in any solder.

[fragwits]

there are pens used to remove ink from paper. (hard brush, pensil size)

they are great for scuffing laquer off of copper lines on circuit boards ( used them at work) should also be perfect for this :)

[LiquidChem]

@rccosmos hahahah yeah practice holding your breath for hour long procedures, lots of practice! lol :D

[g20cascade]

You should use some flux in order to get the solder to bond better with the strips on the cells, not scratch them, though it will work. And if you were going for protable, then you could have used something a little smaller than a picture frame, like a CD case with the smaller bits of cells instead.