Making simple solar panels in poorer countries

If you are not from a poor country, maybe http://greenenergy.offer4you.org/ products, about bigger systems, might be of more interesting. I don't have any personal experience of their products. They look interesting. If any of you follow that link and try the products, I'd like to hear what you think. If the products are a disappointment and you describe convincingly why, I will remove the link.

This video is an introductory film from Graham Knight about DIY Do It Yourself construction of solar panels (by cutting up large commercial sheets and adding simple connections) suitable for running radios and mobile phones in developing countries. His site: http://biodesign.webeden.co.uk/
He has made a better presentation of this project here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qT0x9VCWqA

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• appropriate
• technology
• solar
• panels

[cheapsolarpanels1]

I'm a fan of DIY guide, specially guides like this one...

Nice and informative video...

[swahili77]

@cheapsolarpanels1 I'm glad you liked it. I think it has a certain value, though I can understand the people that are disappointed when it doesn't describe the whole process.

[craigbarnes85]

Wow this is awesome - now I can listen to the radio and send text messages while I am starving to death. Thanks friend!

[swahili77]

@craigbarnes85 I know can sound like bad priority with the picture we usually have of developing countries. Of course for someone acutely starving, it would be better to get food. But even a small energy source like this can make a big difference- less kerosene lamps needed (cost, fumes, and child poisonings connected with that). Contact with buyers in the city (by SMS or cell) can make a big difference for the price a rural farmer can get for his products.

[oldskulziom]

in poorer countries you are left-cableing electricity from railroad transformer

[swahili77]

@oldskulziom I don't know what you mean. I'm guessing that some people that live near a transformer station could use a coil to get some power from the magnetic field around a transformer. Is that what you mean? It isn't legal and will probably be discovered if any sizeable power is tapped that way. (I'm not making a moral judgement, just stating the situation).

[Aldivine]

pAL , you should Change the TiTLE of your video , it says HOW TO MAKE cheap SOLAR PANELS! so people wants to see How to make cheap solar panels! thats all.

[404goat]

in a poor countries, we don't speak english :D subtitles please.

[oldskulziom]

@swahili77 ok. some former Polish railroad (PKP) employees that had been working in company for a long time, and where poor during comunism obtained social houses that where near the railway... they connect cables to something (i do not know what exacly, it looks like they are connecting them to the transformer) and they are leeching electricity. they know everybody in the PKP, so nobody make problems about it. yes, it's illegal, but it is not mass-scale. my homie told me about 2 of them/ 80 km

[fastplayer100]

thank you for this video

[TheBuguela89]

Great video! This will be my next guide to creating one a little better then the original I did.

[swahili77]

@404goat Sorry. I would recommend looking at Grahams later video at: /watch?v=_qT0x9VCWqA but that is also in English. If there were English subtitles to that, would you know how to get Youtube to translate to the language you want? (Which language by the way?) I have seen that good English subtitle can be auto-translated to Swahili and Swedish pretty well.