PV SOLAR CELLS 101 E-BOOK for DIY SOLAR PANELS
This E-Book is advertiser supported. To keep this E-Book going, please feel free to check out our advertisers, Thank you! This E-Book is to help the beginner with making their first "DIY" Solar Panel, using new or broken solar cells. Please read this in its entirety before attempting to make your first DIY solar panel. This E-Book includes hints and tips that I have learned along the way during my experiences of building my first DIY solar panel.
First we are going to start with broken solar cells, they are the most commonly used for beginners, simply because they are reasonably cheaper than new or "whole" solar cells. Make sure when buying your cells they have present on each cell both soldering tabs. This is necessary to make your soldering connections. Remember, on most solar cells whole or broken, the top or the front of the cell is negative and the bottom or the back of the cell is positive. To give you an idea below are pictures of whole solar cells front and back.
A great place to purchase these solar cells is at www.solarcells101.com, they sell whole and broken solar cells at discount prices.   When making a DIY solar panel with broken solar cells remember that broken solar cells will be all different sizes because they are broken. Most of the time the volts per cell will stay the same. However, the current or amp of each cell will be different. For example, lets say you have 36 broken solar cells to use for your panel. They all look good and they have the required two soldering tabs on each cell. The amps may vary from 2 amps to .80 amps. You start by soldering in series, when your finished you should have about a 20 volt panel. However, when you tested the current or amps, you find out that your DIY panel is only putting out .80 amps. Why? Because the one solar cell that is putting out .80 amps drags the other ones down. You can't make a runt do what the other stronger ones can do. To avoid this problem from happening, what you need to do before soldering your cells together is to go through all of the broken solar cells and separate the larger from the smaller or the cells from the most to the least amps. You can then take two small solar cells and solder them together in parallel, or positive to positive, negative to negative , to make one larger solar cell. You then continue in your series this will help even the playing field on your solar cells. With good solar cells your amps will be more even. When starting out I recommend using broken solar cells, this will help with learning the soldering, and handling of the fragile solar cells. When Soldering your solar cells I recommend using rosin core solder 60/40 with non-corrosive flux. Rosin core solder 60/40 melts at very low heat. You can use as low as a 20 watt soldering iron, I recommend no hotter then using a 40 watt soldering iron simple because it is too hot of an iron can start to damage the solar cell. So you will need solder that will melt before the photovoltaic paint does on the solar cells. Low wattage is the key. Example of broken solar cells
 On the next page we will talk about how to solder solar cells. |
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