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DIY Solar Panels – Build Your Own Homemade Solar Panels & Save the Environment Now

admin — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 09:51:13 +0000

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Are Homemade Solar Panels Possible, Economical, and Useful?

With energy prices rising steadily over the last few decades and no reason to think they’ll fall anytime soon, many homeowners are exploring the option of powering their homes with renewable, or “green”, power systems. The two most common home green energy systems are wind turbines and solar panels. Of these two, solar energy panels have emerged as the most popular, due to their solid-state nature – meaning that with fewer moving parts, they require less maintenance over the years.

Unfortunately, installing a solar power system in your home can be prohibitively expensive. Having pre-made solar power panels professionally installed costs at least $3000 – and the price tag only rises quickly from there. To reduce this huge cost, many homeowners are exploring the possibility of building and installing their own homemade solar panels. You may be one of them.

If so, you probably have a lot of questions. Can the average person really build a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) solar power system in their garage or basement? If they could, would it really be significantly cheaper than having it professionally installed? And finally, would homemade solar panels provide enough electricity to be worth all the time and effort? This article will seek to answer these questions.

What Are the Benefits of a Home Solar Power System?

o You can reduce or even eliminate your power bill.

o If you generate surplus electricity, you can sell it to your local power company.

o You can increase the property value of your home.

o You can get tax deductions for using eco-friendly home power systems.

o You no longer have to worry about power outages.

o You help protect the environment – solar energy produces no greenhouse gasses.

What Are the Benefits of Building Homemade Solar Panels?

o Money. Over half of a contractor’s installation fee is time and labor. If you provide this yourself, you can drastically reduce the cost of building and installing your own home solar power system.

o Time. You can build your homemade solar panels in stages, adding new panels and producing more electricity at your own pace.

o Education. By building a home solar power system yourself, you’ll learn how solar electrical technology works. You’ll be able to perform your own maintenance and repairs, further reducing your costs.

Where Can I Find the Materials to Build a Homemade Solar Panel?

Almost all the materials you’ll need to build a DIY solar panel (such as copper wire, plywood, glass, silicone, etc.) can be found at either your local hardware store (such as Home Depot) or electronics store (such as Radio Shack). The same goes for the tools and equipment you’ll need to build your homemade solar panels. Any tool you don’t already have in your garage or basement (such as a voltage meter), you can buy at your local hardware or electronics store.

The lone exception to this rule is the photovoltaic solar cells that you’ll need to build together into DIY solar power panels. Unless you live in a very large city with a specialized solar hardware store, you’ll probably need to order these online or you can make it on your own.

Where Should I Place My Homemade Solar Panels?

The two most common places to put DIY solar panels are either on the roof of your house, or on the ground in your yard.

The roof has emerged as the most popular location for two reasons. First, in order to convert sunlight into electricity, solar energy panels need a direct line-of-sight between them and the sun. Trees, other buildings, or any other obstacle that provides shade or otherwise gets in the way will block the sun from your homemade solar panels. The easiest way to solve this problem is to raise the solar power panels up higher than the obstacles. To do that, of course, you should place the DIY solar panels on the roof.

Second, solar energy panels are big, and take up a lot of space. Furthermore, you will probably need more than one to power your entire home. If you mount your homemade solar panels on the ground, you may quickly fill your entire yard. Mounting DIY solar panels in the roof instead has the advantage of keeping them out of the way and freeing up your yard.

Ground-mounted solar power panels, however, do have one big advantage: accessibility. It is much easier and safer to walk out into your yard than on the roof of your house to perform maintenance and repairs to your homemade solar panels. If you live in a part of the country where there are few trees, such as the Great Plains or the Southwest, and if you own enough property (like a farm) to mount several DIY solar panels and have room to spare, perhaps ground-mounted solar energy panels are the way to go.

What Direction Should I Point My Homemade Solar Panels?

Placing your DIY solar panels perfectly flat, facing straight up, is the best option. This way, no matter where the sun is in the sky or at what angle, sunlight is still hitting the solar panel somewhere. Unfortunately, however, many homes have angled roofs instead of flat, making the “pointing straight up” option impractical. In this case, mount your DIY solar panels on the south-facing side of your roof to collect the most sunlight. In the continental United States, the sun is in the southern part of the sky for the most part.

How Can I Build Homemade Solar Panels?

The answer to that question goes way beyond the scope of this brief article. What we can do, however, is point you in the right direction. The easiest and most efficient route for you to go is to buy a step-by-step instruction manual on how to build DIY solar panels from one of the many websites that sell them. These are usually $50 or less, and well worth the money.

Not all instruction manuals for DIY solar power panels are equal, however. Here are some things to look for when shopping online for a good instruction manual:

o Clear, Step-by-Step Instructions (instead of just overviews)

o Simple, Plain English (instead of confusing technical terms and slang)

o Multiple, Clear Illustrations (instead of just text)

o Demonstration Videos (although not necessary, they are very, very helpful)

o Shopping Tips (for solar cells, deep-cycles batteries, and other hard-to-find items)

o Good Reviews (from past customers)

o Price (more than $60 is too much)

If you can find a high-quality manual, you will start enjoying the benefits of DIY solar panels within 2 weeks, because the manual should be able to teach you to build homemade solar energy panels in just a weekend.

If you’ve enjoyed all the exciting information you read here about Homemade Solar Panels, you’ll love everything else you find at DIY Solar Panels.

Article Source: EzineArticles.com

DIY Solar Panels For the Average Joe DIYer

admin — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 16:22:09 +0000

Today, solar energy is great option for those who would like to save money on their monthly energy bills. A family can build small solar panels to power a section of their house, or they can build a more extensive solar panel system and eliminate their costly energy bills.

If someone wants to begin living off of solar energy, he or she can either spend thousands on a professionally installed system, or choose to build their own. I believe that building your own solar panels is a viable option, and totally possible for anyone who is willing to spend $200 and dedicate a weekend to constructing their solar powered panels

For those interested in DIY solar energy panels, there are a few things you need to keep in mind:

o You’re probably going to need a good DIY solar panel guide

o You need a complete parts list

o You must have access to the necessary tools

o Be ready to put in some work!

Building panels can be tricky, especially if you have no experience. That is why it is crucial to start out right, with a thorough DIY solar panel manual. There are a lot of manuals and guides online to choose from, and some are definitely better than others. You want a guide that has a complete DIY solar panel system manual, a parts list, a money-back guarantee, and training videos. Some offer other bonuses as well, like how to build a windmill or make biodiesel, but you may or may not care about those.

Of course, if you have experience constructing panels or know someone who does, I would not worry about buying a guide. However, if you do plan to purchase a guide, I would check out Green DIY Energy; I have reviewed many DIY guides and Green DIY Energy is my top choice. Earth 4 Energy and Power 4 Home are also good choices.

I like Green DIY Energy the most because it is the most thorough guide, in my opinion. You get access to manuals for constructing a solar power system and a windmill system, a complete parts list, and two hours of “how-to” training videos on the more technical aspects of creating your solar panels.

Another thing I liked was the step-by-step example the Green DIY people gave about how they created a solar panel system for $98. They did that by using used parts or broken parts which needed a little bit of repair work before being implemented into their system. However, if you don’t want to go through that extra work, you can expect to spend a little under $200 buying the needed parts (all new parts) for your DIY solar power system, which is still really cheap.

So that is my two cents on DIY solar power panels and DIY guides. I hope you found the info helpful and good luck on your DIY projects!

Zach Lee is a DIY enthusiast and loves taking on new DIY challenges. The Green DIY Energy Guide is what he followed for his most recent project, DIY solar panels.

He has reviewed many DIY solar panel guides, but only recommends the one he personally used for his home solar panel system. Visit his Green DIY Energy review for the discounted guide.

Click on the above link for a SNEAK PEEK inside of the Green DIY Energy Guide.

Start your DIY solar project today, and cut your energy costs while saving the environment!

Article Source: EzineArticles.com

Solar Energy Ideas ?

admin — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 15:47:14 +0000

So what do you think about Solar Energy.

I have been playing with solar lighting in the garden and having fun with it and I have become interested in doing more in a bigger way. I started looking into solar panels for the home. Ahh! they can be pretty pricey. So what about making your own is it possible? Well Earth 4 Energy seems to think so. So I’m looking into it to find out more. Interested in what I’m learning about Do-It-Yourself Solar for the home. Just click Here

The Secrets Of “Going Green”!

Solar Panels

Solar panels are complex modules of photo-voltaic cells that accumulate sun energy and turn it into electricity; though the system as such seems very complex, from the technical point of view, things are not difficult at all. Depending on the necessity of the user, the solar panels vary in size according to the number of photo-voltaic modules that they incorporate; the modules are hold together by special wiring systems and they function as a field unit. Fiberglass, metal, simple glass or even plastic are used for covering the photo-voltaic cells and creating the exterior of the overall solar panels.

There are some practical conditions to be met for the solar panels to work properly. First of all, the cells in the solar panels have to be connected with each other in order to accumulate and pass on the electric charge. Then, the solar panels have to be protected from the outward environment, since they are very sensitive to aggressive mechanic factors. Thus, you have to take all the measures necessary for the exterior protection against hail, heavy snow and winds. Such precautions are particularly important if your solar panels are made of wafer-based silicon cells that brittle more easily.

You can increase the performance and the life of the solar panels by creating some insulation cover against moisture; hence avoiding metal corrosion is in fact the best way to ensure that the panels remain in good shape. Depending on the type of module structures, solar panels can be flexible if based on thin film cells, or rigid for normal modules. You don’t have to worry about the potential overheating of the cells since there are diodes integrated in the structure of the solar panels that decrease temperature automatically. Moreover, manufacturers most often include special ventilation items in the design of the solar panels.

The most competitive solar panels use a combination of mirrors and lenses to focus solar energy on the cells, thus reducing the energy production costs. Companies are offering extensive innovations in the systems, since the demand for solar panels has registered a real boom over the last ten years. With fast decreasing energy resources, and given the high pollution rate that power plants are responsible for, it’s no wonder people are looking for alternative energy sources. Solar panels can cover up to 80% of the heat and electricity needs of a household, with the mention that they can be applied for all sorts of landscaping light systems too.

Want to learn about solar panels? Visit our website: Beginner Guide to Solar Panels