Making a Homemade Solar Panel - Basic Steps

Do you wish to learn how to make a homemade solar panel?

With the continually rising costs of keeping your home warm or cool, or even just the cost of having hot running water on tap, many people are looking to install solar panels as an alternative to using electricity from the grid.

This is a great idea and adds to environment protection by channeling natural energy from the sun to make our lives more practical and much easier.

There is a little glitch with solar panels, though. Unless you have upwards of about $20,000.00 stashed away in your savings account that you are sure you won't need in an emergency, then buying solar panels can make a huge dent in your monthly budget. All is not lost, though - you will reap the rewards in the long run by saving on the amount of money you spend on your utilities bill every month.

The solution to the rising costs of solar panels is to make your own homemade solar panel with a few tools and some of the items that clutter your garage. At the most, you will have to spend around $100.00 to make your own homemade solar panels.

The most important items that you will need are solar cells, which are responsible for absorbing the sun's energy and then transforming it into energy that you can use. Solar cells are very fragile and there are a few places that sell second hand solar cells that you can still use. The size of the solar panel will differ depending on the amount of power you need, and this will also determine the amount of solar cells you need to buy.

Once you have bought the right amount of solar cells, you can get to work making the casing that the solar cells need to be connected in. This is easily done by using wood, which you would cut and screw together to make a thin flat box. Once the box is made, you will add a shelf in the box on which you will attach the solar cells on with silicone. When making your homemade solar panel, silicone is used as opposed to glue so that the solar cells have space to expand and contract in the box without breaking.

The solar cells are then soldiered together using special metal tags or wire - be sure to soldier them in series and not parallel so that you can get the maximum power to the converter. The solar cells should have tabs on the back on which you will soldier the special wire onto without damaging the cells.

Once this is done, you will need to attach a diode to the end of the string of solar cells, making sure that the wire is long enough to reach the converter you are going to plug the solar panels into. It is time to test your homemade solar panels to see how much power they will give you, and this is done by using an electric meter.

All that remains to do now is to cut and attach plexiglass to the outside of the box so that the solar panels are protected from falling debris and cold conditions while still absorbing the maximum amount of solar energy from the sun. Install your brand new homemade solar panel on the roof and you will soon enjoy almost free electricity to your home.

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