Solar Panel DIY

[jetter]

just wondering if any of you peeps have actually done one of these projects before.  I'm not talking about tying back to the grid (maybe down the road) but just a stand-alone solar panel project to power your pc or something small like that.  I've been reading a lot lately and planning on doing something similar in the spring.  I've read a lot of DIY solar panel books, solar cell books and some other books.  I've even look at hands on classes (cost way too much) to see if I can just attend a weekend crash course on building one of these.

Let me know if you any of you guys had done one of these small projects; build your own panel or bought a kit panel.  If so post what you learned; I was thinking of getting a little hobby club going where I am at and help poor people like me go green.  All that the homeowner have to pay for are the parts instead of paying $15K for a system that ties to the grid.

[jetter]

I will post pictures of the steps when I do my project in the spring.  I have set aside 1K for this project; will be buying solar cell and building my own panel; most of the parts will be coming from ebay.

I will post my schematics once I am ready with that part.

[six]

I've done small scale projects of that sort.  It sucks!!!  In my opinion, it's just a tad bit above scam at this time....mainly because of the high cost involved and lack of a good efficient photovoltaic panels.  The projected savings don't take into account maintenance, degradation in efficiency for the cheap panels, repairs, weather, location, etc etc.  You will be much better off at trying to conserve energy...throu gh energy efficient appliances, cleaning/replacing filters, fixing missing insulations, etc etc.  And those panels take up a lot of space.  I don't think the technology is ready yet.  Wait 5-10 more years.  But it'll be fun to try, good luck!!!

Anyhow, I wouldn't hook a PC to a solar power grid.  The power supply might get fried, and it'll take everything else including your hard drives with it.

[thePoster]

Its actually pretty easy if you understand the concept of it.

They sell kits for "cheap" and you can run a house if you wanted too on it.

I looked at some and thought about buying a set for a "gaming" shack I was thinking about building so we can play video games all the time and not feel guilty about running up the electricity bill becuase there would be none!

What you need is solar collectors, some kinda capacitator, a power inverter and power regulator and that's about it. 

They kits I saw is very simple, they just had some solar panels, batteries, a dc to ac converter with built in power regulator and thats it.  Then you just plug into it.

If you want to get all fancy it'll cost a little more.

Only fear I have is the battery leaking, that'll suck, but then they do sell some batteries that are seald up, but then you gotta worry about gas.  Oh well, just keep it out of the way and ventilated I guess. 

But yeah, it's very simple.  I'll know my mom will appreciate an electricity bill that's only 25 bucks a month.  If you think about it, they sun is such  a huge resource yet nobody uses it.  The square footage on your roof is an absolute waste if there's no solar panels up there. 

[jetter]

that's for the input guys.  I've been waiting 5-10 years already, I can't wait another 5-10 years.  Solar is what it is; it is moving on slowly due to the slow demands; so I am going to make the jump and just do a little project.  It's not going to kill my comp if I set things up correctly.  Solar Panel building is really easy.

[thePoster]

I miss the part where u said u as just powering a laptop.  Fort that you are not going to even spend more than 300, 500 max and even then you'd still have enough power to run like a radio and small tv too.

[six]

Its actually pretty easy if you understand the concept of it.

They sell kits for "cheap" and you can run a house if you wanted too on it.

I looked at some and thought about buying a set for a "gaming" shack I was thinking about building so we can play video games all the time and not feel guilty about running up the electricity bill becuase there would be none!

What you need is solar collectors, some kinda capacitator, a power inverter and power regulator and that's about it. 

They kits I saw is very simple, they just had some solar panels, batteries, a dc to ac converter with built in power regulator and thats it.  Then you just plug into it.

If you want to get all fancy it'll cost a little more.

Only fear I have is the battery leaking, that'll suck, but then they do sell some batteries that are seald up, but then you gotta worry about gas.  Oh well, just keep it out of the way and ventilated I guess. 

But yeah, it's very simple.  I'll know my mom will appreciate an electricity bill that's only 25 bucks a month.  If you think about it, they sun is such  a huge resource yet nobody uses it.  The square footage on your roof is an absolute waste if there's no solar panels up there. 

What have you setup???

[six]

What happened to the status update???

[SeattleLite]

What your trying to do doesn't make sense.  A laptop sucks up way too much power for a cheap DIY solar panel project.  You want to think smaller.  Try powering up a some LEDs instead.   

Depending on the power of system and it's efficiency, I would imagine your solar panel taking a month or longer to charge your laptop.  Afterwards, your laptop will run for 2 hours?  Doesn't make any sense. 

Just go in the forest and look at how the power utilities run their system.  They have some panels 6'x10'.  They charge up some capacitor/battery banks which powers a remote data transmitter system.  Besides when the data is transmitted, the system uses very little energy on a day to day basis.   

Your system would be alot smaller than what I described above and suck up alot more power. 

[sinister357]

totally doable considering laptop consumes 60 - 80 watts only. but it's not pratical costwise unless you're in a remote area with no power at all (not even a car battery.) heres a 60 watt kit w/ inverter from home depot.

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&productId=202520935&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&ci_sku=202520935&ci_kw={keyword}&cm_mmc=shopping-_-googleads-_-pla-_-202520935&ci_gpa=pla&locStoreNum=2843

[Peachy Fish]

Oooh, where's your update?