Archive for the ‘How To Make Solar Panels’ Category

3 Ways To Find Free Solar Panels

Tuesday, November 16th, 2010

Here are 3 ways to find free solar panels or free solar panel parts so you can then create your own panels for home use.

Scour http://CraigsList.com

Craigslist is the place to find great deals or even free stuff 24/7.  There are tons of deals on Craigslist.  I use to search there everyday for used or new solar panels.  This is how I found most of my solar cells and pieces of old or tossed solar panels and equipment.  In order to save time, I would go to Craigslist and use their search and put in keywords like Solar Cells, Solar Panels, Solar Power, Inverters…  You get the idea.  I would search almost everyday for every single part and this is how I built my first FREE solar panel.  You can see pictures of it here => Create-Energy.com

Solar Panel Manufacturers

Pick up the phone and call every single Solar Panel Manufacture in your area.  There are a ton of them now and they are everywhere.  When you get someone on the line ask them if they have any broken or discarded solar panels.  If they say no ask them if they have any solar cells that didn’t meet their requirements.   Either way ask them if you can come pick them up for free.  If they don’t like that idea of giving it to you for free then ask them if they would be willing to sell them to you (this is a cheap way of buying them).  More than likely they will always be willing to receive money from you.  If this doesn’t work, show up to their place of business just before lunch with a pizza.  Give it to them and then ask if they have any scraps that they are going to toss anyways.  This is also a great place to go with questions or your set up.

Become Friendly With Installers

Solar Panel Installers or Companies that install solar panel systems and tie into existing single family homes or commercial spaces are a great place to get Free Solar Panels.  The reason you want to talk with installers is sometimes they pull old solar panel systems off of high end houses and install a new one.  Most of the time they just toss this old equipment even if it works.  Again you need to become friendly with them by calling them up and asking them if they have any used, broken or discarded solar panels.  If they say no then show up with the pizza.  One of my friends got the whole system minus some electrical equipment to hook up to his meter and it works great!

If you want to learn where I learned how to install DIY Solar Panels on your house please visit: Power For Home

How To Make A Solar Panel

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

If you are a motivated do-it-yourself-er like me then you should have no problem with making a solar panel.  I will take here mostly about the basic steps on how to make a solar panel so you can get started.  You can even make this into a business by undercutting all the expensive solar panel companies.

There is really no reason to purchase the large company solar panel system even if you are afraid of electricity.  You can still generate plenty of electricity  with your homemade solar power system.

Once you have a quality manual on how to hook all this together it should be a simple process of hooking all this stuff up.  The best one I found was at Power For Home but you can use anything you can find on the internet.  Most work ok.

This is what you will need:

Plywood,

Sheets of glass,

Roll of copper wire,

Photovoltaic cells (new, used or free)

Charge Controller (ebay) to protect your batteries

An Inverter (ebay)

All you need is the drive and a little direction to start the process of saving money, saving energy and saving the planet all at the same time.

Please let me know what you think about my blog or let me know if you want me to write about something.

Regards,

Kevin

You can see my process here => Create-Energy.com

My First Post on Solar Panels and Green Energy

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

My name is Kevin Adams.  I became interested in Alternative Energy when I was in college.  I would tinker around (even though I am not that handy) with anything I come across.  One of my good friends also shares my passion for Solar Energy or Green Energy.  He actually works for a Solar Power company. 

Over the last couple of years we created several Home Made Solar Power Systems that worked ok.  We just struggled along the way until we found a couple of courses.  You can see our Reviews here: Create-Energy.com  These where a god send and helped us even save more money every month.  After we purchased them: I cut my energy costs at my house by 83%.  Now I save on average $63 per month.  My buddy cut his by almost 70% and saves $98 a month.  With little tweaks here and there we keep on increasing the efficiency or our systems and it is fun!

This was my first post.  I will post more tips and tricks on Do-It-Yourself Solar Panels frequently.  So please come back.  Also please feel free to post questions or comments on this blog.

Regards, Kevin