Do You Want To Learn Successfully How To Make A Solar Panels
For Your Home?

How I Personally Make My First DIY Solar Panels
In 2 Days For Less Than $200...
So You Can Also Make Solar Panels Installation
For Your Home By Your Self.

Do you want to make a solar panels for your home? Despite any preconceived ideas you might have about make a solar panels, read the following page carefully and you are in for a big surprise.

A year ago, I decided to make a solar panels for my home, but I was completely lost information and didn't have a clue where to start.

I started doing research online (Google, Yahoo, Bing, Article, blog, etc), but soon started worrying that this is going to be a lot more difficult than I thought. Apparently, I received information overload.

I also had no idea what tools I need, what materials would I need to make a solar panels and where to get everything. If I buy any materials and tools, it will be a lot of losses that will be encountered.

Make a solar panels for my home was my way to try save my money and reduce my electricity bill, so cost was one of my big concerns of mine (especially the cost of all the materials needed).

So what I did was get my hands on a guide to help me.

Here’s how I make my first solar panels from scratch.

"Let's Get Started..."

I managed to get all the components I needed
at much below the usual market cost
(Thanks to the guide)

…and within 3 days it was all delivered.

I bought a couple of bricks of 3 X 6 mono-crystalline solar cells. To make a panel, it takes a total of 36 pieces of these type solar cells wired in series. Each cell produces about 1/2 Volt and 36 pieces in series would give about 18 volts which would be good for charging 12 volt batteries.

After I buy solar cells, I put them away in a safe place where they won't get dropped, broken or played with my kids. These solar cells are very fragile. Thus rough treatment and excessive handling will turn your expensive solar cells into little, blue, shiny shards that aren’t useful for anything.

Let's to make a solar panels NOW!

After reading through the first two chapters of the guide, I understood how electricity and solar panels works so much better. This was very crucial to understand how to store it later.

“Step 1: Building The Box”

A solar panel is really just a shallow box. So I started out by building myself a shallow box. I made the box shallow so the sides wouldn’t shade the solar cells when the sun comes at an angle from the sides.

It is made of 3/8 inch thick plywood with 3/4 X 3/4 pieces of wood around the edges. Here is a close-up showing one half of the main panel. This well will hold one 18 cell sub-panel.

Notice the little holes drilled in the edges of the well. This will be the bottom of the panel (it is upside down in the photo, sorry).

These are vent holes to keep the air pressure inside the panel equalized with the outside, and to let moisture escape.

Next I cut two pieces of masonite peg-board to fit inside the wells. They were cut to be a loose fit in the wells.

You don’t have to use peg-board for this. I just happened to have some on hand. Just about any thin, rigid and non-conducting material should work. To protect the solar cells from the weather, the panel will have a plexiglass front.

Here two pieces of scrap plexiglass have been cut to fit the front of the panel. I didn’t have one piece big enough to do the whole thing. Glass could also be used for this, but glass is fragile. Hail stones and flying debris that would shatter glass will just bounce off the plexi.

Now you can start to see what the finished panel will look like.

Next I gave all the wooden parts of the panel several coats of paint to protect them from moisture and the weather. The box was painted inside and out.

“Step 2: The Solar Cells”

Here are some of my cleaned solar cells.

They are amazingly fragile and difficult to handle and store. I would recommend leaving them as bricks until you are ready to install them in your panel. That way you won’t wreck them before you get to use them. So build the panel first.

Now it’s time to start installing them in the panel. Soldering the cells together was tricky at first, but I got the hang of it fairly quickly.

Start out with just two cells upside-down. Lay the solder tabs of one cell across the solder points on the back of the other cell. As instructed, I made sure the spacing between the cells matched the grid pattern.

I repeated the guide’s instruction and soldered solar cells together until I had a string of six cells. I soldered tabs from scrapped cells to the solder points on the back of the last cell in the string of six. Then I repeated the whole process two more times to get three strings of six cells for a total of 18 for this half of the panel.

Gluing the cells in place proved to be a little tricky.

I placed a small blob of clear silicone caulk in the center of each cell in a six cell string. Then I flipped the string over and set in place on the pencil line grid I had laid out earlier. I pressed lightly in the center of each cell to get it to stick to the pegboard panel. Flipping the floppy string of cells is tricky.

The guide recommended that another set of hands may be useful in during this step, and I absolutely agree.

Here is one half panel finished…

…and here I am testing first half panel outside in the sun. In weak sun through clouds the half panel is producing 9.31 Volts. YAHOO! It works! Now all I had to do is build another one just like it.

Once I had two half panels complete, I could install them in their places in the main panel frame and wire them together.

Each of the half panels dropped right into their places in the main panel frame. I used four small screws (like the silver one in the photo) to anchor each of the half panels in place.

“Step 3: Wiring Things Up”

Wires to connect the two half panels together were run through the vent holes in the central divider. Again, blobs of silicone caulk were used to anchor the wire in place and prevent it from flopping around.

I drilled a hole in the back of the panel near the top for the wires to exit. I put a knot in the wires for strain relief, and anchored them in place with yet more of the silicone caulk.

It is important to let all the silicone caulk cure well before screwing the plexiglass covers in place.

I have found through past experience that the fumes from the caulk may leave a film on the inside of the plexiglass and the cells if it isn’t allowed to thoroughly cure in the open air before screwing on the cover.

“The Final Result”

I know this might seem very complicated now but working with instructions that makes sense made all the difference for me.

If you’re want to make your own solar panels and have a budget of about $200 available, with 2 days to spare (this weekend?), you can’t go wrong with the guide that I used.