| If you are looking at making your own solar | | | | help if you have never worked with solar cells, |
| panels, the first thing you need to look into is the | | | | you very well might break some yourself. |
| solar cells. The solar cells are the heart and soul of | | | | When looking to purchase, make sure the math |
| your solar panels and your whole solar power | | | | adds up with the cells you are looking at. When I |
| system. They determine how much power you | | | | say math, I mean watts, amps, volts. Use |
| will be getting and how much surface area you will | | | | Ohm’s Law. Ohm’s Law is: amps = watts |
| need to create this power. If you are working | | | | volts, volts = watts/amps, watts = volts*amps. |
| with a limited amount of surface area, look for | | | | If the math does not add up, there is something |
| higher effiency solar cells. | | | | that the seller is not telling you or doesn’t |
| When buying solar cells, there are three common | | | | know. |
| types of cells on the market. Multicrystalline, | | | | To purchase solar cells you can try doing a |
| Polycrystalline and Monocrystalline. All three types | | | | search. I found major suppliers (10,000+ orders) |
| of cells are pretty equal as far as the effieciency | | | | and solar panel companies on major search |
| goes. Monocrystalline cells tend to be less brittle. If | | | | engines, but not much for small-mid solar cell |
| you noticed, the corners are not there to break | | | | orders. You can try for small to mid sized orders. |
| off during shipping. Shipping is kind of a “gray | | | | Let’s hope that in the future we can all say |
| area” in the solar cell market for | | | | ”green killed oil”. |
| nonrefundable brakage. So if you need 12 solar | | | | . |
| cells, maybe order 14 just in case. This will also | | | | |