I took the solar plunge

[Titantornado]

Well, I knew I wanted to get solar panels in the future, to supplement my wind turbine on those calm days, but I didn't think it was going to happen so soon.  The deal was too good to pass up.  On ebay, a guy had Sharp 175w single crystal panels, for 24v systems, (same as my turbine now under construction) at $4 per watt.  Some new, some about two years old.  The best part is, he's only 51 miles away.  I bought 1050 watts worth, which pretty much killed the reserves in my bank account, but like I said, I couldn't let this one get away.   I won't be able to use them yet, so they'll go into storage until I'm ready for them, but I doubt prices will come down in the foreseeable future, hence my expenditure.

Life's a gamble!

[troy]

You are right on the money.

Everything has risk.

Getting out of bed in the morning has real risks.  But what most people don't consider is that staying in bed has risks too!  Just ask anybody with a bed sore. (ewww...)

Buying the panels brings risk (somebody could invent the 10 cent per watt panel made from recycled dirt tomorrow), but failure to buy affordable panels is much more risky.

Good luck and keep us posted.

troy

[DanG]

I recommend crating up the panels as is you were shipping them to yourself in the future - a 4x8 sheet of 3/8" plywood and some 2x3's and wire it up w/ a heavy bailing wire and hammer-in staples or somesuch.

One, it will keep prying eyes from 'knowing' there is $6,000 worth of PV panels begging to be liberated; and if they really are in deep storage there's all sorts of attended & unattended disasters lurking. I've had a chain reaction of falling objects travel around a room to end with a steel lathe part topple onto $300 worth of PV cells way back when - my current cache of PV cells sleep in their own 'safe' disguised as a workbench waiting for best method to mount them...

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