Author Topic: Best way to build a panel?  (Read 1676 times)

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orochi8

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Best way to build a panel?
« on: June 05, 2005, 01:14:56 AM »
I just picked up a 2 pound shipment of cells from cusdn on ebay, and Im fixin to build me a couple panels, so I thought Id run my plan by you guys and ask for some suggestions before getting started.


Im thinking the easiest way to do it is to make a backing of aluminum sheet metal with the biggest and baddest aluminum heat sync I can get my grubby hands on attached to it. Then I would get my self a nice big 3/16ths sheet of that more solid neoprene gasket material and cut sections out for each cell as a stand off between the aluminum backing and the glass to give the whole pannel some stability and shock absorbtion potential without making it rigid. Then like many others, attach the cells to the aluminum with a glob of silicon (im actually thinking a small glob in the center, and one at each courner of the cell), and do the whole wd40 coating thing. To seal it up Im counting on the neoprene gasket and some gentle force from the frame (which I think a standard aluminum picture frame might prove effective for) to keep things tight, rather than silicone arround the edges, simply because Im guessing I might want to open it up at some point for repairs.


I'll probably go with a standard 36 cell configuration, but Im thinking it would be best to do the whole lot of them in series rather than a series parallel config, just so the panel will actually do something when it has a little cloud cover. Otherwise Im may do a smaller number of cells on several easy to carry pannels that I can just string a bunch of together in series for what ever voltage floats my boat at the moment. These are going on the top of a little van conversion RV, so easy handling does have certain advantages for me that it wouldnt for people setting up an array that is just going to sit in the same place on a tracker all year long.


So what do you guys think? Any suggestions?


-Thanks

-Orochi



Editors note:


This probably would be better as a Diary entry than normal story post.


This subject has been pretty thoroughly covered in the recent past.



« Last Edit: June 05, 2005, 01:14:56 AM by (unknown) »

orochi8

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Re: Best way to build a panel?
« Reply #1 on: June 04, 2005, 08:25:37 PM »
Aaah, just figured out where editors notes can be found, sory for any confusion that might have been caused.


-Thanks

-Orochi

« Last Edit: June 04, 2005, 08:25:37 PM by orochi8 »