Advertised on Ebay

[wildbill hickup]

A few weeks ago I saw an ad on Ebay for solar panels by the pound. They looked more like individual cells to me salvaged from old solar panels. As I remember the outfit was in Masacusettes. Well I didn't have any money then so I figured I'd come back (they seemed to be a pretty big company)later. Well now I have the money and I can't find them. The price seemed to be very reasonable. Did anyone see the ad or know of this company. The picture just showed a box of cells(w/ pigtails and I think you could get like 50 of them for 30 bucks or something like that. They offered in-person testing and take the ones you want or they would send pretested units if you weren't in the area.

Wildbill

[Matrix1000]

Yah I have their contact information... I purchased 2lbs from them about 1/4 of them arrived shattered...They are literally like ultra thin glass playing cards.

I'm still waiting for my backordered 'coldheat' soldering gun to come in...I thought that might work better because it does instant heat and wont mess up the pannels www.coldheat.com

As for the pannels do a search on ebay for "5911372799"

Member Profile: cusdn

I held them by hand in the sun and put a voltmeter to them and got 1.3 volts on a slightly chipped one and got 0.54volts ... btw the pannel got smoking hot burnt my fingers...they sure do suck up the sun!

Hope that helps

[Dan M]

Try this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3240&item=5912249230&rd=1

For future reference, you can search past items on ebay.  You have to log in, then go to search, and check "completed items only".

Good Luck,

-Dan M

[veewee77]

I bought 2 pounds of those and had nearly 50% unusable.

They don't pack them well when they ship them.  They are very thin glass-like pieces.  You could tell when unwrapped that they were probably complete units when wrapped since the whole thing was there, just shattered.

I was hoping to get enough cells to make a 48V panel but as it is, I can only get about 24 (enough to charge 24V worth of batteries, actually the cells are closer to 28V).

Those are 3A at .54V rated cells.

Doug

[wildbill hickup]

Thanks, as always you guys have the answers. I intand on going there direct they claim you can cull through the units and pick out the ones you want. That's what I'm hoping for. I will post when I'm ready to go if enyone wants me to pick them up some and I'll do a better job of shipping.

Thanks again

Wildbill

[nwcpro]

   I purchased 10 pounds of these cells and am currently building my own panels.  I learned one thing right off:  DO NOT use fiberglass resin to mount the cells!  The different expansion rates destroy the cells every time it heats up.

   I should take some pics of the assembly process, since it can be tricky and it might help someone else.

   Breakage was around 30-40 percent, but with some super glue and a soldering iron, many of them were salvaged.  The only thing I haven't come up with yet is a clear covering to protect the panels.