Home made panels, who's got the oldest?

[cyplesma]

Someone just asked is it possible to make your own panels, which it is, but it's not necessarily as cheap as one might imagine.

But my question is What's the most time some one has on their homemade panels?

[cyplesma]

Well, I guess I should start.

I've only made one panel and I got about 3 weeks use out of it, before the cells finally started to get cracked.

[AbyssUnderground]

Almost 1 year now out of thin film cells but the weather is taking its toll on them and its started seeping in between the glass and the panel. It barely puts out 50% of what it did 12 months ago.

[luckeydog]

I have a home brew solar panel using a double pane sliding glass door

 and using silicone to hold the cells in place. the panel is almost 3 years

old a few cells have cracked but it has not affected the output from what

I can tell.

the panel is vented to keep water from building up inside. I live in a low

humidity climate so this is why i have gotten away with this so far.

Luckeydog

[cyplesma]

I made mine backwards.

I soldered the tabs to the front of the panels, laid them out on a piece of plexiglass soldered the back sides then hot glued them to the plexiglass.

only then to find out how much the plexiglass bent was bad....

but then I started to drill some holes next to the cells, that was really bad...

finally hot glued a wooded dowel 1/4" to the plexiglass that helped, and the panel did very well till I laid it down and the cat decided to walk on it.  then it was toast. Cat is only 10lbs.

I should have done more measuring up front and made a real frame of some kind. then mounted the cells. but I wouldn't recommend hot glue. I used the high temp stuff just so there would be less of a chance for the sun to loosen the glue, but even the high temp stuff eventually has given way.

I leave the panel on the floor where the cat likes to lay on it. I figure something at least can get a little more use out of it.

[terramir]

My panels are about three years old, one of the panels has some problems right now, but if my life wasn't so busy latly I'd probably have that fixed by now. But one panel been producing about 2A consitantly(10:30am to 4:30pm) even at this high a temp right now in los angeles.

terramir