Solar Panels Explained

In todays modern energy hungry world, diy solar panels are fast becoming a safe and affordable alternative to grid supplied power for those wishing to be more power self sufficient. When you build your own solar panels you utilize the enormous power of the sun to provide abundant energy for your home. Everyone is doing it, heck, they even use solar powered signs at roadworks now.  So what makes up solar panels ? What kind of materials are diy solar energy panels made from and how do they provide useable electricity to run your house on. ?  So if you are interested in diy solar power, let’s take a look at just how diy solar panels work and how they produce power.

The technology that solar panels use all comes down to the  two main types of solar heat collection. These are solar cells and solar collectors. In most cases when it comes to diy solar panels, solar cells are generally most peoples choice if you want to build your own solar panel.  These solar cells are also commonly known as photovoltaic cells, these are what makes up photovoltaic panels. Sounds like a very scary word does’nt it ? Photovoltaic. Like something that you would normally find in a science textbook but it is not really that bad, In fact, it’s actually quite self descriptive once you break it down. It goes like a little something like this. The equasion is photo = light, voltaic = electricity (think volts). Basically this is energy or volts that emanate from light or sunlight in this case. These special cells are mostly made up out of silicone which is a great semi conductor. It’s nothing new, infact it is the same silicone technology that your pc is using as you read this. Silicone is also widely used in do it yourself solar power due to it’s ability to conduct power efficiently.  When sunlight srtkes upon these silicone filled photovoltaic cells the suns natural solar energy is absorbed and a current is produced inside the cell containment. By connecting many of these cells togerher you make what is commonly known as a solar panel. By placing electrical contacts on the outside of these panels, you are able to use the free electricity that is produced. So thats how you make them, now what ? It’s time to find a place to put them where they will be most effective all year round.

Once you have your diy solar panels all wired together you will need to find the most sun filled spot to place them in. Somewhere where they will be exposed to the sun for the maximum hours each day  hence collecting the most energy possible. Most people who build diy solar panels are doing so for their own home residence so the up on to of the roof is generally the number one choice for installation.

To get the most from your solar panels you must be careful when installing your solar panels on the roof as many people often get the placement and angles of their solar panels wrong. if just 1 of your solar panels get installed incorrectly it can greatly compromise the effeciency of the entire panel wasting time and money in the process. The ultimate soloution, which you will see in the manual we have here on the site, is adjustable mounting supports to enable you to adjust the panels allignment throughout the year as the sun moves between seasons. This does however depend on the location and position of your house in relation to the sun.

Now that you are generating electricity from your diy solar power efforts it is time to convert that valuable energy into usable power. Now before you can use this free solar energy to power things inside your house you need to convert it into something usable. It needs to be converted from  direct current DC into alternating current AC. This is easily done and only requires an inverter do do so. An inverter will convert direct current power DC straight into alternating current power AC . Many common household appliances already use this clever technology. Now that you are producing your own diy solar energy you need to look at storing it for when the is no sunlight to recharge the system.

The task of managing this stored solar energy is given to deep cycle batteries. When fully charged, deep cycle batteries can provide a long slow release of electricity over an extended period of time. It is this feature that makes them different from say a car battery where a large amount of power is needed all at once to make the car turn over and start.

Whenever you are out and about and you see solar panels mounted somewhere you will undoubtly notice that there are many panels placed together inside each individual panel. In fact, if you look real hard you can actually make out the tiny individual panels that make up the larger panels inside of each of those as well. Also, if you want to build your own solar panel, pay close attention to how other people have erected their panels in relation to where they recieve the sun. How have they placed their diy solar panels to get the most out of their location. I cannot stress this enough, placement is everything when it comes to maximising the power output of your diy solar panels.