Going the “do-it-yourself” route for solar panels can be very cost effective. Although a lot of diy solar panels for home use kits can be expensive mainly because of the cost of new solar cells, you can find a lot of the materials you’ll need online or at your local hardware store and save hundreds.
Most people think that damaged solar cells don’t work… This isn’t always the case. If you can find a few solar cells with only minor damage like chips around the edges you’ll be fine; they’ll still work plus you’ll be able to buy them for much less.
After you have your solar cells, your diy solar panels for home use project won’t be very expensive anymore. All the rest of the materials you’ll need may already be in your house.
You’re simply going to need something for a base to set the cells on (plywood works fine). You’re also going to need some PVC sheeting to cover the cells so that they aren’t open to the elements.
Once you have all of your main materials you’re simply going to wire all of the cells together and run the wire out to a storage battery. You may have a different set up depending out how big your solar panel is.
Just start out with an average sized solar panel and see what type of power that generates for you. Once you have that down then you can worry about building larger panels and generating more power for your home.
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