Re: [GBlist] Building one's own solar panel

[Susannah Meininger <susannah@cyber-dyne.com>]

At 02:07 PM 9/24/2001 -0600, Tom Thomas wrote:
>Susannah,
>
>         I think you would only need 24 cells in series (24*.5=12).  I believe
>that this would affect your other calculation too.


Sorry, I was writing too hastily.  I meant 24 volts, 48 cells.

>   Also, I believe you could
>not effectively wire only a portion of the 24 cell series and therefore some
>rounding up is needed.

That's what comes of doing things with a calculator :-).  So, 10 sets of 48 
cells, for a total of 480 cells?  Seems like even more of an awful lot...
I appreciate your help with this, and anyone else who wants to pitch in.
-- Susannah



>Susannah Meininger wrote:
>
> > Hi folks --
> >
> > This is my first real post to the list, although I've been reading it for a
> > while.  I recently found out (by cruising eBay) that a person can buy
> > pounds of individual solar cells and solder them together to make a
> > panel.  It's not something a person would want to do for a client, but have
> > any of you done this for your own use?  Is it is easy as it sounds?
> >
> > Also, it's been a long time since college physics.  I understand that if
> > the individual cells are a .5 V, 450 mA each, then to get 12 volts I wire
> > 48 of them in series, and the result is still 450 mA.  But am I right to
> > think that watts = amps x volts, and that if I want, say, 50 watts, then I
> > need to wire in parallel 50/12 = 4.17 total amps desired, divided by .450
> > amps = 9.26 sets of 48 cells, for a total of 444 cells?  That seems like an
> > awful lot, so hopefully my math is wrong.  Any help would be greatly
> > appreciated!
> >
> > -- Susannah (an extremely small-time builder/rehabber in western Oregon,
> > who is currently building a small electric vehicle and would like to
> > solarize it)
> >
> > ______________________________________________________________________
> > This greenbuilding dialogue is sponsored by REPP/CREST, creator of
> > Solstice http://www.crest.org, and BuildingGreen, Inc., publisher of
> > Environmental Building News and GreenSpec http://www.BuildingGreen.com
> > ______________________________________________________________________


______________________________________________________________________
This greenbuilding dialogue is sponsored by REPP/CREST, creator of
Solstice http://www.crest.org, and BuildingGreen, Inc., publisher of
Environmental Building News and GreenSpec http://www.BuildingGreen.com
______________________________________________________________________