[the real post] Solar Panel Encapsulation

[russ]

Gumbo - Short answer - buy panels - they will be better than 99.999% of homemade ones, last longer and put out more power.

The cells you see on ebay are normally seconds and junk.

[gumbomaster]

Homemade cells vs. Chinese?

I've been checking out many videos & looking over many threads on this issue. I have read that many people think it's better to just buy the already made panels. I would agree for many of the homemade ones I've seen, plywood, 2 pieces of glass sandwiched together(hot box),very cheap & poorly made. I would also have to say that many of the panels are made in China & well you should know about that! I've had many items not even make it out the package before it broke! There is also the different degrees of Chinese production also. Taiwan (ROC) has seemed to always have better quality products. If the solar is your cheap,quick, run of the mill(little to no quality control) do you really think it will last the 25 years stated? I seriously doubt it! Of course anything USA made will have superior quality control & superior parts within. If the solar panels are homemade with USA cells & with professional components, then I truly believe that the homemade panels will outlast the Chinese production run panels. One must consider the prices of all of the items needed to make a pro-panel. I recently won (Ebay) a USA made solar cell kit with tabbing wire,flux,etc. 200 top quality 3 X 6 cells & enough to make 350 watts of panels. All for 91.00 with Free S&H! Now I have to spend a couple more hundred for the pro items to make them far superior to any Chinese panels of course. I'm wanting to get a USA made encapsulant & backing. Place the right glass on top or whatever I have to do to make them very effecient & to last for years to come! I'm hoping to learn how to do all this very professionally of course. This will be my first ones & I want them right! I plan on making more in the future also. One must also think, I can buy the cells this month & in the next month or two I'll buy the glass,the frame,lastly the encapsulant(shelf life is short),etc. When on a very tight budget sometimes you just can't go out & buy everything all at once. This will be for my future plans also. I plan on selling a bunch of items on Ebay & when I get enough money I'm going to buy some more goodies! As with anything the more I do/learn the better the outcome will be.

I would also like to know more about the smaller panels that people use to go camping,etc. How are these built? What makes them stronger so they can be moved over & over? How can I build some very small & strong ones when the next & newest Katrina hits? Of course I'll pull them out when the 150 mph winds are over with! lol

Anyone who has some very good instructions,tips,videos,etc. I would be very happy to learn any & all I can to better my knowledge before I start out on my new journey! Thanks to all & good luck with your panels!

[bcroe]

Factory vs DIY

Seems like the factory panels have the best chance for long life,
not sure about cost yet. They seem to be 1/8" glass, the ones I
build are 1/4" or 3/16" (tempered) glass, will take a bigger hit
on the front here in the country. Not much protection on the back.
Output of DIY seems to be right up there, properly constructed.

Bruce Roe

[russ]

Unless you personally know the person on youtube assume it is hogwash - usually it is.

DIY panels can't compete with factory panels today - pure and simple.

[rhooie]

Front encapsulation

Has anyone heard of front encapsulation? I saw a video on Youtube of someone just using a backing board and no glass. He laid the cells on a board he had varnished with 4 or 5 coats, then pour Aeromarine 300/321 on top of the cells. I emailed him and he said it worked out well for him and he had panels 2 yrs old built that way. He said the Aeromarine did yellow, but he didn't see a reduction in output.

The reason I ask is that I am finding DIY not to be a huge money saver. I bought enough cells to do 3 panels (3" x 6" cells). But finding tempered glass or Lexan, then paying for encapsulation is not much cheaper than some factory panels. Eliminating the glass or Lexan would save some money.

[etana2012]

encapsulation

Hello All,

Found a interesting forum here for DIY Solar panels. I am a 24 year Engineer of electronics and communications and I am interested to make solar panels (later I will post my project).

The real problem here for DIY panels is the durability and also ENCAPSULATE the cells. We always see that the Sylgard 184 is the way to go, but it is too expensive. I got 150 solar cells (polycystaline, 0.6v, 3A) for 150 USD, including tabbing wire, Roxin flux and cables. So it is not possible that I am going to expend double or triple the price for encapsulating the cells.

I investigate the possible encapsulants for solar panels, see the list:

1- Dow Corning Sylgard 184 - http://www.ellsworth.com/display/pro...ctid=216&Tab=V (the god of encapsulant)

2- Dow Corning Sylgard 164 - http://www.ellsworth.com/display/pro...ctid=205&Tab=V (have almost same description of the Sylgard 184)

3-Dupont PV solution - http://www2.dupont.com/Photovoltaics...e20091027.html (looks promissing, release it Oct 2009)

4- The EVA - http://cgi.ebay.com/EVA-Sheet-for-So...item5d28143278 (the cheap)

As we can see in the list, the Sylgard 184 is the clear winner in some other way, just mix, cure let it happen and in 1 day, you have a hard and good looking solar panel backing, also encapsulate the solar cells.

The problem here is that we need to look for PRICE and also Durability (at least 15 years), so the question is THERE IS A SUBSTITUTE OF THE DOW CORNING SYLGARD 184 FROM OTHER BRAND? Also a cheaper one?. If we select items number 3 and 4, they are "cheap" but you need extra machinery and also extra material to seal the solar cells and the Panel itself.

So, THERE IS A SOLUTION THAT WE ONLY NEED TO MAKE THE SOLAR FRAME, PUT THE GLASS, TAB THE SOLAR CELLS AND JUST AD A MAGICAL ENCAPSULANT? Lets make this post the real encapsulant solution for all the DIY's of solar panels. The only product that is almost the same as the Sylgard 184 is item number 2 (sylgard 164), but dont specify the properties of being a PV encapsulant.

Please post prices, links and just get into the facts right away. This will help a lot of people here.

thanks!

Anybody tried Q-SIL 216?

[GuyMark]

Wow. surprising figures. Thank you.

I guess if a solar panel is going to be working for 25-40 years that 1-2% ends up being quite a hefty dollop of power. I think from a DIY point of view though, I might be tempted to use cheaper glass and use the saving to build a slightly larger panel.

I think I will have a look about and see if I can get some coloured cellophane and have a bit of a play with a few cells under a fixed load and see what happens. I know it can vary from manufacturer to manufacturer what their peak absorption is, but it will keep me amused and might prove interesting.

The amazing tutorial on here from Oztules is seriously making me want to have a go at a decent sized DIY panel now. Very clever ideas about making ovens - and as a result of some air-con work I even have a vac pump to hand. I shall carry on reading for a bit first though.

Thanks again for the though provoking reply.
Mark

[Mike90250]

The green tint in plain glass reduces power by a couple %. I dont know if yellow has the same effect, but for 1 or 2 %, it's worth mfgs to use the expensive iron free glass (no green tint).

[GuyMark]

A thought with regard to the yellowing question of Aeromarine 300/21

I found it (Aeromarine 300/21) on Amazon for $93 shipped for 1.5 gallons. I personally haven't used it, but I ordered some to try. I have seen a friends panel, and it looks great...he has had it out in weather since last summer, so it made it thru this harsh winter with no issues. I've seen on YouTube where others have used it. They say it compares to Sylgard-184.

I note that some folks reckon this would not yellow - and others are fairly sure it will. I was jsut thinking though that perhaps even if it did, as the layer is extremely thin between the protective glass of the finished unit and the face of the cell, then possibly even if yellowing DID occur, then the effect would be pretty negligible - unlike perhaps if it was a mm thick - like a really heavy build up of varnish layers.

For example, many plastics regarded as "clear" are in fact translucent once they get some thickeness to them. Polyethylene for example as a THIN poly bag is pretty much transparant. A heavy guage rubble sack in natural polyethylene is of course translucent "grey".

Doing a spot of googling I found that a guy who had one batch of commerical panels "yellow" noticed that although they were replaced under warrantee, that the output difference was hard to measure between the coating which was still perfectly clear and the one which had yellowed. A photo of the panels here http://i842.photobucket.com/albums/z...ellowpanel.jpg

I agree some may consider it not worth the risk but I would be interested to know how much power can be lost as a worst case with BAD yellowing. 5%? 20% 77%

I'd quite like to have a go at making a panel up - but some of the sealants in the UK really are so expensive that it almost removes the saving from "DIY". I will have a good trawl through the forum shortly though and see if I can find some other alternatives that folks recommend.

Time for me to start learning.

Mark

[Alan]

I've used that product before it is almost white, kind of milky, deffionetely not close to clear.

[rollandelliott]

Translucent Silicone Rubber, AM 128T

aeromarine also makes
Translucent Silicone Rubber, AM 128T
i'm going to order a sample off their web site and see how clear it actually is.

it's about the same price as 300-21. i got a sample of that in the mail too and it is pretty hard, about as hard as plexiglass a little softer since bitting into it (does not taste good LOL) made some teeth marks. it might work in areas that do not have frost, fl, tx, etc, but in northern climates it might be too brittle?

at $90 a gallon or so it's more expensive than the polyurethane stuff from epic resins which is around $64 per gallon.

[rollandelliott]

"Better sunlight and UV resistance than conventional epoxies."

That just doesn't sound that convincing.

Of course you only have 0.5mm or less encapsulant between the cell and the glass, if it yellows a bit is anyone really going to notice? I have a roll of clear packaging tape that is several years old and it has yellowed, but if I put it on a package it looks clear.

as long as it keeps the moisture out a little bit of yellowing might not even be that big of a deal.

I contacted a chinese epoxy maker and they say their epoxy works fine for SMALL solar panels like 10x10" or smaller, but anything bigger they recommend eva.

[bidaw]

Strange that all of the research that I have done on the product...including the reading the tech sheets state that it does (Aeromarine 300/21) have UV protection. It is used for Marine and Aircraft .... Anyway, I am not a spokesperson for them. I have just seen the results and thought I would give an alternative to the expensive stuff....

Technical Details

* AeroMarine 300/21 Epoxy Resin Kit
* Our best and most popular clear epoxy. Better sunlight and UV resistance than conventional epoxies.
* Low viscosity epoxy 600cps
* Non Blushing Epoxy with Cycloaliphatic Hardener. No amine blush so no cleaning required between coats
* Excellent gloss and clarity, and excellent chemical resistance


Good Luck...

[bamrex]

bad idea areomarine

will yellow from uv in no time, i emailed tech dept.. to find out...

[bidaw]

I found it (Aeromarine 300/21) on Amazon for $93 shipped for 1.5 gallons. I personally haven't used it, but I ordered some to try. I have seen a friends panel, and it looks great...he has had it out in weather since last summer, so it made it thru this harsh winter with no issues. I've seen on YouTube where others have used it. They say it compares to Sylgard-184.