Tabbing all the cells for any size panel in under an hour.

[crxvfr]

Every single instructional video I've seen has instructed me to cut hundreds of pieces of tabbing wire and solder each cell one at a time. It's so easy to make and practically a no-brainer so I'm wondering why I haven't seen this kind of thing in a DIY video. I think it will work but would like input from you guys. Is it ok or even good to construct the whole string with two continuous lengths of tabbing wire?

• No cutting hundreds of pieces of tab wire.
• Construct an entire string of cells at once with just a few steps.
• You only need a board, a staple gun, a jigsaw, ruler, drill, and some rubber bands.

1. Lay your cells out alternating pos and neg as seen in pic.
2. Pull tab wire out past the cells for as long as you want.
   (I use rubber bands for a stays at either end. Not seen in pic)
3. Solder either pos or negative cells, not all of them in this step.
4. Cut spool end of tabbing wire where you want.
5. Lift soldered cells out by wire or however works for you, flip the assembly over and put it back down.
6. Solder the cells you didn't do in step 3.

Mike helped me out by telling me to use a real iron instead of a soldering gun and when I tried that, I can solder fast enough that I can see a slow moving wave of melted solder move along the wire in front of my iron as I go. It goes pretty quick. I have my iron set to 45 watts but mileage may vary. I can do one string in about five minutes.

BTW, if for some reason one has to be hooked to the other, to the other, the jig will still work, just not as fast a process.
I'm also using it to assemble all the cells I did separately, before I built the jig.



( this one works much better than my george foreman cell machine idea ha )

[Mike90250]

I hope you have the schematic worked out in your head, or on paper, and that this works for you. Off to take more pics this weekend.
Mike

[crxvfr]

I hope you have the schematic worked out in your head, or on paper, and that this works for you. Off to take more pics this weekend.
Mike

Thanks. Me too.

The parameters have mostly been the space I'm trying to fill. I have two spots, 6x12 ft and 6x30 ft to fill up with homemade panels so I'm going to make 20 3'x4' panels which will hold 35 cells apiece for 17.5 volts each. 5 sets in series, 4 panels per set (in parallel) for 70 volts @ whatever amps. It should all come out to under 45 amps. (still need to test cell output) All of the redneck homemade (poly) panels will be on their own tristar mppt charge controller.

Please let me know if you see any problems or have suggestions. I'm still putting up the carport to support my BP amorphous panels. I guess you could say my homemade panel project is still in the planning and tooling stage, so yeah, there is lots of room for improvement.

[vermiman]

Can this work with the cells only connected on one side? If wire was connected to the positive side of the first cell then the next cell would be connected to the negative side. The series would continue. How would you connect the second cell's positive to the third cell's negative without cutting the wires?

[Sizz]

I don't think this will work. With the explanation you gave, you're basically connecting half the cells together in one polarity and then flipping them over to connect them to the remaining half of opposite polarity. This makes a bunch of 2-cell groups (in series), all connected in parallel. If this 2xSeries in parallel was intended, you still need lines for both the positive and negative side of the circuit. This would be hard to do without having lines touch. I'm assuming the original intent is to get them all in series so you have to cut every other junction and weave short tabs for the other half.

[Mike90250]

I'd remain silent, but I want to say I don't see how this scheme will work, as I don't understand it.
post it as an electronic schematic, and I can deal with that.