What tool do you use to cut solar cells?

[Guest]

What tool do you use to cut solar cells?

Thanks!
Ryan

[solarix]

Cut solar cells?? Commercial, automated, high-quality, warranted solar cells are so inexpensive now that it doesn't make any sense to fool around trying to make them yourself. You can't even obtain the raw materials for less than the wholesale cost of good solar modules.

[Guest]

Its for a good purpose. Do you know what tool it is? I think its a diamond cutter you would use or something?

[solarix]

Cells are a crystal. They cut like glass.

[Guest]

Okay. But do you know what tool is used? It was mentioned before in the forum. Im sure I will get answer.
Its the fact I cant find Grade A solar Cells on Ebay that are mono and cut into small pieces for my project.

[Mike90250]

usually, a diamond scribe is used to score, and then they snap on the score line. There is a pretty large loss at this point, then the cells go into the processing system. Modern systems use a laser now.
Where the cells are cut, are lots of micro-fractures, and the next step is an annealing process to remove the stress cracks which WILL eventually propagate across the rest of the wafer. After annealing, the PN layers are built and then the collector grid wires added. Cutting finished cells will give you a lot of chips and larger cells that will only work for a while, as the consumer does not have capability to anneal the cells.

[Guest]

Thank you so much. I will purchase a Diamond Scribe off Ebay.
Im not sure which one would work best

Perhaps you could assist me in which product would be best suited for cutting cells.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xdiamond+scribe.TRS0&_nkw=diamond+scribe&_sacat=0

[PNjunction]

Um, read Mike's advice again. While he describes what *could* be used to perform this task, for the average diy'er, the end result is a lossy junk project.

Basically, you don't have the resources to do it right, and no knowledge would be gained from cutting them yourself, other than a hole in your wallet.

Ie, no need to go to that link at all.

Think of it like this question: "I have a line to used tennis balls, and I want to melt them down in my backyard to make my own truck tires. What molding machine should I get?"