first time diy. no electricity experience

[jakubman1]

Can I wire this wind turbine kit in with my existing 2 homemade panels that get 36v combined at full sun ? Just something to play around with

http://m.ebay.com/itm/132086733236

[Sunking]

Wow, got any details on that you could share

You know better than that Mike, PNPmacnab is a fraud. He will come back and tell you he built it to use his 1200 watt homemade panel on a car battery.

[Mike90250]

..... im looking into getting nickel iron batteries.

Nope, hold off till you have gone through a cheap set of lead acid batteries. For NiFe battteries, you need 2x the capacity, a 200ah bank should scale up to a 400ah NiFe bank to account for the internal resistance.

= PNPmacnab] $15 for the basic MPPT controller electronics that is all home built.

Wow, got any details on that you could share

[jakubman1]

Yes there are weak link but im not too worried about that right now. What i do need to know is how do i ground my electronic equipment in the shed. Also im looking into getting nickel iron batteries.

[bcroe]

They are not generating what I hoped. The two home made ones generate 8.5 amps
combined tops I think. Old cells. Is it ok to connect all 3 panels together going to the mppt even though the renogy
panel is way diffrent than my 2 homemade ones?

The rule is, panels of similar Imp may be connected in series; panels of similar Vmp may be connected in parallel.

I thought your panels used 3" X 6" cells, which peak about 4A, so 2 in parallel might do 8A. I would run a load test
on the home home brew panels to check for any weak spots. If you have good sun measure the shorted current.
Then using ohms law construct a dummy load drawing near half that current at 80% of Vmp. When connected
with the same sun, voltage across the dummy load should head toward 80% or 90% of V open circuit. If its
much less, there may be faults, like weak cells or connections.

65', check your line losses. These will have a big impact on optimizing delivered energy. Bruce Roe

[jakubman1]

Well i know the rods ground stuff but do i run the bare copper wire underground all the way to the shed where the mppt and other stuff is?

[Sunking]

They are not generating what i hoped the two home made ones generate 8.5 amps combined tops i think. Old cells .

Is it ok to connect all 3 panels together going to the mppt even though they renogy panel is wayy diffrent than my 2 homemade ones?

so NO grounding rods for me?

Im lost in the safety off all this.

What do the rods do?

You have a whole lot more than safety issues. Sorry I cannot help you.

[jakubman1]

They are not generating what i hoped the two home made ones generate 8.5 amps combined tops i think. Old cells .

Is it ok to connect all 3 panels together going to the mppt even though they renogy panel is wayy diffrent than my 2 homemade ones?

so NO grounding rods for me?

Im lost in the safety off all this.

[Sunking]

At 24 volts, there is no requirement to ground the system.

[Mike90250]

For grounding, look to this post from Sunking, in the general discussion forum
https://www.solarpaneltalk.com/forum...round-tutorial


https://www.solarpaneltalk.com/forum...f-solar-energy

[bcroe]

That looks neat enough, are they generating the current you expected? At 65' a higher voltage panel configuration
will help reduce losses feeding your MPPT controller. Let us know how they hold up. Bruce Roe

[jakubman1]

Ok so what ive done so far is picked up a renogy 100v mppt charge controller ,1 100 watt renogy mono panel for like 140 off amazon.I picked up a cheapie from walmart just for fun. and a cheapie 35ah sealed lead battery. Now everything is working. Since i over shot the moohoo voltage thing. it would not work so thats why i got this mppt.

What my issue now is safety. How do i ground everything to prevent shocking myself or whatever? Do i just take 1 8ft lighting rod and locate that next to my panels then wire the bare copper wire to the panels THEN connect that same wire all the way 65ft to my charge contoller and what not?
Message_1487178724079.jpg

I watched that tinhat man series on youtube. i also wanted to get the duracell 6v golf cart batteries 4 of them to make a 24volt battery array.

Thanks everyone for the input. I had shower doors laying around the house and they are super thick and i used that qsil silicone and it sticks good.

I suggest going to a local Glass shop. And Ask if they have "Tempered Glass" Not the solar panel kind. But for DIY that will resist hail for sure. And cheaper I guess. But Depends how thick you get the glass to withstand such hail.
And if you want to go the extra mile and test your tempered glass. you could always load a paintball gun with some hard ice. j.k

For me Living in Canada. Finding Tempered glass is like- finding a needle in hay stack. It just dont exist.
On Ebay the only person I see selling full size low Iron tempered glass is "American Solar Supply".


I also suggest a white reflective coating, so when sun hits panel the nice white dosnt heat up cells fast.

Despite what you heard about wooden panels. Ive made store front signs with paint. I am a artist. And the most important part about painting wood to make it last and not degrade is lots of varnish and coatings. apply several several layers after each layer dries. And my signs have not degraded in over 10 years not even color.
I suggest also paint with white reflective paint several layers also. dry and paint dry and coat. multilayering works best.

And then for the inside of the panel itself- I suggest sealing it as best as possible with Caulking gun. seal that sucker up. After one Seal place again another layer and another layer. I say atleast 4 layers. And also do this for the outside seams as well. And also caulking screw holes as well.

Also Another thing. Is that there is some -Spray on products I hear you can get that Resists water. And gives the exterior a rubber like surface? Not sure- but sounds kewl.
Also use lots and lots of wood glue so it also helps like seal. make sure you cover it evenly and leave no spaces with the glue- even it out perfectly. then apply and screw sucker on. Also you may want to use Very Thick wood. dont cheap out and get thin stuff. The thicker the better. If it were me I wouldnt use anything less than 2x4 for frames. I suppose in Theory the Thicker the wood the less it expands and contracts with weather temp changes. Paint and coat and varnish all your pieces. And even Dip your screws in glue. And maybe do sum reasearch on wood. Perhaps Ceder or Oak would work best.


And then me thinks if you wanted to go a step further. To reduce water moisture you can build the frame with the Tempered glass. But perhaps within this setup you have two really thin pieces of glass and encapsulate cells within the two sheets of glass. this will decrease efficency but atleast it will hold up to very little moisture. And then just SEAL SEAL SEAL along the edges of the two thin sheets with your solar cells inbetween those two glass.
And Remember SEAL SEAL SEAL dont let any crack go unsealled!

also. All you have to know about soldering solar cells is.. Top is Negative. Bottom is Positive. dont forgets it

[inetdog]

+1
The days of regulating the joint temp by how long you hold the soldering iron on are long gone. Especially when the metal mass you are soldering to is tiny!

[Mike90250]

Welcome.
First, understand that DIY panels are going to be only fun toys. They will last a season or three, Just about everything in them will be a compromise, But you can still learn a lot.
Soldering. It's an art. You are going to have a fair amount of breakage on the cells, use those for your practice, For $50 you can get an adjustable temp soldering iron. In the old days, with rosin electrical flux, a extra hot iron would solder copper wire to copper terminals just fine.
Soldering tabbing ribbon to metalized wafers is a lot tougher. When you have it down, you can match the iron tip width to the tab ribbon width, and do a whole row in a couple minutes with just one motion. Assume 2 months practice to get to that point. Too hot, you dissolve the metal layer off the back of the wafer, too cool, and it never solders, so you have to be able to regulate the temp