Sunday, November 30, 2008

DIY Residential Solar Energy

Making a home Solar Panel is fun! Click Here For Solar Panel Videos and More Information! Although solar panels manufacture is a strict quality controlled industry, you can build your own home solar panel, and see how the sun’s energy can be converted to electricity. While most commercial panels are actually made with silicon, you can build your own home solar panel by using cuprous oxide - copper- which causes light to be turned into electricity. You can use a thin sheet of copper to get your cuprous oxide.

Click Here For Videos and More Information on home Solar Panel building!

Here's the list of what you need to make your own home solar panel: one square foot of thin copper plate, two alligator clips and short leads of wire, a wide mouth glass jar, tap water and salt. A voltmeter, which measures small amounts of electricity will detect the end result. The copper sheeting needs to be heated on an electric stove or hot plate, to build your own solar panel. Place the copper sheet on the burner and turn it on high and let it sit there for about 30 minutes. As it is heating up, you can see the plate turning colors. It will show the outline of the heating coil underneath the plate. It will get hotter, hotter and hotter, and then it will start to turn really dark until the whole thing has a dark, black coating.

When the sheet is entirely black, turn off the burner and let it sit to cool for about 20 minutes. As the the cuprous oxide cools the black coating will begin to pop off the sheet, leaving a thinnish coating of red on the copper. This red coating is needed to build your own solar panel, and while the majority of the black can be rinsed off under running water, it should not be brushed clean.

Salt Water Helps Produce The Electricity for your home solar panel: Using the alligator clips, connect the copper sheet to one the top of one side of the glass jar. Attach the other clean copper sheet to the other side of the jar. Mix about 2 tbs (tablespoons) salt with hot tap water, dissolve well and then pour it into jar. Be careful the water does not get on the alligator clips. The two copper sheets should be under water with about 1 inch exposed at the top of the car to build your own solar panel.

Your home solar panel is almost done. Carefully, carefully, place the entire item in the sun-light, that means either through the window or outside ,exposed to the sun. connect the voltmeter to the leads to the two alligator clips and you can see the meter indicate the power being generated by sunlight, if you were able to build your home solar panel. Enjoy the sun's energy from your own home solar panel! You can feel proud!!! Click Here For Solar Panel Videos and More Information

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