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Answer by garylee
Deep cycle, Golf Cart Batteries. You can get them at a battery store.

Answer by billrussell42
If you will be storing them outdoors, you can use auto batteries. Indoors, use sealed marine batteries.

Number and size depends on your needs. You will need a charge controller between the solar panels and the batteries to get the maximum power out of the array and to avoid damage to the batteries.

And you will need an inverter to convert the 12 or 24 volts to 120 or 240 VAC.

One massive lead acid battery will supply about 1000 watt-hours of energy, enough for 200 watts for 5 hours. You have to look at your loads and decide on how many batteries you need.

Frequently it is cheaper to purchase new appliances that use less power, as that power difference can save a lot of money in batteries, inverter, charge controller and solar panels. But it sounds like a few thousand watt-hours will be enough, 1 or 2 massive batteries. The real limiting factor is how much money you want to spend for the solar panels themselves.

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Answer by Rudydoo
Hey Mark, you are on to a great project there. My first recommendation is to do some real research, beyond asking people on the net for advice. Home Power Magazine is the only periodical that is into the nuts and bolts of solar power. It is not expensive, and if you subscribe, then go online, you can look up old archived articles. We have a cabin that is solar and wind powered now, it was featured in that magazine some years ago. Like Gary Lee, we used golf cart batteries. For the dollar, you will not find a superior battery to store solar power. Each one holds about 1.2 kwh of electrictiy when fully charged. You do not want to discharge these batteries more than half way on a regular basis, it shortens their life considerably. Our system had 4 golf cart batteries and 3 50 watt panels.

In some applications, a solar charge controller is not necessary. A good rule of thumb is if your array puts out no more amperage than 2% of the battery banks amp hour capacity, a charge controller is not necessary, the panels will never overcharge the batteries. You just have to make sure you water the batteries at least once a month, more often in warm weather. A charge controller might be a good investment though, depending on what size your array is, and what voltage you operate it at. I know this is a lot to digest, and this is why I recommend reading Home Power, they get into all the specifics of this stuff. I would also look for a book called, “The Complete Battery Book, ” by Richard Perez, and read the chapters on lead acid batteries, it explains all about charge rates and controllers.

Something else to look for is telecommunications batteries. They are suddenly cheap and available, because the phone companies all over bought, and are now consolidating. They do not hold up quite as well as the T-105 (golf cart battery) but for the money, might work for you. You can use non gel cell type batteries inside, but they have to be in an enclosed cabinet and vented to the outside. Lead acid batteries vent hydrogen gas when charging, and it only takes a 4% concentration to cause an explosive environment to form. We have ours in a cabinet in the garage, and it is vented outside from the top of the cabinet, which is where the hydrogen collects. You might also invest in a Kill-A-Watt meter, about $ 30 USD. You can plug it into any outlet, and plug in some household items you want to power with your solar array, like the TV. Let it run for a week during normal use, and the meter will tell you exactly how many KWH’s that appliance uses, no more guessing.

If you do get on Home Power’s list and go to their website, use their search engine to look for Small Systems, lots of people have done what you are trying to do. You can read what mistakes they made and what they learned, so you do not make the same ones yourself. In the end, you might decide not to get involved, and that is fine, but at least you will be well informed. I will include some other sources below, again, do plenty of research. Good luck, and take care, Rudydoo

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Answer by percival.sweetwater
You have it backwards. In series, each battery would only be charged to 6v per battery. In parallel, the voltage remains the same across all components, so technically, you could charge as many batteries in parallel as the charger could supply current to all of them.

With two 9v batteries in parallel, a charging voltage of 12v would be equally applied to both batteries, which would definitely charge them. Problem is, without careful monitoring, those batteries could be overcharged and subsequently damaged.

Answer by Chet_B
It works well to charge any voltage “below” the voltage of the pic cell. It is ideal to either build of purchase a charge controller for the voltage you want to charge – that will keep you from overcharging your 9V batteries. (The other answer is correct – two 9V batteries in parallel = 9V) That is how I would set them up, in parallel. If you put them in series they will be 18V and IF the solar cell puts out 20V (which most do – even those marked “12V” unless they have internal regulation which most don’t! ) you could still use the solar cell to charge them – just build a controller for 18V instead of 9.

You can just put a 9V – 10V voltage regulator in the circuit to assure you do not overvoltage them if you charge in parallel but building a charge controller is really a superior solution as it will not overcharge them!

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Answer by jayocular
or another idea, use the wheels turning as generators

Answer by Tom A
You are describing a perpetual motion machine.

Answer by thor
They can as long as you do not anticipate to make the power while the car is moving. Windmills are around 30% efficient. If they were 100% efficient they would not use any more energy than they make. As it is, they use three times as much energy as they could make. Not really a great idea.

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Answer by henryclayc1949
Hi, I believe you are referring to silicon chips that use the photoelectric effect to collect light and convert it into electricity. This is typically collected in massive units with panels wired together containing massive numbers of chips. The electricity generated is stored in conventional batteries and used as needed. The manufacture of solar chips requires a high level of manufacturing skill and probably cannot be done at home. Chips are for sale from commercial suppliers and panels can be made from such chips and used anywhere in the world that there is adequate sunlight to make it practical. The second question is I believe one that deals with Stirling cycle engines and requires more space than I have remaining to answer. I would be happy to do so though.

Answer by sawagat
Solar or light can be converted into current and batteries can be made at a smaller scale. Example is, small calculators are powered by solar cells.

As for as construction of those batteries they are made of smaller cells and then smaller cells are joint with other smaller cells to make tiny massive cells. Its very costly to make them on commercial level thats why we are addicted to oil.

Cheap things sometimes do not come cheap.

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Answer by classicsat
You would use a switching buck converter.

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Answer by HAGAR!!!
That is a million dollar idea if it is not invented yet

Answer by Brian T
Actually there was a mention of this on one of the green planet shows on TV. The solar panel people used contained a cooling technique to heat something (maybe water) to maintain the efficiency of the solar cells. If they get too hot, they loose efficiency.

Answer by mike1942f
The proper operating temperature for solar cells is too low to produce hot water that is worth the cost of plumbing. Water cooled solar cells exist, especially when a lens to concentrate the sun is added, but the output water is below 110F to preserve the efficiency and pumping the relatively small volume of not very hot water as input to a hot water heater or home heat doesn’t gain much against the cost and maintenance of pump and piping and heat exchanger if in a freezing climate.

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Answer by lizette
If your goal is to save money, it will be hard to do that with solar electricity. You can come out ahead under some circumstances, but powering a refrigerator and a fan is an unlikely one. However, if your goal is to learn about this kind of setup, you could get a kit from (say) Harbor Freight for a few hundred dollars, which will (barely) charge a automobile battery over a period of a couple weeks. The energy you collect could power a fan for several hours.

I came accross a new, proven and tested home made wind power system and solar power system which eliminates our electricity bills. It was written by a Renewable energy enthusiasts Michael Harvey the diy called Earth4energy. You can get your copy to save energy and help environment while eliminating your power bills. Get it from here:

http://how-to-build-cheap-solar-energy.blogspot.com/

Answer by roderick_young
Sorry, there is not a cheap way to do that today. Beware of scams that recommend you can power a whole home for less than $ 200. Solar can be cost effective in some applications, but it’s not the fantastic deal that these sites make it out to be. If it were, you’d see homemade panels and wind turbines all around the neighborhood.

Answer by magicpana
Sorry I Disagree with lizette ‘s Answer, Sure You can SAVE money with D.I.Y Solar power products.

As mentioned the magic is in doing it D.I.Y way and fortunately there are many cheap guides available fo this.

Before you jump ahead do your research ( Yahoo is your ideal friend!!), Read articles, go to Wiki, do survey of location etc and then look for a product which guides you thr’s the process.

if you need information about D.I.Y porduct reviews go here

http:
review-ant.com/
GreenEnergyProductsReviews

good luck and I am sure you will bring down your electricity bill by 50% at least.

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Answer by Michael C
I do not really think you can make them at home.

Answer by Robert B
Making the actual cells is similar to making integrated circuitry; using foundry, lithography, and various masking and cleaning solutions. Most of this is done in clean room conditions and involves millions of dollars of specialized equipment.

I have seen one company offering the basic cells, with kits that a DIY’r can use to put together “panels” using solder, wire and flux to combine the cells into mountable panels.

I have no affiliation with them, just saw them on their web page http://www.siliconsolar.com/diy-solar-panel-kits.html when looking for other answers to solar questions.

A refrigerator and fan might be a bit of a challange since they can be pretty high wattage devices, depending on size. Even if you assemble the panels yourself, you will be speaking in the thousands of dollars worth of raw cells…

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Answer by Steve C
It’s difficult (nearly impossible?) to make your own electric solar panels, so I think the direct route is probably too difficult, unless you are prepared to purchase them. (wiring them up is not too difficult)

Another way to do it, is to use the heating power of the sun. Perhaps use a parabolic mirror/trough to focus the sun’s heat on to a copper pipe. If there is enough sunlight and/or the reflector is massive enough the water will boil. Use the steam to power a small steam engine, then connect that up to an alternator/dynamo to get the electricity. To avoid wasting water, you will want a condenser

Problem is then making the steam engine. It’s possible to alter an old internal combustion engine to make a small steam engine, but if you are wanting to do it ALL yourself I’d recommend trying to use boundary layer turbines, as there is minimal machining needed (just flat discs, rather than needing blades), less to go wrong, and they work superior with the low quality (“wet”) steam you are likely to produce. If the steam is not too hot (I have not tried it!) you might be able to use scrap CD/DVDs or maybe old hard disk platters as the turbine discs.

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There’s a lot of controversial/spurious claims about Tesla Turbines, but they really do convert steam into (some) shaft power.

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What’s the problem with Steam engines/turbines? You can have them generating electricity right from capacities of a few horsepower, all the way up to ten’s of Megawatts. The Rankine thermodynamic cycle of “steam” engine can be more efficient then even that of diesel, which is probably the reason why commercially produced electricity ( even nuclear!) uses such cycles. The power/weight ratio is low, mainly because of the size of boiler/condenser required, which hinders their application in modern in vehicles, but it’s rarely a problem in a static installation.

Turbines run VERY fast, and without gearing the frequency of any AC produced would be way too high. If you rectify the AC to DC, then store some in a batteries, an inverter does the frequency conversion for you.

As steam engines are external combustion engines, they do not give a monkeys about how the heat is produced, just long as it can be got into the working fluid (doesn’t need to be water/steam, but it’s most common fluid used, ammonia can be used too, but it’s a bit nasty if it leaks. Still it’s probably superior for the environment the CFC)

A back up boiler fuelled in a more conventional manor would grant the system to work when there was less sunlight.
(For a given fuel, combustion at/near atmospheric pressure produces less pollution than if the fuel was burnt at higher pressure, something to do with the way nitrogen reacts at high pressure.) Use a combine heat and power cycle and you have got heating too. Have a refrigerator running on a Gas Absorption cycle, and you have got cooling.

Answer by wednesday 69
Excellent!!….a fellow enthusiast! What size refridgerator? The fan is no problem. What say are you in?
But here is the deal: Solar panels are rather pricey right now and to run what you stated whenever you want you will need some serious panels. (6- 150 watt units)
That means under full sun the panels maximum output, wired in parallel would produce 900 watt/hours. Here in florida, we get very good output off a panel, but in seattle it would be essentially useless.
I have a small set-up consisting of 2-150 British Petroleum units hooked together and wired to 2 semi (big truck) batteries wired in parallel. I have a 1200watt power inverter hooked to that. That whole set-up is hooked to a 5000btu window air conditioner that is in my bedroom. When I go to bed (11:30p.m.) I shut off the home a/c and turn on my small a/c. After a sunny day the unit will run three hours and then the 10volt underage signal goes off and it shuts down. But that is enough to keep me more than cool. ( I like my a/c freezing)

A STEAM ENGINE! AAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!!

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Answer by roderick_young
First of all, do comprehend that a system with batteries ends up costing more per kWh generated, and is a lot more trouble to maintain. People usually only do it when they have no choice, or as a fun tiny project, but not to save money.

Well-maintained lead-acid batteries can last 10-15 years, but that is if you are careful to monitor the electrolyte, charge them properly (don’t overcharge), and do not draw them down more than a fraction of their capacity

Answer by Anita
for a pet project to learn how it works, yes
to sell electricity, forget-it way too complicated
also when you have power to sell others also have some, it only has some value when the resource (power) is not available

batteries can last about 10 years
however if poorely designed, will last just a few months

Anita

Answer by Amy
You can get a grid-tied system for around $ 3000. http://www.altestore.com/store/Kits-and-Package-Deals/Grid-Tied-Systems/Alt-E-Designed-Grid-Tie-Packages/AltE-Grid-Tied-Package-Micro1/p5642/

It will not produce much power at all, but it will work. Yes, you do need permits and inspections, but would not you want a correctly installed electrical system on your house?

To do a battery based system, you would need to choose what appliances you want to run off the grid and plug them into your separate system, rather than a grid-tied system putting electricity into the general pool used by all. Again, you can get a small system for about $ 3000, but it will not power all that much http://www.altestore.com/store/Kits-and-Package-Deals/Off-Grid-Cabin-Systems/c466/. If batteries are not abused, they can last 5 – 10 years before being recycled.

If you want to install solar, think about solar water heating instead of solar electric. Heating water accounts for about 25% of energy bills. For about $ 4,000, you can purchase a solar water heating system that can provide 75% of the hot water for a family of 4. http://www.altestore.com/store/Solar-Water-Heaters/Climate-freezes-Closed-Loop-Systems/Closed-Loop-Systems-for-1-4-People/Closed-Loop-PV-Powered-w-Tank/AET-PV-w-80-Gal-Tank-64-SqFt-Collectors/p172/

If your main goal is to save money, first invest in energy conservation, that is a much superior bang for the buck. For each $ 1 spent conserving energy, that is $ 4 less you have to spend in solar. It’s cheaper to save electricity than make it.

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