by Doug Coulter » Mon Mar 17, 2014 4:20 pm
Welcome Kimo! You know that guaranteed, good, cheap, already made panels are available, right? As in $1/watt if you get enough to be worth having at all.
I'm using Solarex (owned by Amoco and then BP!) and Schott (the German glass company) right now. The Schotts were under $1/watt and 20+ year warranty, and (way) outperform their specs new. It just doesn't make a lot of sense to make your own these days, other than for learning purposes. Keeping them hermetic is the hard ($) part...while living through a daily temperature cycle (do all the tempco's match?), not making the cells. I wish you luck on that one. Do avoid the Chinese ones, they were a horrible failure for Google, Walmart and others - badly made. One company that claims to be Canadian is actually Chinese. Not that they don't make some good ones - I just haven't found any yet. And how long they live is a huge issue.
Wind could be good, but the basic rule is - bottom of rotor must be at least a rotor diameter above any wind obstruction for half a mile. That's near-impossible for me to meet halfway up a mountain. FWIW, I fooled with it anyway, and then decided I didn't like having a lightning attracting thing hooked to my system anyway. For awhile, I had hydro, about 50w worth, not much but cool to have at midnight - but it was half a kilo away and not worth keeping the turbine unjammed or replacing the wire every so often. So I'm pretty much all solar now. I have 35+ year old panels that are still at 70% of new spec. Seems like a winner.
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.
