DIY
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My name is Shane and I live in North Carolina. In April of 2007, my wife and I saw the movie "An inconvenient Truth". Afterwards, we both agreed that we wanted to do our part in becoming more energy self sufficient and in consequence help the environment at the same time. I did some research and found a renewable energy installer and consultant at www.solarvillage.com. He happened to be in my local area.
do-it-yourself wind turbine solar panel installation -home solar installation
Free Heat using Pop Cans and Plexiglass | Hack N Mod
Using empty soda pop cans, a wooden frame, vacuum hose, and plexiglass you can build your own solar heater that boosts temperatures by 15 degrees! I decided instead to take advantage of the south-facing side of the garage and build a solar furnace to collect some of that sunshine just bouncing straight off my garage . My dad built one years ago and said he recorded a 110-degree temperature differential between inlet and outlet. And I had enough scrap materials around the basement to do something similar.I am a young person interested in solar energy. I decided to build a solar panel. I am young and if I can do it then anybody else can to. I will take you through everything from building the frame to soldering. When this is completed this will give you 63 watts of free energy that is good for camping or for small household items. Lets get started!
Homemade 63 Watt Solar Panel
I am not going to repeat all the details on how to build a solar panel, there are plenty of other instructables for this (search tool is your friend!). I will give some basics, though... and then focus more on the "hybrid" nature of my panel (PV + thermal). General characteristics:
Hybrid solar panel (photovoltaic and thermal)
video How to Build a Wind Power Generator Harvesting the wind for energy is not a new concept. The origins of using the winds to to produce mechanical energy are lost in the mists of time .
How to Build a Wind Power Generator
I started by Googling for information on home-built wind turbines. There are a lot of them out there in an amazing variety of designs and complexities. All of them had five things in common though: I reduced the project to just five little systems. If attacked one at a time, the project didn't seem too terribly difficult. I decided to start with the generator.
How I built an electricity producing wind turbine
We built a 1000 watt wind turbine to help charge the battery bank that powers our offgrid home. It's a permanent magnet alternator, generating 3 phase ac, rectified to dc, and fed to a charge controller. The magnets spin with the wind, the coils are fixed, so no brushes or slip rings necessary. We had 12" steel disks hydro cut. We cut a template for mounting the magnets. Then we mounted 12 grade n50 magnets around the outside edge.
DIY 1000 watt wind turbine
Purpose The purpose of this project is to demonstrate how to build a solar panel from individual components (not to mention that I was curious). With the correct components, the cost of constructing a solar panel with longevity against environmental degredation can cost up to 30% less than commercial solar panels of the same Watt rating (not to mention that what you create, based on your assessment of the environment a solar panel would be used in, could actually be more resiliant than a "cookie cutter" manufactured solar panel).
Project Build A Solar Panel: Step by step guide to building a solar panel with complete illustrations
Several years ago I bought some remote property in Arizona. I am an astronomer and wanted a place to practice my hobby far away from the sky-wrecking light pollution found near cities of any real size. In my attempt to escape city slicker yuppies (you know the kind, the ones that like to blab loudly on their cell phone while they work on some business administration degree in a cyber cafe somewhere in Trendyland.) and their light pollution, I found a great piece of remote property. The problem is, it's so remote that there is no electric service available. That's not really a problem. No electricity equals no light pollution.
How I built an electricity producing Solar Panel
Pedalling a stationary bicycle can at times be a little tiresome therefore I wanted to make an as efficient as possible pedal generator so for every joule of energy I exert I then harvest the maximum amount of power out. Some of the pedal generators I have made in the past have been rather inefficient with a typical output of around 100 watts. This latest project has yielded 3 times that figure. My earlier pedal generator projects here
300w pedal generator
For an adult, what would be the optimum specs for a Permanent Magnet motor used as a generator? The first step is to assume that an adult who works out 3 or more times a week can put out about a max of 200 Watts of energy. If you want to operate your generator in the 12 Volt DC output range as in the case of charging 12VDC batteries, then your current is calculated with the formula: AMPS = 200W / 12V (Answer: 16A)