DIY Solar Panels

[Boulderheads]

yeah, that is pretty much my understanding...I had a general physics course in H.S. and 1 more in college.... and I get most of it, but like you said... I don't fully understand because I have never worked through the math, I applaud the people who have though

 

[bestgrow]

I hate when people talk about solar panels and complain that there is no way to store the energy efficiently. Even the MIT article stated that.

Its called hydrogen. All you need is some water and you run electricity though it and the hydrogen separates and you have your energy. you can use it as fuel for your car, or in a generator to produce power. Granted you need a hydrogen car, and hydrogen generator. I know houses that run only off of this. Panels on the roof and a few wind turbines.

They also have the new wind energy system that goes 3 times higher than the poles, its a lighter than air helium device that goes way up in the air where the wind is faster and generates a whole lot of electricity. It will be costly tho, about 5$ a watt for the initial cost. so about 150,000 for a 30,000 w system. But again, as apposed to solar energy, wind is around during the night as well. Can also be made into hydrogen.

Hydrogen is the future there is no question. Instead of natural gas tanks at home there will be hydrogen ones. Instead of gasoline there will be hydrogen cars. Instead of oil pipelines, there will be hydrogen pipelines.

 

[Boulderheads]

Efficiency comes with a price, and if you forgot we live in America, the land of convenience stores, fast food and 24 hour walmart's. I do believe hydrogen is a wonderful fuel source and very simple to create. We know how to do it, and with seawater even... leaving precious freshwater for drinking. The problem lies in that not enough effort is being made to make it available to the consumer. You want the american people to adopt something you shove it down their throats. Make it so accessible they will have to switch. Until then hydrogen is the same as growing with LED's very efficient...just too pricey and not enough effort being put forth in remedying that situation

 

[Boulderheads]

Plus you gotta convince every uneducated joe shmoe out there that he won't explode like the hindenburg with a tank full of hydrogen as his fuel tank. Not saying it can't or won't be done.... just doing to take a lot more effort than what is being shown right now. And are you talking about the big kite type wind powered generator that spins like a turbine??? cuz if you are I watched that thing fail miserably during a field test... if u are talking about something different please share the details

 

[born2killspam]

MIT really pissed me off claiming electrolysis was photosynthesis!!!!!
Hydrogen is just thermodymically inefficient with regards to electrolysis, but like I always say, if energy will otherwise be wasted, go nuts.. But $50/kWh production cost?? I say bring on the coal, or D-Cell batteries..
Magnetic core inductive units spanned out into the oceans might be doable, but I haven't looked into the math on that.. And the tree huggers won't like that anyways.. (Wave power)
Another thats not feasible now due to conversion constraints would be Tesla's sky-capacitor..
Are you an overunity member though bestgrow??

 

[born2killspam]

And Boulder, I think the gist of that is infact understandable with a proper intro to QM.. What pisses me off is when uninformed ppl take shit further and 'theorize'..

 

[Boulderheads]

Don't know anything about Tesla's sky capacitor, but I did see the electric super car they build... friggin bad azzzz!!! I heard they just pulled it from production, don't know the reason though.

http://www.teslamotors.com/

born2kill, I was under the same assumption that hydrogen is just too expensive to create, unless you are using some means earthly means to generate electricity in the first place...which why wouldn't you just use the raw form rather than hyrdogen. Only real benefit I see for hydrogen is for storage, plain and simple. Otherwise it is just another inefficient drain on resources... coal is the shit, and we have a ton of it in NA, 75% of the worlds reserves unless I am mistaken.. been two years since my energy class... anyways, I like your fire best grow, but bring some facts with you next time so we can really disect each issue

 

[Boulderheads]

hahaha yeah...nothing worse than having to listen to some showoff who read one popular science magazine and thinks he knows the answers to the worlds energy problems... I have read hundreds and I know I would struggle through a QM class, mostly because of the math, but honestly, it a deep subject that very few even desire to explore. Glad to have you in this forum though, you are a wealth of great info

 

[more4u2c]

hey there im in the auto body field so i know nothing well i know 12v so i might beable to help with a motor home setup anyways the reason im writing is could there be a way one day to have a total self contaned system where the solar panels are in the grow room powering the lights and the lights supplying the solar panel? kinda far out i know but would be really cool. also i saw on tv one day that a company in california has made a solar paint they spray on sheet metal and some how it turns into a light thin solar panal and they said on the show that the company is already backordered for 5 years so demand is there just production is lagging

 

[Boulderheads]

more4u2c, I am glad you asked that question. So here is what I was told by an experienced, and I do mean experienced man. Nam vet, with a crazy compassion for animals. Anyway we got to talking about that one day and he seemed pretty adamant that it would work. His dad was an electrician so he learned the trade and taught me how to wire everything up properly to pull the least amps possible, so I think he knows his stuff. Anyway those PV cells are supposed to be pretty reflective I just don't think you could have a big enough setup in there to recycle all the power, you would still need more on the roof or something. But..... if you ask born2kill about the thermal cells, they use heat set to a specific wavelength so maybe they would be better off used in that appilcation. I'm not sure bro, but hopefully we can find out together. Keep the questions coming!

 

[socal70]

We have a special partnership with Keyocera. So we get a good hookup from them.

 

[born2killspam]

born2kill, I was under the same assumption that hydrogen is just too expensive to create, unless you are using some means earthly means to generate electricity in the first place...which why wouldn't you just use the raw form rather than hyrdogen.

BINGO! You get a cookie.. Unless the energy will otherwise go to oblivion, or you need a sweet gas that burns way too hot, FUCK IT.. The trick to making HHO economically feasible is being able to hide pre-charged batteries..
Back about 110 years ago Tesla actually demonstrated a proof of concept for wireless power transmission.. Too bad Edison and JP Morgan (The rich & evil fucks of history) squashed it because it couldn't be metered..
His sky capacitor is based on harvesting static electricity from the sky.. Damned cool, and fun to play with, google it..
Another fun one to play with is his turbine! But be careful.. It can get going too fast, and blow up in your face..
Yet another is his resonant shaker/earthquake machine, or whatever common terminology is.. Mythbusters tried it and didn't do it justice as usual..
Tesla is at the top of my all time great list.. I'm pretty confident he knew things we still don't understand.. Too bad he was so secretive, but it wouldn't surprise me if more is gleaned from his existing notes in the future..
And you're right, there is no fighting fossil fuels right now, thats for sure.. When something surpasses their productivity, I'll shut up.. It boils down to KISS.. And for the record, I love trees, thats why I live in a place with so many.. I grew up in the bush.. I didn't even have hydro, or plumbing until I was 15.. Just alots of car batteries, and fossil fuel burning generators..
And ya know, Stephen Hawking was actually relevent to science back in the day.. Who knew he'd die before he dropped dead..

 

[socal70]

Plus you gotta convince every uneducated joe shmoe out there that he won't explode like the hindenburg with a tank full of hydrogen as his fuel tank. Not saying it can't or won't be done.... just doing to take a lot more effort than what is being shown right now. And are you talking about the big kite type wind powered generator that spins like a turbine??? cuz if you are I watched that thing fail miserably during a field test... if u are talking about something different please share the details

Unfortunately, the biggest problem isn't the power 'generation' technology.... it is our antiquated power 'distribution' system. Until we address the distribution problem, there will be no one 'magic' power source. The new technologies will thrive based on regional resources. ie. Southwest=Solar, ocean wave and wind. Northwest= Wind, ocean wave, hydrogen. etc.

 

[Boulderheads]

I would expect so, I mean I was going by retail prices, and there is no way you pay retail for a system that big. The beautiful thing about technology is that it is diffused, the early adopters stay early adopters and equipment can be passed on from user to user. I am not sure the longevity of these panels, but a 20 year warranty is pretty comforting. I suspect that the roofing trade will have to adapt to solar installations integrated into new buildings. It just makes sense. We know how to structure buildings to be efficient, and now is the time to start.

 

[Boulderheads]

that last post of mine was in reference to socal

 

[Boulderheads]

Unfortunately, the biggest problem isn't the power 'generation' technology.... it is our antiquated power 'distribution' system. Until we address the distribution problem, there will be no one 'magic' power source. etc.

Agreed. Why do you think biodiesel hasn't become a nationwide event yet? They can't get pump space. Oil companies control and own the rights to what is sold at the stations. Kinda like how beer distributors buy selling rights at certain stores. Anyway, you got it, once distribution becomes as mainstream as what we do everyday it will be tough to cause a change in behavior.

 

[socal70]

more4u2c, I am glad you asked that question. So here is what I was told by an experienced, and I do mean experienced man. Nam vet, with a crazy compassion for animals. Anyway we got to talking about that one day and he seemed pretty adamant that it would work. His dad was an electrician so he learned the trade and taught me how to wire everything up properly to pull the least amps possible, so I think he knows his stuff. Anyway those PV cells are supposed to be pretty reflective I just don't think you could have a big enough setup in there to recycle all the power, you would still need more on the roof or something. But..... if you ask born2kill about the thermal cells, they use heat set to a specific wavelength so maybe they would be better off used in that appilcation. I'm not sure bro, but hopefully we can find out together. Keep the questions coming!

Unfortunately right now PV cell's are very inefficient at the commercial use level. Right now I believe the best you can get is a 15% efficient PV cell (don't quote me on that). Which means that if you are putting out 100W of light, you would only be able to reclaim 15W of the light output. So that idea of the 'perpetual generator' wouldn't work with the technologies today.

 

[Boulderheads]

good point socal,I am sure born2kill has a nice response coming up for us. He would know better than I would. But maybe the thermo cells could use the extreme heat from the high watt HPS to generate power. Not sure though, cuz I am pretty sure they need like 600 degrees Celsius to operate or something. It is in this thread, or on Wikipedia somewhere. Anyway, lets see what he has to say...feel free to steer away from solar if you have other good ideas

 

[born2killspam]

Actually I'm not fully up on that stuff because I know what you guys are saying is generally the case.. Perhaps TPV's will replace them all.. I actually saw Stephen Colbert satirizing about painting roofs white (anti-solar I guess), and in warm climate that may just be the way to go right now..

 

[socal70]

Actually I'm not fully up on that stuff because I know what you guys are saying is generally the case.. Perhaps TPV's will replace them all.. I actually saw Stephen Colbert satirizing about painting roofs white (anti-solar I guess), and in warm climate that may just be the way to go right now..

Check this out:
"
I am the Senior Device Engineer for Innovalight (my qualification statement). What we have can be called a 'quantum dot' in the true sense of the the individual particle. What we really have is silicon nano particles that can be printed like your home or office printer that we turn into photovoltaic cells (solar cells). This is a tremendously cheaper technology than your standard wafer based solar cell. Yes, we are trying to save the planet in our own way mate ~! We are talking reducing the cost to purchase a module by 1/3+ which already beats any other technology. When I was contacted by Innovalight I was doing research into obtaining the holy grail of photovoltaic energy production, less than a dollar per watt to purchase, less than a dollar per watt of energy output. We (my former research group in Australia) had achieved this milestone yet had a hard time getting financial backing due to political situations. Yet I was blown away by the potential of this technology! I dropped my research, finished my PhD a year ahead of schedule, gave up teaching at the university level with 3 months of vacation a year and jumped on board as I can see the future; 3 times less cost per watt from what I was researching, and my former research was way ahead of the curve I tell you!!! Yes, we are idealistic, yet realistic. We, Innovalight, are on the path to do our little part to save the world and help everyone to purchase solar modules on the cheap! We have several of the biggest investors there are backing us and on our board of directors with many more trying to get a piece of the pie. We will do our part to mediate what damage we have done to this planet since the industrial revolution. This is what I have dedicated my life and mind towards although all things must be done in moderation . I must acknowledge my colleagues at Innovalight for their dedication. intelligence and innovativeness as we, as a team will give this to you all.
Mason L. Terry, PhD
Senior Device Engineer
Innovalight
ps - yes, we do keep track of the worlds pulse and thoughts. Let me know what you think to better serve your needs."


You can print this stuff with a friggin' Inkjet printer!


http://www.innovalight.com/PDF/06052009_OTB_Solar_Innovalight_PR.pdf