Cheap and Easy Solar Heater

Converting electricity into heat is one of the most expensive uses of energy. If you’re not convinced, look at the power usage of electric appliances like microwaves, space heaters, water heaters, ovens, or coffee pots. The difference can be seen between your electric bill from a cold month, when you have to continually run your central heating, and during summer months, when the ambient temperature does not need to be heated.
If you live off-grid, you tend to be far more aware of what it takes to create electricity; you can literally watch your batteries’ voltage drop lower and lower when using an inefficient appliance. However, if you are tied into the grid, you should almost be extra vigilant as regards your power usage. Not only do you have to pay for it each month, but also the power plants that produce your electricity are rarely sustainable or environmentally conscious.
When considering the issue of heat, there are several green options, the best of which is the sun. Solar thermal energy can be harnessed in many ways to heat your water, food, or home. For the purpose of this article, we will be concentrating on an active thermal space heater to heat a room or

Beer Can Solar Space Heater

I saw a smaller version of this instructable a while back: here. At the time I was volunteering with a local animal rescue center. We had just installed a new 20' x 40' wooden barn as an indoor recreational area for the animals, but as the shelter was off grid there was difficulty heating such a large space. I decided to upscale the idea and see if it would work for us.
For this instructable you will need:

Home Made Solar Panel

Why pay lots of money (or any money) for a program that shows you how you can make your own solar panel as you can get this for free?

Visit Home Build Solar System on http://home.kpn.nl/maas5455/and experience how also you can make not only solar panels but also how to make the whole system for half the price of panels you buy in the shop for free.
Those systems are mostly made from materials you can buy locally in your DIY shop and materials which are easy to get online.

Its time to harvest the sun and get your electricity for

Home built solar power system

Hi. I've been interested in renewables for a while now. Our society can't continue to work on oil, and with rising gas prices and more frequent power outages, solar energy seems to be the way to go. The main problem that inspired me to make this system comes from my love of technology. When my iPhone and laptop run out of juice, my life becomes very primitive. With the goal of keeping all my electronics up and running no matter what the weather and grid status is the main reason I made this system and instructable. This is my system and how it functions. I'll start with the original setup and show how it has evolved over time.

DIY Solar Panel

Creating a solar panel out of broken re-used solar cell pieces. I ordered a pack of these from http://siliconsolar.com (3$ for a bagful of them - you can order here). In addition, you will need some conductive copper mesh (available at most art stores), glue gun + sticks, a multimeter and a conductive pen (or any sort of conductive brush-on - I got my conductive silver pen here). In this tutorial I will try to explain the best technique I found to connect these broken cells, in order to create your own CHEAP

Build a 60 Watt Solar Panel

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 terrible light pollution found near cities of any real size. I found a great piece of 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. However, it would be nice to have at least a little electricity, since so much of life in the 21st century is dependent on it.

I built a wind turbine to

Batch Solar Water Heater

Aim: To build a solar batch water heater using some old materials and some new. The idea behind this heater is to use as many old materials as possible, keeping them out of landfills and to use new materials as efficiently as possible. For this reason the box has been designed to use exactly two sheets of plywood without any waste. This also gives the box a trapezoid shape, making it stronger and angling the sides to reflect light onto the bottom of the tank. This was a lucky accidental feature;-)
I think this is a very simple design most people are capable of making with fairly basic tools, cheaply and without advanced carpentry skills. it is a effective heater - I have seen the water on top reach 150F on a hot spring day.
I have built a few of these and am still working on improving the design. I will log in and update this as I have more pictures and info. If these are not completely clear directions, well, this is my first instructable, so it will only

Adapt a clock today! Cheap trackers boost solar panel and solar cooker performance.

The Sun's path across the sky has been known and has been predictable for a very long time. People with solar panels and solar cookers take either a high tech approach to solar tracking (light detecting electronics, etc or they manually adjust the cooker or panel. High tech is very expensive and manual adjustment is majorly error prone.
Low tech cheap tracking could improve solar performance substantially.
Low tech tracking would be valuable in really poor countrys for solar cooking and perhaps save many trees from the cooking fires.
This instructable describes my tracker that I made from an old and ugly clock.
This is a collaboration so if you have an old clock lieing around, please set it up with a gearwheel as I did and see how sturdy it is. If we can find a strong robust one, It could be bulk ordered for appropriate tech solar timing projects.

How to MAKE PV Solar Panels

How to MAKE PV Solar Panels

This is not 

"How to make PV Solar Cells".


It is possible to home-make Copper Oxide and other kinds of materials
but that is a whole nother story which I may do in the future.

I may be a little bit ambitious to try to show you how I made PV
Solarpanels out of various types of cells I collected and how and
where I obtained them rather inexpensively, and some of the differences
in the various kinds, but most of all, how to work with them to get
free electricity under the light of the sun and other sources of light.

In essence, this involves ways to connect cells, which may produce
more or less than one volt, and not only try to increase power output
but also decrease the load, that is, efficiently conserve the energy
whether it is meager or significant.
For example, even the weakest solar panels can run watches,
calculators, radios, charge batteries, and if a computer were
specifically designed to, it would be as solar-powerable as a calculator.

Here are some pictures of Solar Panels which I have constructed. 

Step 1: Supplies and Sources

SCR Based SSS Solar Charge Control

A force-commutated SCR makes a novel Solid State Switch in a solar charge regulator control. Prior art includes relay and transistor switches, but an SCR switch in this type of DC application may be new to the world (normally SCRs are applied in line-commutated AC applications). Advantages include robustness and the requirement of only one conductive device that performs (3) functions: switch, latch and reverse polarity diode (reverse blocking thyristor). The main SCR conducts the charging current from the solar panel to the battery while a 2nd commutation SCR performs the function of commutating (turning off) the main SCR current at the end of the conduction period. All circuitry consists of readily available discrete components. Note that this is old technology and may not be the best or cheapest solar charge control solution, but it makes a great, mind-expanding tech school lab experiment.

This circuit is applied in fashion similar to

Solar Battery Charging

This instructable will show you how to make your own solar battery charger from very simple components. It is taken from my documentation provided with a kit I supply - you should easily be able to source the same components yourself of course.

If you have any comments on how to improve the documentation then please do not hesitate to say :)

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Electronic-Widgets-Inc

Step 1: The Components Needed

The items shown in the image are contained in your kit. This page explains their uses. Your kit may have a smaller/larger copper stripboard than this and may contain extra wire - I try to beef up the kit as time goes on.

The Copper Stripboard contains rows of copper tracks. Each track is electrically separate from its neighbour. It contains holes for your components. The boards I supply are larger than needed, this will allow you to expand the system at some future date.

The Batter Holder ... errrr holds your batteries.... and comes with two pins, one for the positive and one for the negative ends, they will be soldered into the stripboard.

100 Ohm resister - at one point this was needful in the kit as the LED couldn't cope with some of the voltages in the experiments - however the new LEDs do and the resistor is simply in there because it is advertised as such! Maybe you will have need of it when you expand the system.

LED - this is a high intensity light emitting diode. 3.2-3.6V forward voltage, with 10000mcd at

DIY Solar Air Heater Boxes

You can build a well sized solar air box that will help heat your house for around a hundred dollars or so depending on the materials you have at hand. It's not complicated but you will need basic construction skills and some time to work through the job.

Step 1: Size the Box

The first thing to do is figure out where you want to place the box or boxes you build. I have found out that bigger is better when it comes to solar air heater boxes.

Find the best and biggest not shaded south facing area you can.

Prepare whatever

Solar Plane

Introduction: 
This instructable will show you how to create a solar powered plane. This project was done at Newman Smith High School (Carrollton-Farmers Branch Independent School District [CFBISD]) in Carrollton, Texas and was sponsored by the Texas A&M University Society of Flight Test Engineers. We received most of the needed parts from Texas A&M University and built the plane for the High School Solar Plane Competition on May 25, 2013. The project is not for the beginner as it gets a bit complicated. Skills that you will need include soldering skills, plane building skills, monokoting skills, and general R/C plane knowledge. Our team ended up with the Most Creative award and 2nd place in Endurance.

Special Thanks to Texas A&M University, Newman Smith High School Teachers and Principal & the DIY Drones Community (http://diydrones.com/forum/topics/solar-powered-plane).

Below are some pictures of the completed project. The next step will be the list of materials needed.
Also included below is the link for build basics and aircraft aerodynamics- there are two PowerPoints included by Texas A&M University. If you are going to do the project, printing out these two PowerPoints will help you immensely. However, please take note that all the cells must be in series, not in parallel as one of the PowerPoint presentations describes.
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B_bYmGJ0v1Ncb283TF8tWXF6ZWc&usp=sharing

Want to see more photos? PM me and I'll give you a link.

UPDATE: 03/31/2014: Research Paper now included.

•  Solar Airplane Resarch Paper.pdf

Step 1: Materials

Solar charger

Hi,
In this step-by-step guide i'm about to teach you how to design and build a simple solar charger.


What you'll need:

1) Solar panel.
2) Adjustable Boost Converter Charger Module.
3) Electrical Wires.
4) USB female cable.
5) A box.
6) Recommended  - portable USB charger, a cord, led.
7) Soldering Tin.
8) Duct tape.


Tools:

1) Plier.
2) Soldering iron.
3) Hot glue gun.
4) A knife.
5) Tweezers.
6) Voltmeter.

Step 1: Attaching wires to the panel

Solder electrical wires to the solar panel (Red to +, black to -).
Cover it with the duct tape. 

Step 2: Adjusting

Connect a power source to the charger module and a voltmeter to the output of it. Now adjust the module to 5v output.
connect the panel to the module (to the input).

Step 3: Connecting USB

Cut the USB cable and then solder the + cable to the + output in the module and the - cable to the - output.

Step 4:

Mark on the top of the box the size of the solar panel.
Cut near the borders that you've marked so the hole is a bit smaller than the panel.

Step 5:

Use hot glue to glue the panel to the hole.
Now glue the other parts to the bottom of the box so they wont move, in the side make a hole as big as the USB cable.

* I recommend gluing the USB output well so sand and dirt wont come in.

**If you had cotton wool in the box i recommend putting it between the panel and the bottom it will also help preventing the parts moving.

Step 6: Finished!!

Now you can test your charger.

Step 7: Recommended additions

* If you like to you can add a led to the module output so you'll know when its working.

** If your box is big enough you can add a portable charger instead of the USB output so power wont be wasted, that way you'll be able to use it even when the solar panel is not exposed to light.

*** I added a small loop to the side of the box so i will be able to hang the charger when driving the car, going on camping etc.

DIY Solar Birdhouse Light

This solar birdhouse light is an economical circuit of a mini solar lighting system circuit is presented here. At the heart of the circuit is a mini 6V/2W solar panel. Here, this solar panel is used to charge a 4V/800mAh rechargeable battery through a charge current limiter circuit built around an adjustable 3-pin regulator LM317T (IC1).

Resistor R1 sets the output current. The lighting circuit comprising 20 white LEDs are directly powered the battery. Swich S1 is a simple on/off switch. Assemble the circuit on a small PCB and enclose in a suitable cabinet. Fix the solar panel on the top of the cabinet and power switch and LEDs on the front side.

Specification of a typical 6V/2W solar panel:

• Maximum Power (Pm) :2W
• Working Voltage (Vmp):9V
• Working Current (Imp) :220mA
• Open Circuit Voltage (Voc) :10.5V
• Power Tolerance:-3% to +5%

Assuming a 6 hour sunlit day, a 2 watt panel (near 150mA current set by the regulator IC1+R1) will pump about 900mAh into the battery. Solar charging current can be reduced by increasing the value of R1 ,say from 8.2 Ohm to 10 Ohm.

Solar Birdhouse Circuit Schematic

6V Solar Charge Shunt Regulator

A shunt regulator technique may be effectively employed in regulating the charging voltage of a lead-acid battery. Although it has a practical power limitation (< 20W or so), it has the notable advantage of being an LDO (low dropout) regulator (zero voltage dropout in this case) - this is in contrast with the typical series regulator that often has a dropout voltage in the order of 1 to 3V.
Note that 6V solar panels often have minimal voltage headroom that tends to make it difficult to obtain the full charge voltage of 7.2V.

The shunt regulator is connected across the load rather than in series with the load. It regulates the voltage by shunting excess current away from the solar panel. In order for a shunt regulator to function, it must work against high source resistance – in this case, the solar panel is ideal, having a very high source resistance. Shunt regulators tend to be less efficient than series regulators because they dissipate the most power when the output is at minimum – however, in this case the power dissipated is the excess solar panel power that would be otherwise unused.

The circuit is a simple, but practical solar charge regulator – generally simpler than the typical series regulator.

Schematic

Circuit function

D10 is a schottky battery isolation diode – it is vital in this application so that the actual battery charge never gets shunted by the regulator. The low forward voltage of D10 (approx 0.25V @ low current) means that the solar panel must generate only 0.25V over the battery voltage. The shunt regulator consists of two transistors (Q1 & Q2) in the composite NPN/PNP connection. This has the current gain of a Darlington with the input characteristics of a bipolar transistor. Q2 dissipates approx. 3.5W, so a small heatsink is required. D2 in series with zener D3 (6.8V) and the Vbe of Q1 make up the voltage reference – when the voltage exceeds 7.45V, Q1 & Q2 turn on so that the current is shunted. I had to trim up the voltage of the zener slightly by adding D2 because the zener was running on the low side. The shunt current path is through D4 through D8 – these diodes dissipate approximately half of the power thus taking it away from Q2. D4 through D8 also drop sufficient voltage to turn on LED D9, thus indicating at least 75% charge level.

Simplification

The circuit may be simplified by eliminating the two LEDs and limiting resistors. D4 though D8 then may also be eliminated. This reduces the component count from 15 to only 6.

Photos

In the protoboard photo there is an error – I had the green LED connected to common rather than the cathode of D8