Do-It-Yourself Solar Cells?

Is anyone familiar with Nanocrystalline Dye Solar Cells?

A friend of mine heard that there was an organic outfit here in the western U.S. who taught classes in how to make them, but I have not been able to track them down.

Excerpt from Wikipedia: "This cell is extremely promising because it is made of low-cost materials and does not need elaborate apparatus to manufacture. In bulk it should be significantly less expensive than older solid-state cell designs. It can be engineered into flexible sheets and is mechanically robust, requiring no protection from minor events like hail or tree strikes. Although its conversion efficiency is less than the best thin-film cells, its price-performance ratio (kWh/m2/annum/dollar) should be high enough to allow them to compete with fossil fuel electrical generation (grid parity)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dye-sensitized_solar_cell

And there is a kit you can buy, at http://www.solideas.com/solrcell/cellkit.html

And here is a .pdf article on what appears to be a how-to: http://www.camse.org/scienceonthemove/d ... manual.pdf

Does anyone understand this? Is it actually possible to make your own solar cells?

Sue

Sue- This may be off topic of your question but on topic of this category/topic of discussion... Sorry if you don't want to go here, you can just tell me to shut it

What is your purpose of building your own cells? Do you want to have a fun DIY project? Do you want to light up a barn, pig pin, chicken coop, or the like, convert whole house?

The reason I ask is that I've been investigating solar for a while now and while the panels are normally the most expensive single items, the inverter/charger and batteries are thousands of dollars each too.

Also I've read that DIY panel creation can have moisture problems if not done 100% perfect.. and then their efficiency drops and it ends up being a wash.

-Todd

These are VERY low power cells incapable of generating any useful amounts of electricity at this time. Basically they are just a cool chemistry trick.

-Blast

Oh, RATS! I was kind of afraid of that...

I was hoping that it was something that some smart people could build on. It would be nice to have a little homemade solar setup to keep chicks warm in winter.

Scratch that...

Thanks, guys!

Hey Sue, we were gonna do something like that but if the ultimate goal is to go ALL solar in the future I think it's cheaper to build up the entire system.. Like get the inverter and charger controller, and one or two pannels, then add more panels and batteries when you can afford it.

Right now it looks like 30% gov rebate, and in CA we are getting 2.5$/watt for a grid-tie system which is about 60% off per-panel and 30% back from the fed.. which makes it NICE if you have the $$ to dump down for the entire system at once Oh, how I wish we did!

This US patent might be a place to start for a high efficiency combined solar PV and water heating panel which shouldn't be beyond the skilled DIYer.

http://www.patentgenius.com/patent/6630622.html

Packs of individual solar cells can be purchased quite easily (best to get the higher efficiency monocrystaline silicon cells)

All the other kit such as aluminium plate, glass, fresnel lenses, frame materials, bonding sealants, electrical, soldering and plumbing kit should be readily available at the local DIY store.