Can I buy solar silicon cells only and assemble my own solar panel made of insulated materials like plywood?
537663
Absolutley, just make sure you include diodes so your batteries don't drain through the panels at night, and make sure everything is watersealed for obvious reasons
109178
You can find a FAQ about skinning the invision power board 2.1 series at http://forums.invisionize.com/index.php?showforum=179
239071
get a solar panel and hook it up to your car.
719073
As taken from the EERE Solar energy basics website:\n\n"Sunlight—solar energy—can be used to generate electricity, provide hot water, and to heat, cool, and light buildings.\n\nPhotovoltaic (solar cell) systems convert sunlight directly into electricity. A solar or PV cell consists of semiconducting material that absorbs the sunlight. The solar energy knocks electrons loose from their atoms, allowing the electrons to flow through the material to produce electricity. PV cells are typically combined into modules that hold about 40 cells. About 10 of these modules are mounted in PV arrays. PV arrays can be used to generate electricity for a single building or, in large numbers, for a power plant. A power plant can also use a concentrating solar power system, which uses the sun's heat to generate electricity. The sunlight is collected and focused with mirrors to create a high-intensity heat source. This heat source produces steam or mechanical power to run a generator that creates electricity."
55953
Make a battery from a lemon!\n\nhttp://www.energyquest.ca.gov/projects/lemon.html
51284
You would almost certaintly need batteries warmed by nuclear decay. The rest of the structure would also need to be warmed, again by a nuclear core of some sort.  Solar panels would be a waste of time.  You would need to give it an extremely powerful, yet low energy computer and sensors able to take readings and perform calculations quickly.  Even the most sophisticated technology would freeze and become unusable very quickly on Pluto.  There are also violent wind and ice storms that would damage the equipment, but that also brings up the point that you may want to have a relay satellite in orbit around the planet so that messages from the surface (which would be distorted by the storms) can be reprocessed and amplified before being directed to Earth.
352887
Search at these sites.  It can be done, but it is usually not economical.\n\nhttp://www.scirus.com/srsapp/\n\nhttp://www.scienceresearch.com/search/
422427
You need the following:\n- Solar panel(s)\n- Batteries\n- Charging regulator\n- Low voltage cutoff\n\nThese last two will keep your battery from dying quickly.  They are often in the same device now.  Expensive, but much cheaper than new batteries every year (I had to learn the hard way on this one).  \nThe most difficult part is estimating how much battery/solar panel you need so you don't run out of electicity.  Also you need to match the solar panels to batteries.  It does not help to have a lot of battery capacity and a tiny panel or vice versa.  Most shops that sell these things can help you with this.
492114
Solar panels work because they are made from a semi-conducting material.  You have to view the solar cell as a kind of capacitor, with one region above the depletion zone(top plate), and another plate below the depletion zone (bottom plate).  The incident light hitting the depletion region, injects charges into the latter.  The freed electrons and their corresponding holes will move through the region under the action of the electric field between the plates. The semi-conducting material acts like a capacitor, holding electrons on one side of the plate, and the holes on the other side of the plate.  A force is required to move the electrons out of position.  This is the sunlight.  A combination of wavelenghts and  photons the duality of light...
612469
Solar electric panels are made up of something called silicon, the same thing that makes up sand. There is more silicon on the planet than almost anything else. Even though you can find silicon almost everywhere, making a solar panel is difficult and expensive. The silicon has to be heated to super high temperatures in a big factory, and then formed into very thin wafers. \n\nWhen sunlight hits a solar panel, it makes electrons in the silicon move around. (Electrons are teeny tiny specks--they?re way too small for us to see, even under a microscope.) The electrons flow through wires that were built into the solar panel. And presto! We have electricity! We can do whatever we want with this electricity, run a calculator, a CD player, or, if we have big enough solar panels, a satellite! [Solar panels are also called photovoltaic panels. "Photo" means light and "voltaic" means electricity.]
722421
Silicon solar cell efficiencies vary from 6% for amorphous silicon-based solar cells to 30% or higher with multiple-junction research lab cells. Solar cell energy conversion efficiencies for commercially available mc-Si solar cells are around 12%. The highest efficiency cells have not always been the most economical -- for example a 30% efficient multijunction cell based on exotic materials such as gallium arsenide or indium selenide and produced in low volume might well cost one hundred times as much as an 8% efficient amorphous silicon cell in mass production, while only delivering a little under four times the electrical power.
397245
um solar panels? i dont know how they work though so i dunno.
196785
the answer can vary greatly depending on the type of cell that you are looking for.  High efficiency cells can have outputs more than 10 times that of cheap hobby cells.  The easiest way to find the specs is the website of your supplier, they should quote full efficiencies of all of their products
901153
Try GT Solar Inc.:\n\nhttp://www.gtsolar.com/products/celfab.php\n\nor Spire Corp.:\n\nhttp://www.spirecorp.com/spire-solar/turnkey-module-production-lines/index.php
713367
the single solar cells you can buy at Radio Shack are about .5 volts each so I imagine a calcutor solar cell would be anywhere from .5 to 1.5 volts
487293
Do a search on this site..  \nregarding solar energy.
375923
The sun is a powerful thermonuclear device.  Very little will withstand exposure to sunlight forever.\n\nTypical modern plastic based solar cells will last for 15 to 20 years.  "Glass technology" can be extended to 25 to 30 years.  Premium quality last as long as 50 years and counting.