Sunpower Maxeon Solar Cell - Discussion

[madmalkav]

Hi again. I have retaken the project after some months busy with other stuff. I have been looking for DC-DC boost circuits and seems they start to be efficient enough from 3V, so I will go from using 3 cells to 6 or perhaps 9, but I can use some help on deciding wich IC shall I look for: most I have seen are rated for maximum 3A input and I'm afraid I'm not understanding the information properly.

Also, as my plan is to get a 5V 2A USB outpu, shall I use a TPS2513 after the DC-DC booster?

Thanks for reading.

[Red Squirrel]

Cool stuff!

I recently been considering building a small solar system for my house, even though we don't get much sun, I figured it would be a fun project and for when we do get sun it would still help.  Long term project though, don't quite have the money yet.  I'd want to do like 5kw, but don't think I really have the room on my roof as there's only really one area that would be good, so in all reality I'd probably do like 1-2kw.

Canadian Tire has solar panels on sale so I bought a small crystaline 30w one to play with, and it's actually amazing the power you can get even with a small one.  I was not expecting it to be able to spin a brushed DC motor directly, but it easily can. I've been testing various loads on a small battery bank to discharge and recharge the batteries to get a feel for just how much time it takes to charge and so on. I'll build a portable power pack with cig lighter plugs, lights, small inverter etc for camping or emergency use, mostly just for a fun little project.  If ever I build a shed I might even just make it solar, for the lights and such.

[Stormwind]

@solarcross and @Artlav - if you are willing, it would be great if you could share some details of your panel construction (like material used).

I'm working on similar panels for lightweight backpacking.

Thanks!

[vishalniit]

Hi,

What is the genuine place to buy this solar panel, i see lot of provider providing this on eBay and Alibaba how to figure out which one is genuine. Also is there any better product than this, as i see some chinese cells claim 30% EEF, which i doubt.

In this thread somebody mentioned about building a RC copter using solar cell, what happened to that idea.

Regards
Vishal Gupta