Hi All,

New to the forum.

Hope to talk to some of you soon.


R

Hello, cosam. Welcome to the forums. In which part of Aus do you live? I have heard that there are quite a few people there who use solar, because of how many people who don't have utility-supplied electric.

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On this site, 99.999% of all underlined words are links.

A watt saved is better than a watt generated, since it always costs less than 10% as much, and can cost as little as 1%.

V=volt, A=ampere, Ah=ampere hour, Wh= watt hour, VOC=open circuit voltage, ISC=short circuit current, VMPP=voltage @ max power, IMPP=current @ max power, BTW=by the way, your=belongs to you, you're=you are, too=in addition to, two=1+1, to=towards

Many thanks for the welcome.

I am in Melbourne.

A lot of people out in the bush use solar and wind power, due in part to the fact it's so remote that normal power suppliy is impossible, but a lot are using it to enable them to save money.

Well, I hope that you realize that 'saving money' by spending $10-20,000 (minimum) on solar is about the equivalent of going on a diet by doubling or tripling the amount of food you eat. The only real way to save yourself money is to vastly reduce the amount of electricity you use, which is far cheaper to implement than either wind or solar.

__________________
On this site, 99.999% of all underlined words are links.

A watt saved is better than a watt generated, since it always costs less than 10% as much, and can cost as little as 1%.

V=volt, A=ampere, Ah=ampere hour, Wh= watt hour, VOC=open circuit voltage, ISC=short circuit current, VMPP=voltage @ max power, IMPP=current @ max power, BTW=by the way, your=belongs to you, you're=you are, too=in addition to, two=1+1, to=towards

Thanks for the "heads-up" but a lot of people are making their own stuff out there, and its a lot cheaper (not necessarily as good mind you), but having a go, which I reckons a good thing.

R

Yeah, you're right, it isn't as good. Then again, if it saves you enough money (over buying pre-made panels), then I agree that it's worth doing. The point I was making in my last post wasn't that it isn't worth doing, just that we get so many people who have been told by salespeople how much money they can "save by going solar", when the fact of the matter is that solar power costs 5-10x as much per watt as the electric utilities charge for the electricity that they sell.

But yeah, saving money over the price of pre-made panels is easily done, if you're handy with a soldering iron, and don't mind spending a bit of your time and money learning how. The most important part is getting the panel completely waterproof, in case you weren't aware. Have you seen the top two links in this thread? They're step by step guides to building your own panels. Good luck, and let us know how it goes.

__________________
On this site, 99.999% of all underlined words are links.

A watt saved is better than a watt generated, since it always costs less than 10% as much, and can cost as little as 1%.

V=volt, A=ampere, Ah=ampere hour, Wh= watt hour, VOC=open circuit voltage, ISC=short circuit current, VMPP=voltage @ max power, IMPP=current @ max power, BTW=by the way, your=belongs to you, you're=you are, too=in addition to, two=1+1, to=towards