ShySky DYI Green Energy News and Updates

DIY solar panels are a great way to save money on your power bill and can be a fun project for you. However, breaking your cells when you try to solder them together can eat away at your savings, not to mention waste your time and effort.

In this video, we show you how we built a "jig" or form that not only dramatically helps us reduce breaking the solar cells, it also helps make the stings of cells more uniform. It also helps us tab (solder) the solar cells together much quicker, which helps making DIY solar panels much faster, easier and cheaper.

Try to notice the two grooves we cut in the bottom of the jig. These grooves are meant to be where they tabbing wired and solder go. This allows the tabbing wire to fit below the cells, while keeping the solar cells level.

We found that the tabbing wire creates an uneven surface when you try to solder the cells together and when you press down with the soldering iron, the uneven surface created by the tabbing wire and solder caused the solar cells to break.

Before you get started, take some time to create a similar jig to help you create a sort of "aseembly line" form to help you with your green energy project.

And of course, both Brett and Kurt STRONGLY suggest using "pre tabbed" cells. Pre-tabbed solar cells will not only save you time and trouble, they will save you money in the long run by reducing your broken cells.

Check out the link below. We've created a page that shows you more DIY solar panel tips and recources for finding the cheapest pre-tabbed solar cells.

In this video, we're show a cutting edge way of encasing your solar panels that's faster, easier and cheaper than using liquid epoxies and substances like Slygard.

It's called "EVA Solar Cell Encapsulant Film Or "Solar Panel Eva Polymer Glass Laminate". Sheet".

It comes in easy to work with sheets you simply cut to size and lay over your solar cells. Then use a heat gun to melt the sheets.

With this method, you don't have to worry about any liquid epoxy getting under your solar cells and ruining them. Also, you don't have to worry about your solar panels leaking messy epoxy all-over the place.

If you are putting together your own DIY solar panels using solar cells, check out EVA solar panel film. There aren't many things in life that are easier, better AND cheaper, but EVA film is one of them.

I'll put up some links for EVA film if I get a chance…

If you're ever in a survival situation or want to make your own DIY camping gear, it's good to know things like this beforehand, and as you can see in the video the waxed cotton ball is not only a good survival fire starter, it also burns for a pretty long time, providing enough fuel to keep a fire going for over 20 minutes in our tests.

Waxed cotton balls are an alternative to cotton soaked in Vaseline or other petroleum jelly. Vaseline cotton balls are easier to get lit, but are more messy than waxed cotton balls. Waxed cotton also seems to last a little longer than Vaseline when burning.

If you're ever camping and in a survival situation, a waxed cotton ball may give you enough fire and heat to warm up or heat water without having to find other fuel.

We hope you found this outdoor sports survival tip helpful. For more, visit our survival page at:

http://shysky.com/survival-tips.html

Click on the link above to check out more videos and info for tabbing solar cells…Plus, find a ton of resources for "pre tabbed" solar cells. We highly recommend pre tabbed solar cells, as they are big time savers.

Pre tabbed also saves on solder, tabbing wire, and flux. But more than anything, you'll break far fewer solar cells if they are pre tabbed.

For more info on pre tabbed cells, plus where to get them at the lowest cost, visit:

http://shysky.com/cheap/

Also, if you chose to tab your own cells, be sure to see our quick trick for cutting tabbing wire. It will save you a lot of time and effort:

http://youtu.be/SBpKjiUekDk

Here's a quick video to show you how to easily cut all your tabbing wire at the same time. Most videos instruct you to cut each bit of wire one at a time. But this method shows you how to cut a bunch of tabbing wire at the same time.

Also, click on the link above for more resources on how to connect solar cells to make your own DIY solar panels.

You'll also find links to cheap solar cells, including pre-tabbed cells. We HIGHLY recommend you using ONLY pre tabbed solar cells.

Pre tabbed cells only cost a few pennies more each. But you will make this up by not having to pay for tabbing wire, solder. More importantly, if you use pre tabbed cells you will break far fewer solar cells trying to tab them together.

In other words, you'll save blood, sweat, tears AND money using pre tabbed solar cells.

In this video, we tear apart a newer hard drive to recycle the rare earth magnets.

How to make wax cotton balls for fire starters and fuel. One of the problems with wax cotton balls vs. cotton balls that use vaseline is that wax usually can't be lit using just a spark.

We've added a secret ingrediant (a match) that allows waxed cotton balls to take a spark or be totally self-lighting.

We found the wax versions burn longer and are far less messy…

Here's a simple but great diy camping and survival technique that's a favorite of the Boy Scouts. We use a secret trick to make our diy buddy burners take a spark to make fire much easier than other buddy burners. These are a perfect DIY project to create camping gear for fire outdoors.

A short fun video showing how to make your own hillbilly laundry using a windshield wiper motor to take camping or RVing. It can be powered by a 12v battery or a 12v solar panel.