How do I connect the wiring??

[GreenMan]

Hey all, I am trying to build my own DIY solar panel. I am totally new to this. I have no building or electrical experience (so please don`t laugh too hard at my questions).

Basically I want to try to build a 60 watt panel with 4 rows of solar sells (Nine 3 x 6 inch cells in each row ...see attachment). So far from what I have gathered I need to tab each row together with tabbing wire, connect the rows by soldering bus wire to the end tabbing wire (see attachment), and then off of row 1 I need to solder 10 gauge wire onto the bus wire (is that correct?). And then from there create these connections: Row 1`s bus wire will be will be soldered to 10 gauge wire --> charge controller --> battery --> inverter --> appliances.

My questions are these:

• Do I just solder row 1`s bus wire to 10 gauge wire, and then put that 10 gauge wire into a charge controller? How do you connect the 10 gauge wire to a charge controller?


• Row 4 will also have bus wire out the one end (like row 1) ...is this connected to anything or does only row 1`s bus wire get connected to the 10 gauge wire?


• What kind of charge controller do I need? And do you recommend a cheap (but good) charge controller (I will be building a panel to charge a 12v battery)?

• When you are soldering the tabbing wire to the bus wire, and then the bus wire to the 10 gauge wire can you just heat and use standard tin foil with a weller gun like this: http://jimdrake.me/wp-content/upload...65-300x263.jpg (or do you have to use some special kind of solder)?


• Is the 10 gauge wire I need something like this: http://www.homedepot.com/buy/electri...ft-171939.html


Thank you so much! I really appreciate any help you all can provide.


panel diagram.jpg

[electricsuperduty]

First, do you have a junction box to land the bus bars in? I would get one if you do not. The bus bars, that are Pos. and Neg., I would mount the J box over them and solder the bars to the lead connection in the box. The j box should have leads coming out (or make your own) you can connect to other leads, devices or another panel. I have done the bus bar to wire with wire nut and did not like it, looks cheesey and not secure.....you take a chance on ripping your lead wires off the panel and that's not good.
Land the J box after you panel is complete, silicone seal it down on the panel, it will be secure.
If you try the wire method on the bus bars...then a J box will not fit snuggly on the panel with the 12 ga. wires in the way.
The bus bars should come within about an Inch of each other, that will give you room to land the J box over them and then bend the bars down onto the leads and solder.

lenghten the bus bars on row 1 & 4 to accomplish this. Just dont touch bar 2 & 3 with them.

[Naptown]

Aluminum foil you cannot solder it would need to be tinned copper. Solder won't stick to aluminum.
The wire you cannot use unless it is dual rated as thhn and thhn2
You will need to add bypass diodes between the strings of 9 cells.
But the Junction box it is worth it.
The wires coming out of the junction box need to be solar wire which is USE2