Newbie needs help. Glass vs. Polycarbobate

[TechladyLLP]

Hello and thanks for your help. I've been researching obsessivley while home sick for over 2 weeks about DIY Solar Systems. One thing is still unclear. I see different methods of building the panels. Some are REALLY LAME! Most use Sylgard to encapsulate and they lay the conneted cells right on the glass and then pour and spread. I really can't afford the Glass so I wanted to use Polycarbonate. I can get either 1/4 or 3/16 locally (BTW - Is this the preferred thickness? Really want to use no thicker than 3/16th.). Then when I thought I had it all figured out, I'm told that the Poly will make my cells crack. I posted on this site a couple days ago and got some feed back but still have questions. First, I have seen a video where the guy had encapsulated his cells but not onto the glass. He did them in rows. His video didn't show how he did it. He must have spred them out onto something like waxpaper or something else that the encapsulate would not adhere to when he encapsulated them in the first place. So he simply picked them up, one row at a time and arranged them into his frame. (One person said they used parchment paper to "pre-encapsulate".) Then he never told how he planned to secure them into the frame. Would you then just use silicone? If this method is possible I'm thinking it is the best way to make sure the poly doesn't crack my cell since they won't be stuck to it.

In my last post, someone said that if I encapsulate to the poly, I would need to have a hard backing. Any ideas on what that would be. If it's another piece of poly then I'm back up to (or over) the price of glass. Wood doesn't seem like a good choice for several reasons. Warping being the first.


Thanks!