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To: RLK
When the birds crap on your solar cell array or bugs land on it, output goes to squat.

What are you talking about? Even if there were a completely opaque obstruction on part of the glass, panels are partitioned into zones and the other zones are unaffected.

I just cleaned bird stuff off a panel today. There was no measurable effect on output whatsoever. The solar insolation simply refracted under the spot and onto the photovoltaic grid. This was easily apparent looking at the silicon cell from the side. The cleaning is more so humans feel better about it than anything, although I'm sure a big enough bird could cause problems, but then that would cause problems on your windshield too.

Please explain the statement "The sun's output is 100 mw". Seems to me that if the sun can heat up the earth from so far away it must be greater than that.

15 posted on 12/16/2002 6:30:31 PM PST by steve86
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To: BearWash
I put my panels on the outside of the railing of my deck not on my roof. They get just as much sun and are easily cleaned. I also use mirrors to reflect more light onto the
panels. I don't run the heat, air conditioning, or oven on the panels BUT everything else is run on them. I have a bank of 20 batteries mostly gel type. I get them from fire stations. Fire stations have to recycle their backup batteries EVERY year whether they are good or not. I pay between $10-$30 dollars each for them. The batteries can run all I mentioned for 3 days with solar assist. Hooking a windmill to the system would be a piece of cake. I am going to do just that in the spring.
18 posted on 12/16/2002 6:42:17 PM PST by 1redshirt
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To: BearWash
In the 70s I was part of a research team working on solar cells. 100 mw is what you get. To see the effect of dust and bird crap you need to measure the internal resistance of the cell under various conditions. For some things solae cells will work decently. Just remember something like a small air conditioner will draw in the order of 12 amps at 110 volts. That's a pile of solar cells.
20 posted on 12/16/2002 6:48:46 PM PST by RLK
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