Once you have your equipment to build your solar panel, you are almost ready to get started. Building a solar panel can be a great way to get the whole family involved, and it can be more than a one man job, so before you begin to build a solar panel, why not ask the kids to help get the whole family involved in helping to save the environment and cut down on utility bills.

Now, before you begin building your solar panel, you need to determine what your solar panel is going to be used for. For instance, if you want to provide power for an electric fence then you might only need to build a 100 watt solar panel which will mean that you will pay out less, but if you are aiming to power your entire house with solar panels then you will need quite a bit more than 100 watts so first, decide what your solar panel is going to support and then it is time to build.

There are approximately 20 steps to building your first solar panel, and whether you are planning on making just one or many to power you whole house or more, then once you have built your first solar panel, you will have the guidelines to be able to created as many solar panels as you need.

Step #1: to begin, you will need a Multimeter which is able to measure DC fractions of voltage and your collection of solar cells, once you have this, position a light source near your solar cells as this will allow you to get a consistent measurement of voltage output of each of the solar cells.

Step #2: set your Multimeter to measure DC voltage and place the negative test lead on the side of the solar cell which shows negative voltage. Then place the positive test lead on the side f the solar cell which shows a positive voltage. Check to see what the maximum voltage output is and don’t move the solar cell around to try and get a higher reading. Next you need to separate your solar cells into groupings of .05 volt increments and this will allow you to take maximum advantage of solar cell output.

Step #3: the next step is to connect the solar cells with tinned interconnection wire and in order to achieve this you will need to take the spool of interconnection wire and cut it into 10.5 inch lengths.

Step #4: next every piece of the tinned interconnection wire should have solder put on it and you can do this by adding solder to 5.25 inches of the wire beginning at one end, then flip the wire over and add solder to the remainder of the wire beginning at the opposite end.

Step #5: now you must solder a length of the interconnection wire to each connection strip which is located on the front of each of the solar cells.