Solar cells used to be quite difficult to get a hold of, but with the rise of the internet it has gotten quite a bit easier. I can remember when I first started looking to build my first solar panel that the most difficult part was finding some decent cells. I was looking in magazines, calling up companies and I still couldn't find anyone who would sell me small quantities (had to order a minimum of 10,000 from the manufacturer).

Thankfully I happened to learn about ebay. I figured that if you could buy all sorts of weird things on ebay you should be able to find solar cells as well. After some searching I had found what I was looking for. Before I go any further you should know that in addition to the different types of solar cells there are also different kinds of solar cells. What I mean by this is that you will find both tabbed and un-tabbed solar cells.

What's the difference?

Well, there's no real difference in the cells themselves... the difference lies in how long it's going to take you to build your solar panel. When building a solar panel solar cells have to be tabbed. This basically means attaching a piece of tabbing wire (thin flat piece of wire) to the face of each cell. You see, a solar cell produces negative energy on the front of the cell and positive energy on the back of the cell. We need to attach wire to the face of the cell so we can capture the negative energy and pass it along to the back of the next cell (solar cells are connected in series. ie. each cell produces 0.55 volts so we hook 36 cells together in series to produce 19.8 volts which is enough to charge a 12 volt system). Tabbed cells on the other hand already have this piece of wire attached to the face of each cell meaning that you don't have to do this step.

So, what should you look for? It really depends on how fast you want your solar panel built and how much money you're willing to spend on your solar cells. Un-tabbed solar cells are the cheapest while tabbed solar cells cost a little bit more (usually 0.20 or 0.30 cents more per cell); however, using tabbed solar cells in your solar panel greatly reduces the time it takes to build it.

Building a solar panel with un-tabbed cells requires about 6 hours of work while building a solar panel with tabbed solar cells can be done in less than two hours.

I recommend that a beginner should start out their first panel with tabbed cells. It's slightly more expensive, but you'll get experience doing everything but tabbing. On your second panel you could tab your own cells and see which method you prefer.

Now, I haven't done all this rambling and not going to show you where to get the cells. The following links will take you directly to ebay with the page that displays either tabbed or untabbed cells.

Tabbed Solar Cells

Un-Tabbed Solar Cells

I hope you now know which type of solar cells to get and where to find them cheaper than anywhere else. If you have questions feel free to leave a comment or contact me using the link at the top of this page.

Would you like to learn how to build solar panels? Just click the link.

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