# Solar Panels



## spoil9

Wasn't sure where to put this so if this is in the wrong section please feel free to move it.

Has anyone ever modeled a solar panel before?
Couldn't find any thing on this site or through Google so I thought I'd ask before I experimented. My first thought was to size down and print a picture of a solar panel and glue it to a piece of styrene. 

BTW, this would be for HO scale.
Thanks for any suggestions.
- Will


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## spoil9

okay, so I decided to experiment anyways and I found this pic online.







Its of a Kyocera 210W solar panel which is 1500mm long x 990mm wide x 46mm thick.
If you scale down the picture to print at only 15%, the result is pretty close to HO scale which I believe should be around 20.83mm long x 13.75mm wide.
The only prob I have is that when I print it, it basically looks like a blue square with some white dots. I know what it is, but I'm not sure my guests will.

Although being placed on the roof of a home might suggest what it is 
I will try cutting out some styrene later and gluing the paper to it to see how well/poor it looks and I'll post a pic. But right now I need to put food in my stomach 

- Will


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## T-Man

Why don't you just remove one from a cheep calculator?


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## tjcruiser

The image color does look too dark to me ... can you lighten the blue a bit?

Also, maybe try laminating it in some clear film ... the sticky-peely stuff that you would buy at a Staples or similar. I think that might add a clear sheen, like you have on solar panels.


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## spoil9

T-Man said:


> Why don't you just remove one from a cheep calculator?


Not sure if I could find them the right size and that could run into some money trying to model a complete solar setup on a house on my RR.



tjcruiser said:


> The image color does look too dark to me ... can you lighten the blue a bit?
> 
> Also, maybe try laminating it in some clear film ... the sticky-peely stuff that you would buy at a Staples or similar. I think that might add a clear sheen, like you have on solar panels.


I can ask my buddy to try to lighten the blue with the use of his Photoshop but MS Paint does not allow me to do so. At least not that that I know of.
I will try the laminate sheet as well. I didn't get to the styrene today so I'll try that tomorrow.


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## T-Man

It depends on the effect you want. I wouldn't dismiss real solar panels. I bought a used calculator for $2.00. The four panels together measure 3/4 by 5 1/2 cm. In the Northeast that would pass as a hot water assist unit. 

If you can't print anything try a scrap booking store. They sell oodles of designed paper. Maybe you can find a match.


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## spoil9

They are not the greatest shots, and the final product is not to my standard, but when I asked my dad if he could tell what it was he was able to figure it out.
Sorry about the use of the U-Haul truck but I don't have any built buildings handy.















I printed the picture as I did before, and glued it to a piece of styrene. I then painted the edges black with a paint marker.


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## Reckers

Looks good to me. I think anyone would see it as a solar panel if it's mounted on the house in a manner they are familiar with.


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## tjcruiser

:thumbsup: Looks nice! :thumbsup:


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## spoil9

So I had some spare time the past couple days and decided to take my solar panels one step further and make a solar panel array. Found some pictures on line for reference and the rest I sorta made up as I went along.


The back of the 6 solar panels with the wire I used as the "mount" in the foreground. Each panel was outlined with a silver paint pen before being glued together.















The wire and everything glued together. After this step I painted the back of the panels and the wire silver.








My new solar array next to the same U-Haul truck for reference. Not real sure about what the scale height should be as I saw some pictures where the array was on the ground, and other pictures where the array was 10ft in the air.















I'm thinking my next small project is going to be a HF Ham radio antenna


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## tjcruiser

Definitely a realistic looking solar array! Neat!


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## ho/ttothemoss

that looks real good nice job


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## fireman00

nice job! We've got a ground mounted 10.2 kW array in the backyard made up of 51 panels, each panel puts out 200 watts. Our mounting platform is a little more complicated, but a friend of mine has a 5kW system that's made up of two arrays which look exactly like yours. His system pivots on the single mast in the winter and summer to get the most out of his array.


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## Big Ed

President Obambi would be proud of you for going green.

Looks good.:thumbsup:


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## spoil9

Thanks everyone.
On page 1, I said that I wanted to try building a ham radio antenna next. Well, a year later I finally found the time to sit down and build one. I didn't take the time to choose a band and actually scale down a real antenna, rather I just built something that looked nice to see if I could even do it.

All I did was just soldier some copper wire together to get the basic shape of a beam style antenna. I thought the heat from the soldiering iron would melt the solder of the other elements as I tried to attach new elements, but it seemed to all work out okay.








Here is the same U-Haul truck as I used for scale with the solar panel.








Here are two pictures comparing my HF beam antenna to the truck to the solar panel.
















Sorry to add these to a thread with a poor title, but didn't want to start a whole new


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