Finally got my solar panel up and running. The toughest part was figuring out where to put it because my landlord will not allow me to put it anywhere visible. So, it is now in my sliding glass doors, facing the south side. It catches sun from about 8am to 5pm. It is not the most efficient setup, but it works well enough.

I have a $30 solar charge controller from ebay that can handle 15 amps of power. I am using a Belkin 50 watt inverter from eCost.com to convert the power to 120 volts. And there are 4 sealed lead acid batteries that I got for free, totaling about 40 amp hours together. I use a special radiant energy battery charger to restore old, discarded batteries to like new condition. See Radiant Charger for details.

The solar panels generate some energy to charge the batteries even on a dark, cloudy day. That was a surprise.

Right now my aquarium filter is running off the solar energy full time and I have enough reserve energy to run a 9 watt (60watt equivalent) energy efficient light bulb at night for hours. My netbook only needs 40 watts to power, so that runs nicely as well.

Testing my finished solar panels.

Above you can see my new solar panels putting out some nice power in the late afternoon winter sun. The volt meter reads 17.81 volts.

I also put an old 1.5 watt solar panel in my bedroom window to charge a small sealed lead acid battery during the day. At night it powers a 12 volt fluorescent lamp I got from Target for about $6. Free light for reading.