Unique Original Articles » Building Solar Panels - Preparing Tabbing Wire

When building homemade solar panels one of the first steps is preparing the tabbing wire. Review this description of what a tabbing wire is in case you have forgotten.
Tabbing wire is just like regular wire except for a few key differences. Big Difference #1: It is not copper-based. This is usually a combination of tin and assorted metals. This makes it conduct electricity a lot more efficiently. The other big difference is the fact that tabbing wire is flat. The reason for this is it has to be flat so it can be attached to each of the solar cells.
Now that we have had a small refresher lets discuss the way to get it ready for tabbing your solar cells. The first step is to cut your tabbing wire into the appropriate lengths. Place two solar cells down about 1/2 an inch apart in order to figure out the correct length. Each piece of tabbing wire should be this long.
Previously I trimmed each separate piece of tabbing wire with my hands, however this took too much time. What I do now is take a small piece of thin wood and cut it to that length. Than you wrap the tabbing wire around that piece of wood. Snip the ends using tin snips and your tabbing wire ought to be the optimal length.
Now that your wire is cut to the correct length you can move on to the next step in preparation. You need to do what’s called ‘tinning’. Basically this is applying a small amount of solder to half of each wire.
Due to the fact that only half is fastened to the surface of each cell you need only tin half of the wire. This what to do: first of all place the wire face down and put a small amount of solder on your soldering iron. (a chisel tip works the best). Now place your soldering iron on the end of the wire. This should result in a good coating of solder on the wire.
Remember that it is very important to not overuse solder here. All you need is just enough to get the wire coated and that’s it. Should a copious amount of solder be used it will be difficult to fasten it onto all the cells.
After tabbing wire, continue on with the steps to build a solar panel.

I made my own solar panels as well as a wind generator and saved more than $30,000. I received money from the electric company because I create more energy and use less energy. If you'd like to learn how you can do the same check out Building Solar Panels
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