How to Build a Low-tech Solar Panel?
George Cove, a forgotten solar power pioneer, may have built a highly efficient photovoltaic panel 40 years before Bell Labs engineers invented silicon cells. If proven to work, his design could lead to less complex and more sustainable solar panels.
I love Low Tech magazine. Half their articles are horribly impractical or not very well thought out but I genuinely still love it.
Same. People talk about good design but I've not seen design as beautiful as lowtech.
So, thermocouples are commonly used in industry to make temperature probes, typically in the form of a coil of wire containing two conductors of different metals. I wonder if it'd be possible to get ahold of some thermocouple wire and put together a solar cell at home?
This is such a wickedly interesting article, I had no idea there was a totally different method of solar technology like this. Very strange that there hasn't been more widely known research in this area, or more home-built attempts. Crazy that they were eventually able to achieve 17% efficiency.
Thanks for sharing this article!
