Ok, so which one is better for living off the grid (or grid tie systems)?

We asked this question recently of some friends, solar panel installers, and all of our acquaintances who are using either Sanyo HIT Solar or Mitsubishi Solar Panels.

Sanyo PV Modules Review

Sanyo Sells PV Solar Panels under the HIT Brand which is derived from the Technology it uses.The HIT Solar Panels from Sanyo are one of the highest efficiency solar panels availabe on the market today.Sanyo sells most of its Solar Panles in the 180-220 Watts Range unlike other panel makers which have made 240-250 Watts the standard range for their Solar Panels.

We have to admit to a slight bias here in that we have used the Mitsubishi product quite a bit longer than the Sanyo. And our off grid setup is only one of many that we have seen.

But... we have found similar output and results with each.

Sanyo sells 3 types of HIT Solar Panels

1. HIT Power N and A Solar Photovoltaic Modules – These have higher power ratings than normal HIT modules and range between 205-225 Watts.
2. HIT Bifacial Photovoltaic Modules – HIT Double 190 is the highest power rated solar module in this range. The back face of a HIT Double panel generates electricity from ambient light reflected off surrounding surfaces, and combines with power from the front face of the panel. Depending upon system design and site albedo, this results in up to 30% higher power generation (more kWh) per square foot.HIT bifacial solar cells are hybrids of single crystalline silicon surrounded by ultra-thin amorphous silicon layers.As temperatures rise, HIT Double solar panels produce more electricity than conventional solar panels at the same temperature, due to their low temperature coefficient.
3. Normal HIT Power Panels – HIT Power panels have a double-wall black anodized aluminum frame for extra strength, and are tested to 60PSF. The panels come pre-equipped with a touchsafe junction box, USE-2 outdoor rated cables, MC4 locking connectors, and are UL 1703 safety rated for wind, hail, and fire.

That makes this question rather difficult to answer. Usually when we are asked about a comparison we can give our readers the straight goods, but not with this one.

Our friend Steve (hope you are reading this) says the Sanyo Hit by far is better, but like us he has not really used the other extensively.

We find ourselves divided, so we are posing the question to you.

Which is better?

From our standpoint we use several criteria for deciding on a product, and whether it should be stocked or even used by us here.

There is

1. Ease of installation, whether rooftop or pole mount solar systems.

2. Can it be configured with a solar panel tracker for living off the grid.

3. Does it setup nicely for grid tie applications.

4. Stability, and quality of construction are critical for us.

5. Is it competitively priced and shipped conveniently.

The above systems all have these in varying degrees.

I would give the nod to Mitsubishi in the quality department (sorry Steve).

But the Sanyo seems to be a company that is run very efficiently, and they ship to customers on time and efficiently, we like that. Get your off grid system set up fast.

We do wish that we had tested the Sanyo HIT longer, so we could give you our assessment now.

Instead we put it to all those folks who have used either one, what do you think?

Whether for grid-tie or off-grid living please let us know your exact configuration in your comments. Thanks.

Off grid solar panels is one of the fastest ways to begin with living off the grid and it's not really that hard, here is what you need to know.

With so many choices out there today we figured the best solution was to build our own. We set out to do just that, to solve the problem of high prices, reliability and ease of construction. The problem was that there were no books on the subject when we started. It seemed that no one wanted us to know how to do this for ourselves.

They now come in many shapes and sizes to reflect growing demand for the products. In fact, there are so many companies out there and so many new products that figuring out which ones to buy has become much more difficult than it should be.

We figured 'there has to be a better way.' During our research we discovered that there is a lot of misinformation out there, and just plain wrong information, so we decided to build solar panels ourselves. You can see from this video that with only simple skills and learning where to find solar cells you can do the job yourself. Now, don't be scared off by the fact that the video shows some pretty specialized tools, you can do the job at home with basic tools too and a good set of plans.

Let's get started.

If you are looking to save money and you are of the diy mindset, then off grid solar panels just might be for you. By making our own we saved thousands of dollars over the cost of buying new ones, and you can too. You don't need any special tools, no previous experience or any technical knowledge at all. We started with no knowledge of the subject 15 years ago and we built our entire renewable energy system, solar and wind generator (yes, you can do that too ).

We figured why on Earth would we want to spend thousands of dollars when we could do the job ourselves. It was a great family project too for a small fraction of the cost. Usually under $100. You will benefit from our research and development. Our family not only learned how to do all of these things from building solar panels and install them to build our own wind generator, we also learned how NOT to do them.

We have learned from others and made some mistakes ourselves as part of our learning. We can pass that knowledge onto you so you don't make any of our mistakes. Here are some of the things you will learn.

Where to find solar cells, Learn all the skills necessary to install solar panels, Find out if you have a good location for solar energy, Learn building solar panels from scratch, Find sources of all the materials needed, Monocrystaline, Polycrystaline or thin film technology, what is best?

For those of you considering renewable energy for your home the option of learning how to diy should be considered.

The main reason of course is price, compared to a cost of perhaps $3 per watt for manufactured solar panels you can build your own for under $1 per watt. When you factor in that you will need 3000 watts of power production at least to run your home that is a minimum savings of over $6000 - right in your pocket. That is a substantial sum to any family considering this option, money that could be better spent for other purposes, inverters, wiring, batteries or any number of items for your household energy system.
Saving money has become a bit of an obsession for us here , saving a couple bucks at the expense of hundreds of hours of work is not something we usually consider. But, that is not the case here.

Let's examine some of the main points before getting started.

• You will need good plans for building solar panels.
• Any spare room or garage is suitable for a work space.
• A good workbench or sheet of plywood works best for a work area.
• Only simple tools and easy to find parts are needed.

When our family first started living off the grid we learned how to build a solar panel in order to make our venture successful.

We needed a way to power our home with renewable energy, but every avenue we explored was just so expensive. After building our home we just did not have a lot of money left over.
We first went through a cycle of buying solar panels and batteries to power our off grid home.

Living Off The Grid does not have to cost a lot, but our first taste of off grid was a learning experience. We knew it would be a challenge, because we did not have someone helping us as you do here.

We soon discovered that it was going to take a long time and a few more thousand dollars of investment before we could power our home properly.

So we started looking at other options...

Jane even suggested that we buy a wind generator to help power our home. After doing some preliminary investigating it was soon obvious that this option, along with the $5000 we would need, was not available to us. What to do?
The answer showed up one day in the shoes of our good friend Bill. He wanted us to help do the maintenance on his wind generator the next day.

We discussed what we had been trying to do and he suggested that we investigate how they are made and perhaps we could learn how to build a solar panel instead.

That sounded promising, as we had never considered building our own so we took Bill up on his offer and helped him do the annual maintenance on his machine. Bill and his wife had been off the grid for over 5 years before we moved to the area and our mutual interests brought us together as friends rather quickly.

Once we had Bill's wind generator on the ground using his tilt-up tower assembly we were able to remove it from the tower and have a look. After taking off the cover we soon discovered there wasn't hardly anything to the assembly.

A DC motor, some wires, a hub, the body and mount, and the blades, and of course the tower. We could build this we thought, but it would be much easier to build solar panels.
After getting the specifications of the DC motor we set to work to find one of those first and develop some serious plans for assembly. We finally settled on a treadmill motor that we could make work that we found on Ebay. It was very inexpensive.

The hub was a bit trickier, but after finding just the right shaft material we made one from some old metal we had.

The blades we were not sure of at first, and ended up trying many formulas from PVC pipe to wood, to even bought fiberglass blades (Windmax Blades), each worked well, with us giving the nod to the wooden ones because we figured that anyone could build them at home.

Since we were putting together plans for ourselves we figured that it made sense to try and help others do the same, so we took pictures and made diagrams and explained everything in great detail. Sign up for our living off the grid newsletter above for more details.
How difficult is this, and what do we need to succeed?

• need to find the parts needed
• use the very best wind plans you can find
• make sure you explore all the options for living off the grid you only need simple tools found in any home
• a spare room, garage or even outside will work for a workspace

In order to get started first you need to locate all of the parts. When we began, since we were short of money and of the diy mindset we set to work to work to find low cost solutions.

During the early years on our property we were also working as renewable energy installers and that helped us to design the proper set up when learning how to build a wind generator or solar panels.

We knew what it needed to accomplish and when one of our shipments arrived and the generators were not assembled (we had to do the job ourselves) we knew that we were onto something. Anyone could learn how to do this.

For a low cost tower we used pipe that we had salvaged and traded our neighbor some carpentry work and he helped us with fabrication. We came up with an even better tower idea that you can find in the wind generator plans.

Our biggest problem was figuring out where the guy wires should go on the pipe. He suggested that at each joint of pipe that a guy wire should be placed. From a physical strength standpoint he was right on.

For the most part we used material we had on hand and figured our first model cost us less than $100 in total and produced over 1000 watts of power, much more than if we had built up our solar panel array.

With Bill's help we perfected a simple method that anyone could use to learn how to build a solar panel and make living off the grid so much simpler to accomplish.