Hello everyone,

My partner, Dean Sala and I have been working on business and product ideas for the last nine months. Our goals are modest, we want to build a small niche business doing what we love, and that's solar power!

We think there will be a growing need for rugged and lightweight solar panels for portable & remote (off-grid) applications. We started with some product ideas that would require such panels. We discovered how hard it would be to have them made by someone else, so we decided to make them ourselves.

We are a self-funded general partnership. Neither of us is wealthy, so we are doing everything with a minimal capital outlay.

We've started a Facebook fan page where we are making a chronicle of some of our experiences. We very much believe we are on a worthy mission, but we are also in business to make a profit. We are hoping that both goals can peacefully coexist :-)

We hope to make a meaningful contribution to this forum, but we will not be revealing every secret we have worked so hard to discover :-)

Gary

We don't let a business advertise on the site. As your business is a little different then many, I can allow you to stay. (Yes, we delete users that just sell stuff.) Since your are venturing into a "growing need for rugged and lightweight solar panels for portable & remote (off-grid) applications"

I believe it is cheaper to buy a manufactured panel then to make one. But we have many that come to this forum just to make solar panels. Maybe you can help them. (Along with the other members that like to make panels.)

If you want to "Sell" anything. Use the Private message function of the forum.

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Making the world a better place just makes sense.

I can personally attest to the fact that it is much easier to buy a solar panel than make one. Whether it is cheaper or not depends on the requirements, materials used and so on. If you just want to play around (like we began), you can easily solder together some cells, tape them to a piece of cardboard, wire it up and voila :-) Such a panel may not survive very long, but it is a solar panel, and can be made very cheaply. Making one that will survive in the elements for 20 years is an entirely different matter, and indeed a very expensive and difficult undertaking, as we have found out the hard way.

We aren't actually selling anything yet. But we are making with intent to sell :-) There are only two of us, and our goals are modest. Like many here we got into this for the pure love of it.

My hope is that I can earn a presence here by helping people. If that ceases to be the case, you can kick us of course :-)

Gary