In class today, we measured voltage in a small solar cell using LabView. Upon opening, the program showed a black box that calculated the voltage of whatever was hooked onto the robot. It would spit out around ten voltage measurements for each run.

The first runs we did had varying distances of light from the cell. We used 0, 2, 4, 6, and 7 inches and ran the voltage calculator for each. Here’s a graph of the results:

[Click to Enlarge]

Each voltage is the average of the ten different measurements the computer took of the same distance. As expected, more distance between the cell and the light meant less voltage.

I thought that people just put solar panels on their roofs rather than the ground because there was space up there. Now I can see that if one was using solar panels for power, putting them as close to the light source (the sun) as possible would be beneficial to gather more of the sun’s energy for electrical use. Apparently Sun Chips uses this power. It’s on the bag.

So is this.

The second measurement we took was Voltage vs. Filter color. We used 3 different light filters on the solar cell – blue, red, and green. In fact, the chart is color-coded:

[Once again, click to Enlarge]

The real-world use I can think of for this lab is in the making of the actual panels. This measurement of voltage can tell us which kind of material to use on the panel to soak in the maximum amount of voltage. So if anyone is thinking of going green, here’s how solar cells work:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/energy/solar-cell.htm

Remember this? Solar panels!