So I got ready for Christmas, went away to family, came home with a bad cold, and spent New Year's Day figuring out watts and amps and solar panel stuff.
But I learned a lot of stuff today, like how solar panels work - all about controllers and invertors and how it all fits together. I could buy one already made but if I so desired, I could make a solar panel myself. Doesn't look too difficult at all.
I may have forgotten to mention that during the crap Fall I bought a bit of property with the intention of putting up a cabin, close to the snowbelt and the ski hill, and wonderfully close to some lovely waters for kayaking. Now a lot of my thought is in what that cabin should look like, what are the steps needed to make it happen. So this is where the interest in solar comes from (and probably a lot of this blog is going to be about cabin building by an uneducated novice).

Generally here's some of what I learned today (and I make no bones about the fact that I was starting from absolute scratch, and also have the right to change any of this later if I decide I got it wrong):

• a solar cell will generate about 70 milliwatts per square inch
• a 12v battery is about 125 amps (it's written on the pack)
• voltage x amps = watts and if you divide that by 1000 you get value per kw (kW/h)
• watts/120 = amps 
• controller - keeps the battery from draining
• invertor - gets the solar power into the battery for storage
• plexiglass, board with holes in it, solar cells, wire and some silicone  - and that's about it for a solar panel

I don't think I'd need much really, especially if I use a couple of those solar lights mounted through the roof for light. Other needs might be running a laptop for a couple of hours, cell phone charging, running an mp3 player, and what would be really nice would be to able to run a small fridge (which is about 100watts, or 8amps.

This all boils down to a need for (unless I've missed something important) about 18 amps of power - out of a 12v battery with 125amps - would run for 7 hours. Keeping in mind of course that there's only about 5 hours of really good sun catching time in the day, on a sunny day. 

Some solar panels move with the changing direction of the sun - bet that would be expensive.

Off to blow my nose...