Background
Initially I was interested in building DIY solar hot water panels. I found a community group who had a jig made up for pressing the grooves into the copper sheet to locate where the copper tubes are to be soldered. They also had a jig for positioning the ” holes in the 1″ header and footer pipes. This was a great start, and then I silver soldered the risers into the 1″ pipes, and soft-soldered the risers onto the sheets. After painting the copper sheet and pipes with black-board paint, I built a box with timber sides and a plywood back, with fibre-glass insulation, and assembled it with a glass sheet over the top, sealed with silicone.