If you were floundering around, cobbling together an off-grid power system way back in the 1980s, you probably remember the day that a friend handed you a stapled copy of Home Power #1, which came out in November 1987. What a revelation! Great how-to articles and connections to suppliers of all the alternative energy gear you needed-an ARCO M-75 PV module for only $6.48 per watt! But if you were like us, you didn't have the bucks to buy new modules and were struggling along with an old lawn mower engine hooked to a car alternator, or some such gizmo, for battery charging. Then, in 1990, ads started appearing in Home Power for recycled ARCO 16-2000s, ARCO 120-watt "tri-lams" and "quad-lams." They came from solar power plants that were constructed in the early 1980s, but were being dismantled because the energy credits or something like that ended, and they were determined to not be cost-effective anymore. For us, it was an opportunity to get some affordable PV modules.
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