Reddit reviews 1/4-20X3 ft. Stainless Steel Threaded Rod

Boost its output by making a cheap solar concentrator! Find some spare heatsink(s) and affix it(them) to the back of the panel with thermal paste. Then make a cheap, large parabolic shape roughly 4x4ft by bending chicken wire and then paper mache over it. When still wet, cover the whole thing in a layer of aluminum foil and it should stick to the paste and stay on there. Then you need to make some sort of tripod like thing to mount the panel at the correct distance from the reflector. I'd use three steel spring clamps to attach to the frame, then drill 3/8" holes through both handles. Get three 3-4ft pieces of 1/4-20 threaded rod (buy all this stuff at your local hardware store). Put a 14/20 nut on the rod and thread it down a little over and inch, followed by a large washer. Then stab the end though the paper mache and into one of the chicken wire segments near the edge of the reflector, followed by another washer and nut to hold it in place. So you've got nut-washer-chicken wire-washer-nut. Repeat with the other two rod segments so the three are evenly spaced around the perimeter of the reflector, like a satellite dish.

Now take everything outside in the sun, and angle the reflector so that it's roughly pointing at the sun. Using a large piece of cardboard or similar (be careful not to burn yourself as the focal point will be very hot!), find the correct height for the solar panel to be placed. The correct height will be where the size of the light blob is slightly larger than the size of the solar panel. Now tilt it away from the sun to finish assembly. To the top end of the rods, add another nut followed by another washer and thread them down to roughly the distance you just estimated. One you have done that for all three, take your handle-drilled spring clamps off the solar panel and slide them down over the rod through the handle-holes. The larger hole (3/8") will allow them to play a bit. With all of them on there, take the solar panel and re-attach the camps. You'll have to shimmy things around a bit. Now turn it back to the sun and make sure the panel is 100% covered by light. you can adjust the height and coverage by raising or lowering the nuts. When you've got it correct, put another washer and nut on and thread them down to loosely sandwich the clamp between the other nut. You want just enough pressure to keep the nut secure, not so much that you squeeze the handle on the clamp. Tada! Done! You've just made a solar concentrator for 20 bucks!

You can increase the output of the panel by 6-7 times by doing this, provided your heat sink cools the panel effectively.