SOLAR LIGHTING

[Whisper]

Hi,

have little to no experience of solar power and emergency lighting systems so I am researching on the web. Have come across a couple of websites and I am hoping that before I lash out with the cash that someone has some knowledge on their usefulness.

www.ledhut.co.uk/inflatable-solar-led-light-bag - this is a site selling a combination of plastic bag and led light for £10.00. Leave it to charge and switch it on when needed.

www.britalitez.com/index.php/lighting-kits - lights and battery kit for around £100.00. Anyone bought and use one? Is this a good deal?

Prepping for power cuts. Have the usual wind up torches and lamps plus gas and fuel lamps but believe that a solar system would be better in the long term.

Any thoughts?

[grenfell]

I think I've posted this somewhere else but I went down the ultra frugal route and salvaged old garden lights from a skip. With only limited hours of sunlight in the winter they very rarely get a full charge and this can result in a dead battery. People just assume the whole thing is kaput and chuck them. Most of the ones I found worked fine with a decent recharge or new battery. Leave them on the window chills to charge up but with the light turned off until needed.

[Yorkshire Andy]

If your reasonable with electronics tailor your own kit plenty of solar charging panels on eBay and amazon brick size SLA batteries are about £20 depending on size


To put it into action..

Decide on what led lights you want see DX.com China site does a good range...

Then work out how much power they draw.. And how long you want to run them for....


Say you have 4 led lights each drawing 0.25amps that's 1a in total a 4ah battery will last 2 hours....why? Its good practice to only discharge a lead acid battery to half its rated capacity........

Then the solar charger base your calculations on a supply of 4 hours good sun light as up to that point the charge rate will be poor.... And avoid the cheap Chinese ones see my inverter power supply thread its on here in the projects threads iirc

[Yorkshire Andy]

viewtopic.php?f=38&t=8297&hilit=inverter

[EddieEnzyme]

My solution to the lighting issue is simple.
I have a few of the uber efficient LED torches (Zebralight, Fenix etc) which will run for many hours on one aa battery, so I picked up some diffusers for em.
Then I got 24 Eneloop batteries which hold their charge for ages and then finally a Powerfilm solar charger.
These chargers aren't easy to find in the UK but they're different to most solar chargers in that they actually work.
Lighting issue sorted - with enough batteries you could even charge em in the summer and, with the long charge-holding properties of the Eneloops and the efficiency of LED torches, have enough light for winter!

[EddieEnzyme]

I also picked one of these up, along with an AA adapter.


http://countycomm.com/strobetll.html

[Whisper]

Further to post, bought one of the inflatable solar lights. Works pretty well. Kept in the light for a couple of days, blew up the plastic balloon and switched in on.
Enough light to carry out tasks, wouldn't use it as a reading light, but all in all impressed. Very little weight and small enough to carry, just keep it on the outside of your pack, or on an outside window so the solar panel charges the battery.

[bob the builder]

Anyone any experience with the solar powered sensor lights? I fancy them for 2 reasons 1 no wiring needed just fit to the side of the house, 2 in a power cut it would give a bit of security if anyone dodgy starts lurking around for an easy score more likely to try your neighbours under the cover of darkness