What to do with hose £ land garden solar lights?

[FlashPan]

I just viewed this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaPkAnqx1V0

I liked it as A: super layman's for my head, looked easy-ish to setup, and of course quite cheap.

Only downside I could mainly think off was durability in the field.

Cheers

[TheWolfXX]

Hello Flashpan!

This does seem like a good idea but like you say I'd want to question durability. This link I'd found some time ago gives details on how to make your own photovoltaic cell although I'm not sure how beneficial it actually is. www.uk-preppers.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=12546 whilst this link will provide an instructable for a larger solar panel and I suppose the technique/method could be scaled down with relative ease: http://www.instructables.com/id/Home-Made-Solar-Panel/

If you're looking for a quick charging station for small appliances such as a mobile phone I'd actually consider a wind up generator. It would be smaller, more robust after modification and doesn't require a nice day to charge effectively merely hard work.

Hope I was helpful

Wolf

[metatron]

A lot of phones are a bit choosey when it comes to power sources, if its not clean and stable it's not going to work. You find a lot of cheap car/wall chargers from China will not work with all phones and they normally have smoothing capacitors.

You are better off buying a cheap 12v panel from ebay (you can get 10v to 40v ones for under £10), and then wire in a cars cigaret connector and then use a normal (name brand) car to USB charger, as car batteries are fairly dirty when it comes to power and they are designed to make it useable on all phones. The whole thing shouldn't cost you more than £15.

[TheWolfXX]

A lot of phones are a bit choosey when it comes to power sources, if its not clean and stable it's not going to work. You find a lot of cheap car/wall chargers from China will not work with all phones and they normally have smoothing capacitors.

You are better off buying a cheap 12v panel from ebay (you can get 10v to 40v ones for under £10), and then wire in a cars cigaret connector and then use a normal (name brand) car to USB charger, as car batteries are fairly dirty when it comes to power and they are designed to make it useable on all phones. The whole thing shouldn't cost you more than £15.

Sounds like a cheap dirty way to charge a phone. I knew phones could be tempremental with their charging cycles but I don't know a great deal about mobile phone technology (despite the fact I understand it's merely smaller computer technology mixed with mobile phone tech).

Could some kind of voltage regulator or running the whole thing through a capacitor/battery make the whole solar idea a possibility do you reckon? It sounds like a nice idea in theory but the practicality I'm very much unsure of.

[FlashPan]

Interesting about using the 10v panel of ebay and a car cigarette charger.

This kind of stuff really does scare me and elude me to how it all fits together and works

So...for arguments sake are you are saying this would work (using a v quick ebay search)

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/12V-4-5W-Port ... SwHQ9WVC5C

(ignore the cig lighter as it comes with the croc clips)

Would work with this:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-1A-DUAL-Twi ... SwPcVVwo0R

Question(s) is.

A: How to wire the 2 together?
B: Which device should/would have some sort of anti overload/over charge or some sort anti feedback?

Working in the mobile phone industry I can safely say that most if not all chargers output at 5v and x Amps. I say x Amps as newer phones requires 1Amp or greater for a charge. Most windup chargers only output an 500ma or 0.5 Amp...so even with your most furious wrist work you phone will not charge and for some sex life will suffer Capacitors I have zero knowledge on but yes, not all chargers will charge a phone. Something will work on a Samsung, Sony or LG but not on an evil evil iPhone (you can tell I don't work for Apple ) as they want you to only buy their kit.

I guess you need to be careful that the cig lighter USB charger outputs a certain Amp-age.

As for other devices like radios, torches etc I cannot say what amp-age they would require.

Cheers

[poppypiesdad]

In the simplest terms

You need

Solar panel
Charge controller
Battery
Battery Clamps
Ciggy lighter
USB car charger

The most important thing is POLARITY

Positive + Red
Negative - Black

You just need to link the components together

Soar panel leads to charge controller
Charge controller to battery via battery clamps
Ciggy lighter to battery clamps
Plug in USB charger

Device charging

Now I've missed out things like
Battery box
Battery isolate
Fuses
196 page health and safety manual

But if you want it to work that is the simple way

The USB charger will drop the voltage and current as in a car but you don't have the benefit of a car alternator to recharge it that's where the solar panel come from

Or if you want to waste lots of Watts

Solar panel
Charge controller
Battery
Battery clamps
Inverter
To mains plug in charger
Don't expect it to last long depending on inverter power output , current drawn ,and recharge time

Simples

J

[sniper 55]

Theres no circuit protection there, and in bright sun those batteries are going to get hot if they are left in there with the charger always on, most proper chargers have a chip that detects the battery voltage and shuts off the current when the battery is fully charged. Theres also no way of knowing when they are charged with that system.