Back up solar powered Led lighting

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Yorkshire Andy
Posts: 8738
Joined: Thu Oct 03, 2013 4:06 pm

Back up solar powered Led lighting

Post by Yorkshire Andy »

Been thinking about this for a while as the weather was nice today i set to work on the workshop lighting project ive been musing over .....


so..

I wanted some back up lighting in there as many of my preps are stashed in there and with no windows even on a sunny day its dark in there with no lights.....

i had all the bits kicking about so it cost me nothing..... (well it did at one point but meh)



kit used

burgular alarm wire

LED strip

crimps

switch

5a fuse

box to mount the fuse and switch

7ah burgular alarm sla battery

small maplin solar panel http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/solar-powered ... rger-l58bf

(i dont expect this to fully charge the sla battery more to keep it topped up and ready to go if needed..)


so

removed the defuser from the fluorescent lights and stuck the LED strip to the back plate..

run the wires to a central point (( doubled up the alarm wires to increase the capacity as its rated at 1a per core...))


used a 2 pole rocker switch to break live and negative

grouped the output to one side of the switch

and the battery and solar panel to the other and fused the battery live supply with a 5a automotive fuse just to be safe...

SLA battery lives on the shelf above.....

ok enough jabba jabba



pics paint 1000 words.. ..

i had some cool and warm white led strip left.. im not fussed about colour of lighting down there.. .so
warm white
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the diffuser on the light fitting spreads the light nicely

cool white
Image


the on off switch


Image


ok its not blackpool but you can see to work in there and find things by it

Image


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Last edited by Yorkshire Andy on Sun Oct 19, 2014 9:49 pm, edited 2 times in total.
If your roughing it, Your doing it wrong ;)

Lack of planning on your part doesn't make it an emergency on mine
Yorkshire Andy
Posts: 8738
Joined: Thu Oct 03, 2013 4:06 pm

Re: Back up solar powered Led lighting

Post by Yorkshire Andy »

this was taken with 2 6ft ish strips whilst it was sunny out ( some load been taken by solar cell which was producing)



Image



charging

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added another light to the opposite half of the workshop tonight

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so thats 3x 6ft runs of strip


and at night with no light on the solar cell the clamp meter is showing a draw down off the battery of 1.2a


:)
If your roughing it, Your doing it wrong ;)

Lack of planning on your part doesn't make it an emergency on mine
Hamradioop
Posts: 2089
Joined: Sun Jan 20, 2013 11:21 am
Location: Area 1: north wessex

Re: Back up solar powered Led lighting

Post by Hamradioop »

Another nice led project Andy, I must get my Backside in gear and get my power station built.
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