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The parts needed to build a solar powered light?

Full Metal

Mar 20, 2014
2
Joined
Mar 20, 2014
Messages
2
Hello everyone,
I'm trying to build a solar powered led (2nd part would be to add a USB port) and I'd like to know all the parts I need to get it working nicely.

Apart from the obvious things like an led, battery, on/off switch, wires and solar panel will I need some sort of controller for charging the battery as well as not overcharging it? I'd like it to have a 1W panel, a 1W led and battery which can run the light for 5 hours (so at least 5Wh right?)

I'm in secondary school and we've been taught about electricity so I thought that this would be a fun project. If it is easy enough I would like to build one which has a USB port as well so I can plug in a USB fan.

Thank-you for reading.
 

peter.rabbit

Mar 16, 2014
11
Joined
Mar 16, 2014
Messages
11
Do it in stages....

Get your battery, hook up switch and LED and get it working. Then add the panel/controller. Panel/controller is wired in parallel with your LED.

Batteries are normally specified in Ah too - a 1W LED will draw approx 80mA from 12V.

I do this exact thing in my observatory - I have some 4W caravan LEDs, a 9Ah 12V SLA battery, a 10W solar panel and a charge controller.

I then added a timer circuit to kill the light after 1hr, because I was forgetting to turn it off and killed two new SLA batteries in the process....

Sounds like a good introductory project - good luck....
 

Full Metal

Mar 20, 2014
2
Joined
Mar 20, 2014
Messages
2
I came across a number of designs such this but will the same equipment work with my numbers?

I'd also like to know about the type of controller I would need for my project

I've noticed that a lot of the time voltages aren't same everywhere (i.e a 6V panel, 4V battery and 3V led) doesn't sending a higher voltage damage the equipment or is that what controllers are for?
 
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