With respect to G-s post. I'm with you, but I would scrap the SLA and go with a NiCd set. I have been testing these and can run a 12Vdc LED set on 10.80Vdc and they light up with almost as much brightness. Plus they can be run down to near empty >20% charge left and come right back up.
Cheers Bruce S [ Parent ]
Go for 3 volts instead and use small encapsulated panels in series and parallel for your requirements. Nicads are the way to go, charge them and let them run completely down, recharge them again. If you match your solar output to your daily usage you can just let them run down (like outdoor solar garden lights). Nicads can cycle everyday for 3 or 4 years or more without replacement.
You could get the system down to little money out of pocket, especially if you score cheap garden lights and use the batteries and leds out of them.[ Parent ]
It's simple to make. One thing is that it won't go down to 0% or up to 100%. You could adjust (by using germanium type diodes) the output in between 2% -- 99 %. It's good enough for me.
I made it and used it along with a LM117 voltage regulator and a MOSFET-based current limiter and so I got a regulated voltage¤t driver + PWM adjustment. Sweet.
It all looks like this (to the right, the 555-based PWM):
[ Parent ]
Claude[ Parent ]
Thanks Again Bruce S [ Parent ]
