Saturday, December 7, 2013

"Off Grid" DC Solar Electric Garage Lighting... Hard Wired and Fully Integrated

Instructables was kind enough to send me this neat little solar kit as a prize for being runner up in last year's "Off the Grid Contest".

The kit comes with a solar panel, an intelligent battery pack, a universal USB cell phone battery charger,  a wall adapter charger and a 12 volt LED light bulb with power cord.

The battery pack can be charged from either the solar panel or the wall charger from a set of terminals in the back. It has a built in charge controller as well as an alarm that will notify you of an error. On the front of the unit are two 12 volt "cigarette lighter" outlets and two 5 volt USB ports that you can use to draw power. On the front there is also a battery level indicator as well as a charge status indicator.

In these photos you can see the solar panel on a little wooden frame that I built for it. When I first got it I planned on using it for camping trips and emergencies so I made up this portable stand. Now I will make up an aluminum mount and mount it on the roof of my garage with the power cable routed through the roof deck, attic and over to the battery pack. For now I put the panel on the ground beside the shed whenever it's sunny.

The light bulb that came with the kit was particularly interesting. Even though its a 12VDC bulb it has an E26 screw base similar to the ones found on your conventional household 120VAC bulbs. The cord that was included had a bulb screw socket on one end and a "cigarette lighter" style plug on the other end to plug into the battery pack. As strange as the light bulb was it meant that I could install it in a conventional household light fixture as long as it was wired up for 12VDC and not 120VAC. I found more of the same bulbs on eBay and then gathered up some electrical boxes, 18/2 Romex wire, tools and got going.      


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