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diy solar

Charging from house lights?

Rednecktek

Solar Wizard
Joined
Sep 8, 2021
Messages
5,444
Location
On a boat usually.
So quick concept question, but can you recharge solar thingys from your living room lights?

I've got this solar lantern/bug zapper for the wife's greenhouse that has its little solar panel built in. There's no way to open it up and get to the battery without destroying it and it's fall in Western WA so we haven't seen the sun in about a month so far with no end in sight. Needless to say it's not getting much charging time and will only run about 30min per day sitting in the greenhouse charging.

So my thought was, if I brought it inside and left it on the table would the LED lights in there be enough to charge it up? My napkin math says that if the cheapie panel is only about 10% efficient (for low round numbers) and I stick it under a 9w LED bulb, would I be able to get about 1w/hr of charging?

Or is the LED light not the right kind of light to make it work? It's a 5,000k color if that makes any difference.

Just curious. :)
 
Hmmmmmm my old school Calculator worked off a lamp in the living room ,I would just try it
 
Bummer it must be the led lite , they draw little power so they may give off little power .
May be a regular bulb or a grow lite
 
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