Currently running 3 x 12v LED panel lights directly from 60w panel...would a larger panel run more of these lights please?

[eddykramer]

Hi guys ,

Sorry if this is a total newbie question. I was wondering if anyone could help me work this out please and any help would be greatly appreciated.

We have a property that has 3 x 12v flat panel LED lights that run directly to a 60 w panel (please see photos of the equipment). We use them (I guess you would say) passively I.E. they work as LED solar skylights in that they run without battery storage and just work when the sun is up and fade down in light like a normal skylight as the sun reduces it's effect on the panel. They work perfectly for our setup in dark areas of the house and at night these panel lights also have a seperate LED strip inside that is wired to a 240v transformer so we can just switch them on and use them as normal lights....Hope this makes sense.

The lights are labelled as 18 watt but I think this may just be internal (non 12v) LED strip that runs off the generic transformer that is plugged into mains...is this correct? The panel light has a 2nd internal flexible strip of LED lights that runs a 2nd passive lighting circuit as it is cabled directly to the panel (no battery involved in the setup and hence when the sun fades/so does the LED light). I spoke to somebody who knows a little about 12v solar and they said you can't or shouldn't run a 12v load (LED/motor etc) directly to a mono panel unless there is a buck converter or voltage regulator that limits the output to a suitable voltage. I told him that there didn't seem to be any sort of buck converter in the path and opened up the back of the panel (black plastic box) and looked at the wiring...it seems to have what I think are a pair of diodes soldered across the terminals (again please see photo). Would these diodes be doing the job of limiting the power output to make it suitable to connect the 12v LED lights?Â

My second part of the question is can I get a more powerful 12v mono panel (150w or 200w) and run more of these 12v LED panel lights (currently the brightness level is fine with 3 lights running from the 60w panel) but ideally we would like to run another 10 of these lights and don't want to split the load across another 3 60w panels. I have attached a picture of the specs on our existing 60w panel and a picture of specs on a 150w panel that we are yet to buy.

Thanks very much for your assistance.

Diodes inside junction box to reduce output suitable for 12v...is this correct??



LED panel light with both mains and 12v connection:


Specs of our existing 60w panel (which runs 3 of the above LED lights):


Specs of the proposed panel we are yet to purchase (we would get an 150w or even 200w panel if we can run up to 10 of the above 12v LED panel lights from):

 

[nosys70]

if the led is labelled 18w then you can assume that is the maximum power.
so 3x 18W is 54W.
Knowing that a 60W solar panel is not delivering 60W, the total is probably more around 40W.
all in fact depends how long you want to turn on the led.
If you are happy with the time you get, then it means you have extra capacity.
doubling the led power will likely give you half the time you currently get.
if it is not enough, then you have to add another 60W panel to get back to original capacity.

 

[eddykramer]

Thanks for your help nosys70. If I was to upgrade the panel to the 150w version above, can you see any issues with running 10 of the above lights from the panel? From my research (and I don’t fully understand it) I gather that there might be too many Amps outputted by the panel for the 12v lights and need to regulate the power output in some way but I’m not sure how to do this.