diy solar

diy solar

Lighting?

BIGFOOT

Here comes the sun....
Joined
Jun 15, 2021
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45
Location
FL SWAMPS
What kind of lighting do you run for indoors and/or outdoors from your PV system?
 
48" LED shoplights on a switch at the door, and direct mount (can without the can) lights on a switch in my shop. Outdoors I just have a simple single led porch light.
 
You can find 12, 24 and 48v dc lights if you don’t want the inverter overhead for anything else.
 
Not all A19 LEDs are equal. I found some high power factor LEDs from California 6 years ago when I went solar. They were more expensive but I haven’t lost 1 yet. That is something I don’t hear much about on here is power factor. But when you are the power Co. It is important.
 
went crazy and hacked together an arduino lamp from LED strip with red green blue amber cool white warm white. https://www.superbrightleds.com/mor...-color-changing-led-tape-light-24v-ip20/5879/

it was a little pricy but i treated myself.

mounted it on 4040 aluminum extruded rail of 2meter

pretty efficient, controlled with a knob that also has push button.

it’s 24VDC powered. using n-channel mosfet and teensy 4.1 to control the gate leg of each mosfet with 14 bit PWM. it can be dimmed down very low with fine control and barely any discernible ticks or jumps in brightness when adjusting.

the firmware is written so that turning the knob will adjust the "current parameter"
short press of the button will cycle current parameter to next one
long press of the button will cycle color selection mode to next one (three modes right now, 1)HueSatBri 2)WhiteTemperature 3)MirrorOutsideConditions)

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to really splurge, i installed a multi spectral sensor and lux meter in the window and ran ethernet to deliver the data to the desk part. the firmware i wrote includes a mode that reads the spectral sensor and lux sensor and then sets the LEDs to match that color and brightness, adjustable up or down in brightness with knob of course.
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I run 12V LED’s for my off grid shop and 48v LED’s for my off grid home system. Amazon is great.
 
Perfectly timed thread. Forgot I already had already this spare DIODER to expand my existing set.
 

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For my pass through Storage in my RV I added 12Volt/24 volt capable lighting to accommodate a 24 volt upgrade:

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Well, my camp is a little complicated as it started life as a 1972 travel trailer and was expanded, sssoooooo...

The west half is 2 120v spotlight cans with 9w LED's in them. I installed a 4ft LED light bar in the west bedroom because it had nothing, a 4ft LED light bar in the utility room (again, had nothing), and 3 3w 12v LED light strips in the utility room on a motion detector switch so I can see what I'm doing to turn everything on.

East half had 4 of the 12v automotive light bulb fixtures on the ceiling, 1 circular 12v florescent, 1 12v automotive "porch light", and 6 round drum 120v fixtures with the power switch on the side of the fixture. I started by just swapping out the auto bulbs for the corn cob style drop in LED replacements in the hallway, bedroom, and bathroom. The drum lights were replaced with some LED flush mount lights that screw and clip right into the standard electrical boxes and are only 1/2" thick, and I had to install a pull chain switch for a ceiling fan in the ceiling next to those so I could turn them on and off. I started to buy these really cool wrought iron dangles for those switches, then remembered these were going to be at face height and put them back on the shelf in favor of "soft" wood ones. :)

The front porch light, well, I had 2 of the Harbor Freight Fisher Price My First Solar kits and those each come with a pair of 6w 12v drop lights, so I hung those over the front porch, replaced the "Porch Light" with a junction box and wired those in. Now I have light out there!

The master bedroom, bathroom, and hallway lights got replaced with an 8-pack of 12v Truck Bed LED lights and rocker switches because I was tired of bleeding out of my skull every time I forgot to duck fast enough. Much better now. :)

Some day I'll replace that circular bulb in the dining room with an LED version, when it dies and I track down a compatible bulb.
 
Amazon has a 12-60VDC 50W LED flood light. I tested it from 12-60VDC on my power supply. 0.8 A at 56V and 1.5A at 28V. Great for power shed. Plenty of 12-48VDC cooling fans too.
 
Amazon has a 12-60VDC 50W LED flood light. I tested it from 12-60VDC on my power supply. 0.8 A at 56V and 1.5A at 28V. Great for power shed. Plenty of 12-48VDC cooling fans too.
Please provide links for both.
 
It was the 12-60 and 12-48VDC that piqued my interest.
My system is 24 volts.
It’s typical packaging/labeling/instructions from 12000 miles away. The label on those two lights that I received from Amazon had the block marked “100-240V”. The outside of box said “12-60V”. The poor instructions said “12V”. No AC or DC mentioned, but I checked with seller and they said that production mistakenly marked them as 100-240V. So, do not connect them to 120 or 240VAC. They are very bright!
 
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