Garden solar panels for water feature and light s

[whensparksfly]

Im looking to power Garden water feature and light s I'm in Ireland where we don't get much sun.would need the lights to come on at night automatically and the water feature to be switched.i know nothing about the subject so any help would be great thanks

 

[gaz1]

im sort of interested in this subject but not done anything as of yet

however id like to do another to it as reference to also using a small wind turbine to also create a charge more of a secondary charge to power things

 

[winchman]

You should be able to buy one ready made from Ebay

 

[whensparksfly]

I've seen them on eBay but are they successful

 

[voipio]

Amazon reviews for small, fountain only style, water features seem to be quite mixed.

It all depends on how big (in terms of power) the feature is intended to be, and for how long it would be expected to operate.

Not much sun means a decent sized solar panel would be required, and of course a battery to store daytime charge for night time use, with a solar charge controller in between. Bear in mind that, as an example, a 100W solar panel will only deliver around 5W in overcast conditions. Taking worst case, 5W x 8hours gives around 40Wh usable energy. Would that be enough? It would run a 1W LED comfortably all night. There are also conversion losses to consider. 40Wh going into a battery might only result in 30Wh available to use. A small (200l/h) 12V water pump consumes around 2.5W so, again, that would run comfortably all night after a day's worth of overcast charge, but would consume half of the available charging power if run during an overcast day. In that case, the 20Wh that goes into the battery wouldn't run pump and 1W LED all night.

Solar panel angle is not too critical in overcast weather, but needs to be pointed towards the sun for highest output. At summer best, on sunny days, with a south-facing fixed 100W solar panel, it might be possible to get 500Wh stored in a battery, allowing several nights running after that, but a 12V battery would need to be at least 40Ah to store that amount of energy, so possibly consider a 110Ah leisure battery.

Hopefully this gives a basis for some more back of fag packet calculations.

.

 

[slim_boy_fat]

I bought a pump from eBay [240V] for a fountain from Germany, I just unplug it when not needed to be on.

Don't have lighting so can't help with that.

 

[winchman]

I've seen them on eBay but are they successful

I know what you mean only other way is a small panel, controller and car battery but then the cost is large, I assume getting 240v to it is too hard?

 

[julianthegypsy]

I saw a couple of little water features outside a shop today. I bent over to have a look and they stopped immediately! My shadow was enough to stop them. Easily sorted though if you wanted. The pumps use about 4 watts, so a small rechargeable battery added to the circuit, with a blocking diode and bob's your uncle. Total cost about a fiver I reckon.

 

[gaz1]

been in aldis toaday spoted this

https://www.aldi.co.uk/auto-xs-sola...gclsrc=aw.ds&dclid=COn1quLLy9sCFRFEGwodvGYHAg

12v/2.4W solar charger

 

[addjunkie]

been in aldis toaday spoted this

https://www.aldi.co.uk/auto-xs-sola...gclsrc=aw.ds&dclid=COn1quLLy9sCFRFEGwodvGYHAg

12v/2.4W solar charger

Iuse one of those to to up the electric fence battery, works a treat, battery now lasts about 5 weeks instead of two

 

[voipio]

The 2.4W will be in full sun, with the panel angled towards the sun. Under cloudy conditions, the available power is going to be closer to 0.1W. I know someone who tried keeping a sealed lead acid 7Ah battery topped up using that type of charger on a windowsill. It ended up flattening the battery over a few weeks.