[OhioMan]

Like many here I have oil lamps, candles but I have recently changed my focus in this area to those solar powered lawn landscaping lights. I bought a dozen of those cheap $5 ones at homedepot.

I am trying to find a way of making them slighty brighter, I switched out their cheap Chinese batteries with some quality lithium rechargable batteries. We put 5 of them across the fireplace mantle with a mirror behind them and they lit the room pretty good but I wonder if there is anything else I can do

Is anyone doing this and have any ideas or any thoughts on this?

 

[OhioMan]

I have a solar powered set up. It's a little expensive, but it works good. I start out with a 5 watt solar charger battery charger, I got at Harbor Freight, that charges up two deep cycly UPS batteries I have. Then I connected up a 1500 watt inverter to convert the 12 volts to 110 AC, and that'll power up standard lamps to light up my house. This also gives me up to 1500 watts of 110AC for small appliances as well.


Solar panel from Harbor Freight......$ 40.00
two UPS batteries........................$ 40.00 each
110 ac 1500 watt inverter.............$ 120.00
Misc cables, extention cords..........$ 25.00
Two lamps with bulbs about ..........$ 20.00

So for under $250 I have a solar powered emergency lighting system. This will also power small hand tools, drills, grinders, saws.... etc.

Too cool!

Nice set up!

 

[OhioMan]

Thanks kev, I should have known you had a video on this!

I took out those cheap batteries but there is no "mill amp hours" written on the new ones I bought. I bought "Energizer Ultimate Lithium" rechargable batteries.

I'll check again

 

[OhioMan]

I think the highest you can get right now is 2600 mAh NiMH. I will check the site I order from. Or better yet here you go:

http://www.batterymart.com/

I must not have looked at the package good, thanks Saint!

 

[OhioMan]

I haven't bought any of the solar yard lights. Well, I have one, but it's for lighting up a halloween display. :

I use cheapo LED flashlights and rechargeable batteries. Works out about as cheap and is brighter. I have a bunch of small solar battery chargers and one larger unit.

Also have a bunch of oil lamps and candles. Before I was forced to move back into the city, my plans were to grow my own oil for them.

I am so far behind in about everything "solar", this summer I am giving this my full attention. My Dw (a teacher) takes continuing education classes over the summer and I usually takes something with her for the heck of it, I'm hoping they offer some type of introduction to basic solar power or something along those lines.

OM

 

[OhioMan]

I don't keep up with it much, myself. I just realized that I have some battery powered devices that I consider important. Radios, flashlights, gunsights, etc. So I standardized them to run on the same size batteries (AA), then looked for charging solutions. Unfortunately some of my things like the pull pin perimeter alarms needed 9v batteries.

I found a panel charger that had various attachments for charging all size batteries and bought it. Then I got to thinking how important the batteries would be in a bug out, so I looked again.

This time I found small chargers that had some useful features. They have a gauge so you could tell how strong the sunlight is. This lets you figure out the charge times. They also would charge every possible battery size, including 9v (and prismatics, whatever those are). I bought a dozen.

What I need to do now is upgrade my aging nicads to the new, low loss NiMH batteries. Dangit they're pricey though and I'm broke. I think I'll spend some time at the DMV installing license plates! :

Nice set-up, you are far ahead of me. Recharging batteries with solar is definately on my priority list. One of other goals is to find out if I can run a small 5 cubic foot freeze. I don't know if thats possible and reasonably priced.

If I can make ice and keep meat frozen that would huge in my overall plan. Maybe I'm dreaming but now that my food preps are nearly complete I want to explore all the possibilties in that area.

I see you remember the licence plate idea my son is doing, he still does that on Saturday mornings and some during the week if he needs the money. So far that hasn't been any problems. I keep telling him to NOT tell his friends or you'll have competion!

 

[OhioMan]

YIKES! Energizer Ultimate Lithium batteries are NOT rechargeable. They are consumables, just like alkalines batteries. When they are dead you thrown them away! The energizer rechargeable batteries are green & silver and say "Rechargeable" on them.

Also, you guys need to be mindful of which type of battery chemistry you are swapping into these solar lights. I'm guessing most of them are designed around cheap NiCad batteries, so swapping in a higher capacity NiMH battery may cause poor charges or destroy the cell. See this for more detail.

LOL...I NOW know that! I switched them out a couple of weeks ago. When I was at HD I asked where the "rechargeable" batteries are and the guy turned and said right here...I assumed they were rechargeables