LEDs and Solar Collector?

[BillyBudd]

I followed an earlier thread on LEDs for lighting and am considering such for my as yet unwired 20' sailboat. I do have the fixtures in place (masthead, port/s'bd, aft + small cuddy light + compass light).

We have on the farm here a small (perhaps 8"x10") solar collector with a small internal battery that runs up to 10 miles (they say) of animal enclosure fencing. The farm version pulses so won't work for LEDs on a boat. BUT! Is there an equally compact collector/integral (renewable) battery setup out there that would run LED lights for a boat? If possible I'd like to skip the heavy marine grade battery, but would like to run a 12v system with main switch and a small panel of off/on switches.

[paladin]

It's possible but I question whether it's cost effective. What type of fixture do you intend to use for lighting....to be effective you will need 8-10 led's.....normal bias on most are around 3 volts at 25 milliamps....you will also need a series dropping resister to compensate for the load.....if you can read a schematic diagram, you will need the LED's and a dollar or two of parts for each fixture to operate say a 12 volt battery source and then the solar panel. I would suggest a solar panel approximately 10 watt capability and use a motorcycle 12 volt battery....then you can have a couple of the light systems inside the boat, but not enough for navigation lights.....
The solar panel at 10 watts will retail for about 150 bucks....but do some diligent searching and you can do much better.....
The light will be sufficient for inside the boat, but you will need more led's for the navigation lights. Using 9 lamps in series paralllel with the resistors the current drain will be about 75 milliamps.....white led's are less efficient than red/green ones used in navigation lights.

[Dan McCosh]

I followed an earlier thread on LEDs for lighting and am considering such for my as yet unwired 20' sailboat. I do have the fixtures in place (masthead, port/s'bd, aft + small cuddy light + compass light).

We have on the farm here a small (perhaps 8"x10") solar collector with a small internal battery that runs up to 10 miles (they say) of animal enclosure fencing. The farm version pulses so won't work for LEDs on a boat. BUT! Is there an equally compact collector/integral (renewable) battery setup out there that would run LED lights for a boat? If possible I'd like to skip the heavy marine grade battery, but would like to run a 12v system with main switch and a small panel of off/on switches.


If all you want is that small handful of LEDs, I would think you could skip the solar panel, and install a small, rechargeable battery, such as a snowmobile AGM. It would last for weeks with those lights turned on, and recharging at an outlet would be simpler, and probably cheaper. The AGM is slow to self-discharge, among other advantages.