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  • New solar system installed but a few questions/issues

    Hi

    We have just installed a indoor solar lighting system

    http://www.solarilluminations.com/so...r-indoor-light

    We have it working ok, apart from a few niggles..

    it doesn't come on as early as we would like (the sensor seems to want it completely dark before letting power through)
    It still seems to run the battery down even when the dimmer is turned to off ( we would like the option to conserve power to use later in the evening occasionally but this doesn't seem viable with this system)

    the company suggest bypassing the control box and run the lights directly from the battery so we can have them on when we want. The only problem with this is it runs the risk of over discharging the battery (is this a real risk or something i'm not likely to actually do?)

    Any help on the above would be very much appreciated.

    My main question is what would be the possibility of an electrician wiring this system to be backed up by mains electricity? I'm not an electrician but would solve all the problems if for eg there was a switch to switch from battery power to mains power as and when we would require it?
    At the moment i'm sceptical the system is more trouble than its worth and i should have spent the extra money on simple mains lighting.

    I should add the lights are in our dining area which previously didn't have any form of lighting and we are London based so it's a UK mains system.

    Thanks for reading

    Ben

  • #2
    Originally posted by ben_ View Post
    Hi

    We have just installed a indoor solar lighting system

    http://www.solarilluminations.com/so...r-indoor-light

    We have it working ok, apart from a few niggles..

    it doesn't come on as early as we would like (the sensor seems to want it completely dark before letting power through)
    It still seems to run the battery down even when the dimmer is turned to off ( we would like the option to conserve power to use later in the evening occasionally but this doesn't seem viable with this system)

    the company suggest bypassing the control box and run the lights directly from the battery so we can have them on when we want. The only problem with this is it runs the risk of over discharging the battery (is this a real risk or something i'm not likely to actually do?)

    Any help on the above would be very much appreciated.

    My main question is what would be the possibility of an electrician wiring this system to be backed up by mains electricity? I'm not an electrician but would solve all the problems if for eg there was a switch to switch from battery power to mains power as and when we would require it?
    At the moment i'm sceptical the system is more trouble than its worth and i should have spent the extra money on simple mains lighting.

    I should add the lights are in our dining area which previously didn't have any form of lighting and we are London based so it's a UK mains system.

    Thanks for reading

    Ben
    Ben

    Welcome to Solar Panel Talk

    That solar lighting system is pretty small. According to the documentation is has a 20watt panel, 10AH battery and can handle between 10 watts of light for 6 hours (60 watt hours) or 45watts of lights for 2hours (90 watt hours). Actually you should only discharge that battery 25% a day which would get you about 30 watt hours so their claim of 60 to 90 watt hours would really drain that battery.

    You didn't say what your lamp wattage is or how many hours you are running it so it is hard to tell how much of a load you are putting on that battery.

    Also that 20 watt panel will probably not produce more than 30-40 watt hours at this time of year and even less during the Winter. So you will be using more battery each day then what you can put back in to it.

    Comment


    • #3
      Hi and thank you for your response.

      we would like it to run for 2-3 hours a night and we are using the following lights with 10w bulbs.

      http://www.solarilluminations.com/hl...r-indoor-light


      The best way I think to improve it would be to have
      some sort of hybrid system so we could use them on mains voltage aswell.

      does that sound possible?


      Originally posted by SunEagle View Post
      Ben

      Welcome to Solar Panel Talk

      That solar lighting system is pretty small. According to the documentation is has a 20watt panel, 10AH battery and can handle between 10 watts of light for 6 hours (60 watt hours) or 45watts of lights for 2hours (90 watt hours). Actually you should only discharge that battery 25% a day which would get you about 30 watt hours so their claim of 60 to 90 watt hours would really drain that battery.

      You didn't say what your lamp wattage is or how many hours you are running it so it is hard to tell how much of a load you are putting on that battery.

      Also that 20 watt panel will probably not produce more than 30-40 watt hours at this time of year and even less during the Winter. So you will be using more battery each day then what you can put back in to it.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by ben_ View Post
        Hi and thank you for your response.

        we would like it to run for 2-3 hours a night and we are using the following lights with 10w bulbs.

        http://www.solarilluminations.com/hl...r-indoor-light


        The best way I think to improve it would be to have
        some sort of hybrid system so we could use them on mains voltage aswell.

        does that sound possible?
        Ok. So if you can really only use 30 watt hours a night you can run 1 of those lights for 3 hours. If you have 3 of those lights you can run them for 1 hour.

        I agree that getting power from the house mains would be a better solution. It would require some way of disconnecting those lights from the battery and reconnecting them to a 12volt power supply connected to the house panel. You could do that manually or spend a lot of money with some type of automatic transfer switch.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by SunEagle View Post
          I agree that getting power from the house mains would be a better solution. It would require some way of disconnecting those lights from the battery and reconnecting them to a 12volt power supply connected to the house panel. You could do that manually or spend a lot of money with some type of automatic transfer switch.
          Best bet is to junk the system and start over with mains
          [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by russ View Post
            Best bet is to junk the system and start over with mains
            The advertisement is very misleading because they say you can run 45 watts for 2 hours and there is a 3 days of autonomy for the battery. That 90 watt hours takes the battery down to 25% of full. That battery won't last long with even a small electrical load running for a short period of time.

            Maybe having one of those 20watt & 10Ah battery systems for each 10 watt light would get you more but for a lot more money than connecting to the house power.

            Comment


            • #7
              thanks. it does seem more trouble than its worth.

              so would it be possible to ditch solar panels, battery and charge controller and just wire the pendant lights into the mains? as russ suggests, just ditch the whole solar power thing but still utilise the lights we bought with the system via house mains? something must be salvageable from this crappy system! it was £325 all in.




              QUOTE=SunEagle;127249]The advertisement is very misleading because they say you can run 45 watts for 2 hours and there is a 3 days of autonomy for the battery. That 90 watt hours takes the battery down to 25% of full. That battery won't last long with even a small electrical load running for a short period of time.

              Maybe having one of those 20watt & 10Ah battery systems for each 10 watt light would get you more but for a lot more money than connecting to the house power.[/QUOTE]

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by ben_ View Post
                thanks. it does seem more trouble than its worth.

                so would it be possible to ditch solar panels, battery and charge controller and just wire the pendant lights into the mains? as russ suggests, just ditch the whole solar power thing but still utilise the lights we bought with the system via house mains? something must be salvageable from this crappy system! it was £325 all in.




                QUOTE=SunEagle;127249]The advertisement is very misleading because they say you can run 45 watts for 2 hours and there is a 3 days of autonomy for the battery. That 90 watt hours takes the battery down to 25% of full. That battery won't last long with even a small electrical load running for a short period of time.

                Maybe having one of those 20watt & 10Ah battery systems for each 10 watt light would get you more but for a lot more money than connecting to the house power.
                [/QUOTE]

                Actually those 10 watt LED lights run on 12volts DC so you would have to install a converter that changes your 220volt AC house voltage to 12VDC.

                You could keep that solar lighting system but would really only be able to use one of those 10 watt lights for a few hours a night. At least it could be used in the case of a power outage sort of like a flash-lite or hand torch.

                Comment

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