ramy 3 Posted July 20, 2010 Been working on a development project of creating personilzed signs(20"x36") using solar lights to illuminate. On my prototype, I'm using 100 led lights on a string(xmas lights) in a grid layout and through trial an error I picked the best acrylic to diffues the light and am happy with the outcome. A solar person I am not and was curious if anyone here is. I am looking for a low cost alternative to the lights on the string and was thinking I could find led lights on a strip, but not sure how to pick the solar power panels and stuff. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wasatchcars 0 Posted July 20, 2010 Have a look at Ebay lots of that stuff there Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bayotle 26 Posted July 20, 2010 Have you calculated the draw of 100 LED's? That is quite a few and not sure that it's something you would want solar powered.....? I did something like this about 20 years ago using xmas lights and the acrylic ceiling tiles to diffuse it as a prototype to a computer controlled light display. LED's weren't around at the time and doing the calcs it pulled a ton of current. (believe it was about 20amps for 720 lights, been awhile so don't remember the specs) The solar cells I've looked at produce about 5w@12vdc, without checking the specs, I'd have to assume 100 LED's would pull more than that. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Paradox 0 Posted July 21, 2010 LED's are between 20 mA and 50 mA if I remember right. Not as much draw as a bulb. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bayotle 26 Posted July 21, 2010 true but at 100 they'll still pull a hefty load if not sequenced... More than a solar panel will deliver... (i believe - please correct if i'm mistaken) Also, If used at night, it would require the use of a battery so the solar cells would be doing double duty.. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Paradox 0 Posted July 22, 2010 50mA x 100 led's = 5000mA 5000mA = 5A 5 Amps is not much to real with, a lot of the solar stuff will handle that. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bayotle 26 Posted July 28, 2010 will def need to do some digging around in the solar panel area, last i looked (and it's been awhile) 5amps was a hefty load for a solar panel. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites