ramy

Solar Backlite Signs

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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.

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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.

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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..

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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.

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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.

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