VAWT of enormous power

[Joeboy]

A varied day of apple picking, wood chopping, kindling and generally tidying up before hols. Found four of these 12vdc led striplights and thought why not, the turnip is spinning? Lo and behold, it's alive for about 3 secs out of every minute. Handy!

[Joeboy]

Not being one to waste my resources I took a measurement on the 80ah battery hooked onto the WT and was surprised to see it is holding 12.2v! This leads me onto the thought of why not have WT powered lighting on the PV/battery area?



It will turn out to be THE most expensive offgrid led light!

Nonetheless, wind into light. There is something about that...

[AE-NMidlands]

Nonetheless, wind into light. There is something about that...

Certainly something you won't see from the politicians currently pretending to run the country!

[Oldgreybeard]

Not being one to waste my resources I took a measurement on the 80ah battery hooked onto the WT and was surprised to see it is holding 12.2v! This leads me onto the thought of why not have WT powered lighting on the PV/battery area?



It will turn out to be THE most expensive offgrid led light!

Nonetheless, wind into light. There is something about that...

One thing I forgot to do when I built this house (with the help of others - but ultimately my responsibility for all the cock-ups) was to put sealed conduits through the walls to run power for outside lights. Just completely slipped my mind that we'd need lights outside, other then the stand-alone lights we have on the drive and down at the garage and well shed. I can't drill holes through the walls now, for a host of reasons, not least of which is that a hole would have to be sealed up well against the vapour barrier inside and the permeable barrier outside (which is now under the wall cladding so hard to get at). The fact that the walls are the best part of half a metre thick now they are finished (because we have LOADS of insulation) also makes drilling holes a bit of a PITA.

My solution has been to make solar powered outside lights (only because the off-the shelf ones seemed to be far from great in terms of quality). Most successful has been an LED strip glued into the rain drip recess that runs above the front door (the front door is 1.8m wide, and has more glazing above it). The LED strip is invisible, being tucked into this slot, and is powered by a tiny 12V lithium battery pack, in a small watertight box. That box has a BMS for the battery, plus a small MPPT set to output 12.6V at the end of charge, and I found that I only needed a really small solar panel to keep battery topped up. I added a tiny 12V PIR sensor at the bottom of the battery pack box and the solar panel on top as a sort of sloped roof. This works brilliantly/ The light from the LED strip stays on for a minute or two when triggered, and lights the door step and path very evenly.

Best thing is that it runs for free, and has been doing so for around 6 or 7 years now. The battery does have to deliver a couple of amps when the light is on, but I worked out that the amount of charge it needed each day was miniscule, hence the smallness of the solar panel. Just built something similar so my wife can water her plants from the water butt, using a small hose and spray. That uses a cheap diaphragm water pump, with the same sort of 12V lithium battery, BMS and MPPT setup, but with a slightly larger solar panel, as the pump draws more current, is on for longer than the lights and so the battery needs a bit more topping up.

Something very satisfying in having useful stuff completely off grid. Used to confuse our neighbours dur8ing power cust, the first time they walked over to see if our power was off as well, only to find most of our outside lights still working.

If anyone is interested I could post the details of the MPPT and BMS modules I've been using. Not hard to rig up, and will work with pretty much any three cell lithium battery pack (but not yet LiFePO4) Easiest cells to get are 18650's, which are plenty good enough for outside lights etc, and there are three cell battery holders easily available for them too. Building these things is just a matter of wiring ready made modules up, so not hard to do.

[Joeboy]

Not being one to waste my resources I took a measurement on the 80ah battery hooked onto the WT and was surprised to see it is holding 12.2v! This leads me onto the thought of why not have WT powered lighting on the PV/battery area?



It will turn out to be THE most expensive offgrid led light!

Nonetheless, wind into light. There is something about that...

One thing I forgot to do when I built this house (with the help of others - but ultimately my responsibility for all the cock-ups) was to put sealed conduits through the walls to run power for outside lights. Just completely slipped my mind that we'd need lights outside, other then the stand-alone lights we have on the drive and down at the garage and well shed. I can't drill holes through the walls now, for a host of reasons, not least of which is that a hole would have to be sealed up well against the vapour barrier inside and the permeable barrier outside (which is now under the wall cladding so hard to get at). The fact that the walls are the best part of half a metre thick now they are finished (because we have LOADS of insulation) also makes drilling holes a bit of a PITA.

My solution has been to make solar powered outside lights (only because the off-the shelf ones seemed to be far from great in terms of quality). Most successful has been an LED strip glued into the rain drip recess that runs above the front door (the front door is 1.8m wide, and has more glazing above it). The LED strip is invisible, being tucked into this slot, and is powered by a tiny 12V lithium battery pack, in a small watertight box. That box has a BMS for the battery, plus a small MPPT set to output 12.6V at the end of charge, and I found that I only needed a really small solar panel to keep battery topped up. I added a tiny 12V PIR sensor at the bottom of the battery pack box and the solar panel on top as a sort of sloped roof. This works brilliantly/ The light from the LED strip stays on for a minute or two when triggered, and lights the door step and path very evenly.

Best thing is that it runs for free, and has been doing so for around 6 or 7 years now. The battery does have to deliver a couple of amps when the light is on, but I worked out that the amount of charge it needed each day was miniscule, hence the smallness of the solar panel. Just built something similar so my wife can water her plants from the water butt, using a small hose and spray. That uses a cheap diaphragm water pump, with the same sort of 12V lithium battery, BMS and MPPT setup, but with a slightly larger solar panel, as the pump draws more current, is on for longer than the lights and so the battery needs a bit more topping up.

Something very satisfying in having useful stuff completely off grid. Used to confuse our neighbours dur8ing power cust, the first time they walked over to see if our power was off as well, only to find most of our outside lights still working.

If anyone is interested I could post the details of the MPPT and BMS modules I've been using. Not hard to rig up, and will work with pretty much any three cell lithium battery pack (but not yet LiFePO4) Easiest cells to get are 18650's, which are plenty good enough for outside lights etc, and there are three cell battery holders easily available for them too. Building these things is just a matter of wiring ready made modules up, so not hard to do.

I would like to see the detail. Could be a great wee Winter project to keep me sane.

[Countrypaul]

One thing I forgot to do when I built this house (with the help of others - but ultimately my responsibility for all the cock-ups) was to put sealed conduits through the walls to run power for outside lights. Just completely slipped my mind that we'd need lights outside, other then the stand-alone lights we have on the drive and down at the garage and well shed. I can't drill holes through the walls now, for a host of reasons, not least of which is that a hole would have to be sealed up well against the vapour barrier inside and the permeable barrier outside (which is now under the wall cladding so hard to get at). The fact that the walls are the best part of half a metre thick now they are finished (because we have LOADS of insulation) also makes drilling holes a bit of a PITA.

My solution has been to make solar powered outside lights (only because the off-the shelf ones seemed to be far from great in terms of quality). Most successful has been an LED strip glued into the rain drip recess that runs above the front door (the front door is 1.8m wide, and has more glazing above it). The LED strip is invisible, being tucked into this slot, and is powered by a tiny 12V lithium battery pack, in a small watertight box. That box has a BMS for the battery, plus a small MPPT set to output 12.6V at the end of charge, and I found that I only needed a really small solar panel to keep battery topped up. I added a tiny 12V PIR sensor at the bottom of the battery pack box and the solar panel on top as a sort of sloped roof. This works brilliantly/ The light from the LED strip stays on for a minute or two when triggered, and lights the door step and path very evenly.

Best thing is that it runs for free, and has been doing so for around 6 or 7 years now. The battery does have to deliver a couple of amps when the light is on, but I worked out that the amount of charge it needed each day was miniscule, hence the smallness of the solar panel. Just built something similar so my wife can water her plants from the water butt, using a small hose and spray. That uses a cheap diaphragm water pump, with the same sort of 12V lithium battery, BMS and MPPT setup, but with a slightly larger solar panel, as the pump draws more current, is on for longer than the lights and so the battery needs a bit more topping up.

Something very satisfying in having useful stuff completely off grid. Used to confuse our neighbours dur8ing power cust, the first time they walked over to see if our power was off as well, only to find most of our outside lights still working.

If anyone is interested I could post the details of the MPPT and BMS modules I've been using. Not hard to rig up, and will work with pretty much any three cell lithium battery pack (but not yet LiFePO4) Easiest cells to get are 18650's, which are plenty good enough for outside lights etc, and there are three cell battery holders easily available for them too. Building these things is just a matter of wiring ready made modules up, so not hard to do.

Pictures? We need pictures, you can't just describe them

[Joeboy]

Nonetheless, wind into light. There is something about that...

Certainly something you won't see from the politicians currently pretending to run the country!

[Oldgreybeard]

Pictures? We need pictures, you can't just describe them

OK, first one shows the LED strip set into the aluminium channel that forms the upper glazing cill drip rail, very hard to see, but the LED strip is inset into the channel and is slim enough that it doesn't stop it working as intended, as a rain drip edge:

Gable Solar powered lights 2.JPG (242.58 KiB) Viewed 2023 times

This is what it looks like at night. You can just see the solar panel on top of the small box that houses the battery, BMS and PIR sensor, to the left of the LED strip and slightly above it. The spread of light from the LED strip is pretty good. It's one of the highest power outdoor strips I could find, and that 1.8m wide length draws close to 2A when on. The LEDs are warm white, as I've learned that I prefer the look of them over the cool white ones:

Gable Solar powered lights 3.JPG (37.25 KiB) Viewed 2023 times

The water butt pump and hose looks like this:

Water butt pump.jpg (90.3 KiB) Viewed 2023 times

The pump, battery, BMS, MPPT etc is all in the white IP65 box behind the hose. The hose is just a length of 8mm pneumatic tubing, easier to manhandle than a garden hose, and it;s fitted with an adjustable fine spray head. The pump is a 12V one with a built in pressure switch, so it only fires up when the hose trigger is pulled. The water is drawn from the butt by the translucent bit of 8mm MDPE beer pipe, that goes down to a weighted filter pickup near the bottom of the butt.

If anyone is wondering what the extra black rainwater fill pipe is, that tees into the normal fill/level/overflow pipe, then that's the condensate drain from our air conditioning unit. It recovers a bit of water and tops the butt up with it when the aircon is running.

I will have a go at scribbling up what I did for each of these so if anyone wants to have a go they can copy what I've done.

[AE-NMidlands]

I'm definitely interested in the solar-powered porch light
(but not so sure about the solar butt pump though... I shall not try to sell it to SWMBO!)
A

[Mr Gus]

. Found four of these 12vdc led striplights and thought why not, the turnip is spinning? Lo and behold, it's alive for about 3 secs out of every minute. Handy!

Jeez joe, how long have you been hiding that expensive lump o plastic? Hope you are logging data from it
At least there will be no blades buried in next doors field type thing.

It looks a bit like a chocolate orange (cept the colour) I vote we call it "Terry"