Solar Powered

[raygun]

Ok I know that there have been many threads about alternative energy growing and what not. This is a serious need for me right now to SAVE MY MOTHER PLANTS.
I have done a few weeks research about solar power and found that there are many solar powered lights available on the market along with many solar powered battery chargers ect.
My issue is that I need to power a small mother box with all of my gals in it. I have moved and have to keep my ladies secured in a car which I DO NOT DRIVE around (please no remarks about driving round town with plants growing in the auto. Already did the scary part in transport ) What I need now is to set up a small light to keep them in veg for the next month or so while I find a secure place to set up shop again.

The best solution would allow me to run a small CFL or LED to keep them in veg and run a heating mat as it gets in the mid 30's every night. I am also trying to keep the cost under $100 as my buget it tight right now. I am not looking for optimal growth or anything like that just more of life support.

I have found a few solar battery charger and lights that i thought might fit the bill but am no expert on this. Any and all knowlegeble advice is appreciated on this subject as I fear losing my ladies that I have worked hard to keep over the years.

Here are some of the links to products I found that I thought might work.

This is a cool cheep flashlight charger combo mainly used to light up 3rd world homes. It has an all night feature and really that is all I would need as I have access to the auto and could go every evening to turn it on while natural light shines on them durring the day. Plus is t comes with a separate solar panel that might beable to be used for another device? Down side is its just a flashlight
http://www.cosmosignite.com/index.htm

Next we have this dandy item which will keep my auto battery charged durring storage of it and use of small electrical items. I personally am leaning more towards this option and then hooking up the power converter I have to run a CFL/LED light and heat mat. However I do not know the long term effects of running the power converter 24/7 along with wether my cigarette lighters work with out the keys in the ignition turned to the on possition.....
http://www.21st-century-solar.com/m...tsolar&Product_Code=BATTSAVSE2&Category_Code=

I am also fine with a DIY option but don't even know where to start. Can I just get a solar panel that is rated like for "X" watts and a battery rated at "Y" and if I need a "Z" converter to make it work?


Please let me know your thoughts as I need to make this happen in the next week or I fear loosing my ladies. It has already been almost a months since I moved and they have just been hibernating ever since however I am now starting to notice some rot from moisture build up do to the climate and lack of heat to the plants....

PLEASE HELP and Thank you for it in advance!

~raygun~

 

[Guest]

solution?

solution?

Well sir, you do have a unique problem. OK lets give it a go:

Coleman camping lantern (with screw on bottles) for light, heat and CO2

2 each 12V car battery

a couple of 12V fans

Set the lantern inside on low for starters to see how much heat you get, try different settings until you get a sustainable temperature that will hold the girls in Neutral.

Make sure the 2 fans pull air through and out of the grow area in your vehicle, enough to offset the oxygen burning lantern flame and a back up battery so you can change it out when the other one gets low.

You can also insulate the inside of the car where the grow is to help on temp control.

Ty-Stik

Its an idea, a good one too. Adjust to your own needs.

 

[raygun]

Ty_stik thanks for the thoughts. While this would be the cheepest route for me as I have all of those items unfortunatly I can not exhaust anything outside the car for security reasons and don't have that much room to put a lantern.

My space is limited to a 2'x2'x2' cardboard box. I have 6 gals in coco in there and space is tight. I would also be concerned about running a propane lantern unattended in my car in a cardboard box. Also the propane refills to last for a month would cost me more in the long run I would think.

Thanks for the input on an alternative solution to my problem.

here is another super cheep option just for light but once again do not know enough about solar energy to know if this is going to work for what i need.
http://www.siliconsolar.com/Solar-Circuit-Kit-p-16541.html

Or this Solar powered LED christmas lights? I get 50 LED's and up to 16hr of light after darkeness! Can i change out for some red and blue bulbs?
http://www.siliconsolar.com/Solar-Christmas-Light-S-p-17872.html

 

[MostHigh]

I've never done solar, totaly anxious to venture there when there are single lamp applications for home use that cost no where what it is today. I'd rather solar individual lights instead of wiring to the house. For now.
Anyway, you have the battery already. Just add an inverter and enough collection to fully charge the battery from 0 each day. How long whatever battery you have can light your choice of illumination I've no idea. LEDs will run longer, but cost more than flourescents.
Obviously, the more batteries you have, the longer a specified draw will last. As well, more collectors in order to maintain a good charge rate.
This is what you want to build yes? http://store.sundancesolar.com/20wadosoenst.html
Utilize Yahoo & Google searches for 'DIY solar kits' and shop learn up while you shop around. Find something on the cheap, let us know about it eh.

 

[MostHigh]

If you have an indoor set-up...it'd be damn nifty to hang the collector near the grow's light. Guaranteed collection, no worry about cloudy days and such.

 

[raygun]

Most High I have done my window shopping online for things. This is a cool kit that I did not see. Basically I have all of this in my car now. So the only thing that I would need is the solar cell.
I am thinking of possibly going with this option the solar car battery charger
http://www.21st-century-solar.com/m...&Category_Code=
and since I have an inverter already just would need to plug and play but do not know how much of a drain that will be on my battery with running a small 2 watt CFL plus the heat mat wixh is probably less than 10 watts more like under 5. EDIT so I found the watts of the Flexwatt heat tape, and the size I have is 11" and so is 20 watts.

Ii guess the worst that can happen with the set up above is my car battery dies and I need a jump start but with the solar charger it should not happen....

any one know If a car battery can run 25-30 watts for 14 hours a day?

Please keep the ideas coming

 

[vinivici]

why not just wire a couple of cfl's to your car battery. then once a day turn your car on so the alternator charges the battry. you could probably patch it into your speaker wires.

 

[Guest]

Take clones and store them. No cost. No fuss. If the temps are low enough constant enough you could store them in the car. Instead of worrying about lights, carboard and all that other stuff, you just baggie of clones.

 

[raygun]

Take clones and store them. No cost. No fuss. If the temps are low enough constant enough you could store them in the car. Instead of worrying about lights, carboard and all that other stuff, you just baggie of clones.

Yeah that would work for some but others are just rooted clones I als was trying to reveg one of them..... I really need a solar powered lifesupport system for my ladies.

vinivici - Is it the same power (AC or DC) in the speaker wire? I also would then have to have my car turned on, leaving the key in the ignition for the power to get to the speaker wire.
Thanks for the ideas every one.

 

[DrBudGreengenes]

Well this can be done first we will need some things
3 - Deep-Cycle Batteries from Walmart (do not touch anything on them exept the wingnutts so you can RETURN Them after you are done....they must appear "UNUSED")
1-100 watt inverter (also to be returned when finished)

wire the batteries together
+ to + to +
- to - to -
now you have one big 12 volt battery
it should be able to run 3-13 watt CFL's 24/7 in a sealed box to retain heat
run a plug from the cig lighter to the + and - side of one of the batts and it will charge from the alt when the car is on ....the car will need to idle for 4 hours per day at least everyother day....add a second or third muffler with "Flex Pipe" if you need to so it will be quiet

 

[hedpi]

And get mylar in there, don't waste any of the little light you'll have..

Plus, in series you sum the volts and keep the amps, if you connect in paralel you sum the amps and keep the volts..and the biggest problem with parallel batteries is that they will tend to charge/discharge unevenly, so if one of them starts to fail, the others will be drawn to it too. My suggestion would be to connect them + to - (same amp, sum volt), altough i never seen those batteries from walmart nor have i tried them.
Regarding the charge, you can get one of those car battery chargers that are portable and self contained (like this http://www.battery-rechargeable-charger.com/vector-VEC093-VEC1093A-VECo93-car-battery-charger.htm)
charge the charger at home, take it there and leave it charging, get it next day (less suspicious i think).
Oh and check this out: http://www.theledlight.com/lamplight.html or this http://www.theledlight.com/glorb_lantern.html
Around 200/250 hours for a couple of AA/AAA batteries, but i don't even know how would they work (never tried leds) but it would be very pratical

 

[raygun]

Dr. I know you know about solar Mr. off the Grid cabin boy!!!
Now if i wanted to down size or just wanted to run just one 2watt CFL for 16hrs could I make it work with my car battery and either just running the car for a little while each day or using that solar battery charger?

And when connecting the batteries in a series like that I am not understanding exacitally how I attach a cig litter plug to it? Do I just take any spare cig lighter adapter or how do I do that?
I was looking up the price of deep cycle batteries and they are pretty pricey I realy do not have the extra cash. It appears that those batteries are close to $100+ each and so makes that a little prohibitive.

Thanks for helping.

 

[raygun]

Hedpi thanks for the links to those lights. That is what I am looking for some cheep creative life support systems for my gals. The only issue then is heat as the LED put out squat for heat. I like using the heat from the CFL as suggested by Dr. BudGreengenes to help rather than running the heat mat. I could use those extra 20 watts it takes to power that for lights which will in turn help with heat.

Shoot we may be on the way to make a realistic solar powered mother/clone room with this one by the end of it.
Thanks!

 

[raygun]

Ok so my car battery does not last over night with just one CFL light....my car battery is now dead..... SH!T
Well any on have knowledge on solar powering 20 watts for 16 hours let me know....
Thanks

 

[stoney419]

HARBER FRIEGHT TOOLS HAS SOME SMALL CMEMORY SOALER KIT YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO FIND THEM ON LINE

 

[raygun]

Ok so after some serious research I came to this
Sunforce 50032 15 Watt Solar Battery Charger and Sunforce 60012 7 Amp Charge Controller
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...t_shr?_encoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance

It is cheeper than this unit but do not know if it is better.
BRUNTON SOLARFLAT 15
http://www.roughgear.com/brunton/bruntonsolarpower.html

I already have the inverter so next up is the battery. This is the part that I am having issues with. Based on my calculations using some of the online charts available if I were to use only 20 watts total max I would need aprox 27 amp hours to run the light for 14hrs/day.
I used the charts provided on this website
http://www.solar4power.com/solar-power-sizing.html

Now based on those #'s it is telling me that I need aprox. 3 60Ah batteries
That seems like a sh!t load for just 20 watts on for 14hrs/day


I know that this can be done but I need some help. Are there any experts out there that can help me get the details ironed out please reply. I think that the solar panel and battery combo will work out fine even if I have some cloudy days but wanted to hear from some one with more knowlege about the subject

My gals are dying on me with retarded HI humidity readings on my hydrometer and 50deg daily temps.

Thanks

 

[scifreak69]

run a extension cord like they do in montana to keep cars warm in the winter
just say your chargeing your dead battery

 

[raygun]

^^^not an option. If it was that easy it would have been done already. Thanks for the thought.
I need some knowledgeble solar power advice.

 

[george j warner]

i ran a 110 flo off a 600watt inverter for 4 hours ..do the math : )



but never got it to ignite a 250 hps!!!

 

[raygun]

i ran a 110 flo off a 600watt inverter for 4 hours ..do the math : )

Where did you pull your electricity from? An inverter does not generate electricity just converts from DC to AC.
What math, do you have the equasion?
Is the link I posted and went to not correct for calculating battery size for total amp hours needed for the watts and run time?
Are you talking about the same thing that I am cause you got me a little confused.