Hello guys,
After lurking the internets for a while I've found this forum and since it seems pretty active and users are getting answers quickly I decided to register and ask my questions directly ^^
I am planning on a project that consists on using a 20Watts solar panel I have here collecting dust instead of solar power( I got into some chemistry contests before and it was given to me and I need to find something useful to do with it - not that hard is it? )
I live in Portugal and in the summer the house will be pretty hot, we don't have AC here and my father uses the attic to make some of his paintings, so what I though of doing was getting some computer fans ( I got 5 or so for free ) and run them off the panel by making a attic fan to remove heat and humidity.
Each one of these fans runs at 12V at about 0.15A (~1.80Watts) so they should run fine from the panel:
Assuming the panel runs at 70% its max rate here during the summer I am expecting about 14 Watts or so
The fans would take about 9 of these 14 Watts (5 fans * 1.80 Watts) so I am thinking of lighting something up that consumes about 5 Watts ( maybe some High Powered Leds - near the fans of course, I want to make sure the leds don't get us sweating even more )
However there are some particularities about this:
Sometimes there isn't enough power to run the fans so I want to use something similar to a Solar Engine that charges up some capacitors and discharges once the required voltage is needed.
I also do not want to use batteries for this, there is no need for the fans in late evening
Before asking specifics questions about the project, I would like to know if you people think it is doable and if it is if you could give me some ideas on how to build a 12volts solar engine and how to keep the fans from burning on a very sunny day.
You should know, I know very little of electronics and I am trying my best to learn it in a useful way
Thanks in advance,
Manuel
After lurking the internets for a while I've found this forum and since it seems pretty active and users are getting answers quickly I decided to register and ask my questions directly ^^
I am planning on a project that consists on using a 20Watts solar panel I have here collecting dust instead of solar power( I got into some chemistry contests before and it was given to me and I need to find something useful to do with it - not that hard is it? )
I live in Portugal and in the summer the house will be pretty hot, we don't have AC here and my father uses the attic to make some of his paintings, so what I though of doing was getting some computer fans ( I got 5 or so for free ) and run them off the panel by making a attic fan to remove heat and humidity.
Each one of these fans runs at 12V at about 0.15A (~1.80Watts) so they should run fine from the panel:
Assuming the panel runs at 70% its max rate here during the summer I am expecting about 14 Watts or so
The fans would take about 9 of these 14 Watts (5 fans * 1.80 Watts) so I am thinking of lighting something up that consumes about 5 Watts ( maybe some High Powered Leds - near the fans of course, I want to make sure the leds don't get us sweating even more )
However there are some particularities about this:
Sometimes there isn't enough power to run the fans so I want to use something similar to a Solar Engine that charges up some capacitors and discharges once the required voltage is needed.
I also do not want to use batteries for this, there is no need for the fans in late evening
Before asking specifics questions about the project, I would like to know if you people think it is doable and if it is if you could give me some ideas on how to build a 12volts solar engine and how to keep the fans from burning on a very sunny day.
You should know, I know very little of electronics and I am trying my best to learn it in a useful way
Thanks in advance,
Manuel