Our community bought a solar powered entry light several years ago. The controller went belly up as well as the panel. The controller was pretty much a horrible design so instead of trying to fix it, I designed a new controller. I also replaced the solar panel and battery, choosing larger sizes for both.
It has been a huge success. It has been almost 3 years now and I have yet to replace the battery (though I think that day is coming soon). We used to replace the battery on the original design about every 6 months.
At the time I did not replace the light. I am thinking I want to do so now. I want to keep the original housing and just replace the LED panel. The question is how to do it?
The current light has an array of 108 LEDs . It operates on 12V @ ~640ma. There are just 2 pair of wires (12V and ground) going to the light. The light is driven by a Luxdrive buckpuck that also supplies 5V for the pic.
I would like to keep the specs roughly the same so I can plug and play. Should I replace with another array 108+ LEDs ? Or should I move to the Cree type LEDs?
One problem I understand is LEDs in an array should have their forward voltages match? So the more LEDs the bigger problem with matching LEDs.
The problem with the CREE type lights is I would need to have a heat sink?
Any ideas?
Also any inexpensive reliable source of LEDs?
I do have few of these around but have no specs on them at all. I am not sure what their current requirements might be.
Some other pics from my project that is in place.
It has been a huge success. It has been almost 3 years now and I have yet to replace the battery (though I think that day is coming soon). We used to replace the battery on the original design about every 6 months.
At the time I did not replace the light. I am thinking I want to do so now. I want to keep the original housing and just replace the LED panel. The question is how to do it?
The current light has an array of 108 LEDs . It operates on 12V @ ~640ma. There are just 2 pair of wires (12V and ground) going to the light. The light is driven by a Luxdrive buckpuck that also supplies 5V for the pic.
I would like to keep the specs roughly the same so I can plug and play. Should I replace with another array 108+ LEDs ? Or should I move to the Cree type LEDs?
One problem I understand is LEDs in an array should have their forward voltages match? So the more LEDs the bigger problem with matching LEDs.
The problem with the CREE type lights is I would need to have a heat sink?
Any ideas?
Also any inexpensive reliable source of LEDs?
I do have few of these around but have no specs on them at all. I am not sure what their current requirements might be.
Some other pics from my project that is in place.