outdoor lamp control?

Thread Starter

sufi

Joined Jan 23, 2010
6
Hello Bros i really want your help. I want to put signpost with a 12V lamp to glow only during night time and it will be powered by solar panel(max 20wp) and battery(12v lead acid ) .

Is it advisable to use Microcontroller to switch ON at 6pm and OFF at 6am in the morning (i know it is a bit difficult to program the PIC)

What about using simple sensor based switch?

just tell me where to begin i will dig deep!!

thanks in advance
 

KMoffett

Joined Dec 19, 2007
2,918
Which would you "prefer" year round: 6AM-6PM On-Off or dusk/dawn On-Off? Makes a difference if you're in Alaska or Brazil. either approach is very do-able.

ken
 
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Bernard

Joined Aug 7, 2008
5,784
Would help if battery capacity & lamp draw is known. The panel will tell if it's light, detect at about 1/2 V. Detect low battery V, and shut off load, use charge controller or syenthized zenor to dump excess panel power. Look at All Electronics Cat # SCN-1, 3A controller $ US 17.00.
 

Thread Starter

sufi

Joined Jan 23, 2010
6
Which would you "prefer" year round: 6AM-6PM On-Off or dusk/dawn On-Off? Makes a difference if you're in Alaska or Brazil. either approach is very do-able.QUOTE]


of course i prefer '6AM-6PM ' but i have a feeling that i have to work on PIC stuff to do that ,however, i want to avoid PIC as long as there is another way to do it .
I appreciate your help
 

Thread Starter

sufi

Joined Jan 23, 2010
6
Would help if battery capacity & lamp draw is known. The panel will tell if it's light, detect at about 1/2 V. Detect low battery V, and shut off load, use charge controller or syenthized zenor to dump excess panel power. Look at All Electronics Cat # SCN-1, 3A controller $ US 17.00.

7w clf DC lamp and i select deep cycle solar battery (12v ,12Ah) so that
low battery voltage is no more a threat.if the lamp lights for 10h
it draws 70Wh or 5.83Ah or 50% of the fully charged battery .
i use syethized zenor to dump excess panel power but as you said using
controller is the best

thanks
 

Bernard

Joined Aug 7, 2008
5,784
Using thr comparator reff-LM311 , LIGHT ACTIVATED RELAY [ LIGHT ] with 5 SECOND RELEASE DElAY, with small changes: solar panel replaces photo transistor, connected ahead of panel blocking diode, reverse IC 1A +_,replace 2N3906 with P ch MOSFET with about 2A rating. I'll try to draw up a sketch tomorrow. Panel might produce about 9 Ah- will be close.
 

KMoffett

Joined Dec 19, 2007
2,918
Which would you "prefer" year round: 6AM-6PM On-Off or dusk/dawn On-Off? Makes a difference if you're in Alaska or Brazil. either approach is very do-able.QUOTE]


of course i prefer '6AM-6PM ' but i have a feeling that i have to work on PIC stuff to do that ,however, i want to avoid PIC as long as there is another way to do it .
I appreciate your help
Since sufi said (s)he would prefer a "timed" switch, I thought about a possible klugged option.

Since the switch-over is at 6A and 6P, a 12Hr alarm clock will alarm at both. Hack a 1.5V battery desk/alarm clock module. The alarm is just a piezo element driven by pulses from the BOB (blob on board) IC. Replace the piezo with a resistor. Use the output to drive a level shifting transistor(s). But, the alarm pulses last for several minutes. Have the pulsing output trigger a retriggerable monostable, to get just one lo-hi-lo pulse from the alarm. Feed the output of the monostable to a toggle flip-flop, that feeds a MOSFET to turn the lamp on and off. This is a 3AM concept, so I haven't tried it.

Ken
 

KMoffett

Joined Dec 19, 2007
2,918
OK, I bench tested this with a PCB I had pulled in the past, from a battery alarm clock. Up to the output of the 555, it works. The setup switch, 4013, and MOSFET are just the concept for toggling.

Next, I'm going to get another alarm clock, and see if I can do this on an intact one. Keep your fingers crossed.

Ken
 

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Bernard

Joined Aug 7, 2008
5,784
I'm going to have to dig into my clock box and try that. But for now here is sun rise ,lamp turn off ckt. A PNP high gain transiston, medium power, also OK with 20 mA base drive available. Adjust V divider 47k-10k for desired light or darkness.
 

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KMoffett

Joined Dec 19, 2007
2,918
Got a battery alarm clock at Goodwill. Started to disassemble it and found that the beeper was attached with wires, rather than on a PCB. Great...easy to rewire. But...as the case came apart a couple of gears slipped out of place. Now trying to reassemble it...#?/@% !!! :( If I could find an identical one I would know what "not to do". ;)

ken
 

Thread Starter

sufi

Joined Jan 23, 2010
6
I'm going to have to dig into my clock box and try that. But for now here is sun rise ,lamp turn off ckt. A PNP high gain transiston, medium power, also OK with 20 mA base drive available. Adjust V divider 47k-10k for desired light or darkness.
Thanks once again Bernard,I was busy trying to understand everything and i have some question for you.The volt at pin 2(inverting pin) is 2.1v and to the best of my understanding the volt at pin 3 should be above 2.1v to stay 'OFF' ,which is possible at day time.But you know the voltage from panel depends on the number of cells the panel made ,for instance 20Wp panel has 36 cells and each cell generate on average 0.6v so you get ≈21v Voc at noon.If you cover only one of the cells the current becomes almost zero but the Voc does't vary a lot(16-18v) . i doubt it may not go below 2.1v at night(at least up to 7pm) so that the lamp turned on.I am waiting your sketch based on LM311.
regards
 

Thread Starter

sufi

Joined Jan 23, 2010
6
I'm going to have to dig into my clock box and try that. But for now here is sun rise ,lamp turn off ckt. A PNP high gain transiston, medium power, also OK with 20 mA base drive available. Adjust V divider 47k-10k for desired light or darkness.
OK, I bench tested this with a PCB I had pulled in the past, from a battery alarm clock. Up to the output of the 555, it works. The setup switch, 4013, and MOSFET are just the concept for toggling.

Next, I'm going to get another alarm clock, and see if I can do this on an intact one. Keep your fingers crossed.

Ken
Thanks for everything but KMOffett is it possible to replace the clock function with something simple i can built for the same purpose? ts he pulse lasts for a minutes but what if i use timer just to start in?
thanks in advance
 

Bernard

Joined Aug 7, 2008
5,784
Re pg 15: Doubt V will fall below 2.1V at night. Using 15 W panel, Feb. 10th, a few representative morning readings:
Time V I-amps
7:05 .49 -.01 sun on mountain top
7:11 1.43 -.01
7:23 2.24 0
7:31 2.59 0 sun on top of wall
8:08 6.28 .07 sun just touching panel
8:22 15.0 .11 full sun no dew remaining OCkt
12.0 .35 35 ohm load 4.2 W
1:00 PM 15 .87 13.1 W peak power 22 V OC, 1.08 A SC
 
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