Solar Charger Using Salvaged Yard Light Solar Panels

[Guruji]

Solar panel

Hi folks, Hi guruji, nice setup you have made there, does it have any clear cover material to protect from rain and have you used your home built solar panel using broken solar cells to charge a battery yet, thanks for sharing.
Also, how much were the broken solar cells shown in the homemade solar panel in the video, thanks.
peace love light
tyson

Thanks Skywatcher. Yes I've did a glass cover on it. I bought the broken cells on ebay were very cheap. Search on ebay there should be some.
That small SP gives about 6v .4amp which is fairly good to a stingo circuit or JT and charge 12v batteries.
Thanks

[NickZ]

Although I've had some luck charging using the 6 garden lights in series, it seams to be a fluffy charge, as there is only 25mA of current to charge with, even though there are 14 volts.
So, I'm going to change the wiring to 3 solar cells connected in series, and 3 in parallel. To see if I can charge a 4 volt 2ah lead acid battery, which are actually 4 separate 4 volt 0.5ah batteries all connected in parallel.
Any suggestions are always welcome.

[Guruji]

Hitman vid

Is it safe what hitman did to the laptop charging it's battery with the JT?
What do you think guys?

[NickZ]

There are several things that we don't know about the Hitman set up. It is safe to connect to a laptop? I would not do it, yet. As we don't know how long the charge will last from his 6 volt battery, or even what current levels are being provided by it.
I've tried to replicate his system with the solar cells/battery idea, by using 6 solar cells all in series, and found that I got a fluffy charge. Now I'll try the 6 solar cells in parallel, to see what happens.

I see that to be able to obtain a reasonable output from my Exciter circuit, I'll need provide a source with as much current as possible. As the exciter will work on even less than a volt, but needs some mAs to function properly, possibly at least 50 to 100 mAs, or more. Voltage somehow does not seam very important in this case, but some current is needed.

I've just connected my newly made Exciter coil circuit to a couple of my homemade batteries, (or power cells), and was able to make the Exciter work with wireless up to about 6 inches from the L3 coil. This is using only one or two cells as the power source, which gives between 0.65 to 1.2 volts, and about 5mAs, or so. So, it this set up does works with a small power source, also, and is perpetual, and not dependent on Sunlight.
This is the first time I've tried this, as I just finished making a bigger Exciter coil tower (1 1/2" by 8"), which is able to light CFLs, neon, and of course Led bulbs, even on just one AA battery. The idea is to make a solar Exciter circuit, or one that is powered by the homemade cells. I'm getting there...

[SkyWatcher]

Hi folks, Hi nick, thanks for sharing the information.
I am finding after many charge and discharge cycles with my single AA rechargeable cell, that it is not fully charging for some reason using the paralleled solar panels.
It's odd, because the final cell voltage is about the same as it would be from a regular charger, but it only runs the same load for an hour, where as with a regular charger, the same load goes for 3 hours.
Though I'm not using a diode on the solar panels, because I don't see it feeding back as it's in the sun most of the time.
Could the AA cell be losing charge into the solar panel without the diode.
I mean, I'm getting 240 milliamps in direct sun charging the AA cell, so no lack of charge current.
Any help appreciated, as I can't figure out why I can't get a full charge.
peace love light
tyson

[NickZ]

I wish that I had some good suggestions, but I'm on the same quest.
I have not had much luck either with the solar cells placed in series, or in parallel, so I'm still working on this. As I have one garden light solar cell with 4.3 volt output, and 5 more cells with only 2 volt output, I'm having a hard time combining 3 cells in series with the second set of 3 cells in parallel.
I feel that the battery that it has to charge, has a lot to do with how it all works out. As well the the match of all the same type of solar cells, not different ones.
Here is a picture I just took of the 6 cells out in the yard, charging a regular AA, and also charging a 3.6v, 600mA, which is a wireless phone battery that I'm using as a source battery on my Solar Excite circuit (second pic). The last picture is of the new Exciter tower that I just made a couple of days ago.
The idea is to see if the 6 little old garden light solar cells can charge a battery that will keep the CFL bulbs, or leds, on and lit, all night long.

NickZ

[boguslaw]

Hello all

Because I had 3 old not used cellphones with batteries I decided to build Reversed Joule Thief circuit as described in this article : The "Reverse Joule Thief" Battery Charger

to charge my batteries and re-use them for something else as a power source.

It doesn't look very good but it works extremely well.

Here is the device : Solar charger pictures by boguslawb - Photobucket

I also tested this circuit on protoboard as a simple DC-DC converter for charging capacitor and batteries. It runs quite nice for example to charge large farad capacitors from small 9V battery but the used transistors are the limit for the output voltage (12-24V output is a safe limit I think). I charged 33000uF 40V capacitor to 16V in a couple of seconds from old 9V battery.
There is however a problem with such circuit : it has to have a capacitive load or BC327 transistor easily is burnt out. Second case is limiting the charge if used to charge capacitor. I have found some modification which works using transil diode and a relay and I will post schematic later .

I wonder if such circuit is in any way better then using just ordinary Joule Thief circuit to charge battery ? Any experience ?

[Guruji]

I wish that I had some good suggestions, but I'm on the same quest.
I have not had much luck either with the solar cells placed in series, or in parallel, so I'm still working on this. As I have one garden light solar cell with 4.3 volt output, and 5 more cells with only 2 volt output, I'm having a hard time combining 3 cells in series with the second set of 3 cells in parallel.
I feel that the battery that it has to charge, has a lot to do with how it all works out. As well the the match of all the same type of solar cells, not different ones.
Here is a picture I just took of the 6 cells out in the yard, charging a regular AA, and also charging a 3.6v, 600mA, which is a wireless phone battery that I'm using as a source battery on my Solar Excite circuit (second pic). The last picture is of the new Exciter towel that I just made a couple of days ago.
The idea is to see if the 6 little old garden light solar cells can charge a battery that will keep the CFL bulbs, or leds, on and lit, all night long.

NickZ

HI Nickz nice exciter. I think hook them in series better for a JT or exciter for highest voltage to charge batteries in my opinion.

Hello all

Because I had 3 old not used cellphones with batteries I decided to build Reversed Joule Thief circuit as described in this article : The "Reverse Joule Thief" Battery Charger

to charge my batteries and re-use them for something else as a power source.

It doesn't look very good but it works extremely well.

Here is the device : Solar charger pictures by boguslawb - Photobucket

I also tested this circuit on protoboard as a simple DC-DC converter for charging capacitor and batteries. It runs quite nice for example to charge large farad capacitors from small 9V battery but the used transistors are the limit for the output voltage (12-24V output is a safe limit I think). I charged 33000uF 40V capacitor to 16V in a couple of seconds from old 9V battery.
There is however a problem with such circuit : it has to have a capacitive load or BC327 transistor easily is burnt out. Second case is limiting the charge if used to charge capacitor. I have found some modification which works using transil diode and a relay and I will post schematic later .

I wonder if such circuit is in any way better then using just ordinary Joule Thief circuit to charge battery ? Any experience ?

I don't know how people connect these JT's without knowing if it would damage the device; I don't risk it. I saw a guy using the JT to a laptop too

[NickZ]

boguslaw:
Sometimes we have to go out of our comfort zone in order to see and experience something new, and exciting. I am seeing plenty of things that excite my fancy with the new Exciter circuits that I'm working on. Even fasinating, at times... especially when the Cfls or Led bulbs suddenly light up so bright that you'd think that they are going to blow. Makes it all worthwhile.