Discovering the huge potential for improving the efficiency & quality of lighting that Light Emitting Diodes (LED's) offer right now! at least on a par with HQI, providing in excess of 100 lumens per watt of power input!

Sunday 26 August 2007

Supplementary charging System used on camping trip

Yeovil









All camp lighting was LED, for me bulbs are obsolete with the exception of car headlights & a few others, my main (tiny) "flashlight" shown below is powered by 1 x 3.7v 123a rechargeable, drives a Seoul P4 Zled at 700ma via a tiny control board shown above & will full power for approx one hour, the output is massive for such a small light.










Solar panel with diode in series to charge batteries plus bike batteries connected to chopped off charger leads all in parrallel soldered together under lump of epoxy glue.








Brought out leads from the feed in terminals on the charging system of battery banks so that at least 5+v would be available for battery charging, plus made up supplementary 5v pack of nimh AA cells + all purpose phone/satnav/batt pack/solar charger lead assembly to enable various permutations of useage.




It worked well on a 10 day ride to Penzance enabling sat nav on phone which sucks life out of the Nokia N70's battery fast, plus in tent charging via extra 5v batt pack, wiring a bit rudimentary on bike but functioned well, the hub dyno was great & little resistance noticed.






Used the lights on bad vis days plus helmet rear red light, & was lot of lighting for 100ma of batt drain on get home mode, well within dyno capability.








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