Solar-latest stuff

[Bluedog225]

Interesting you should post this right now.

I got a little 3 LED puck from Home Despot a couple of days ago.  Like the bigger light domes on the infomercials (click on/click off).  It has 3 settings (one for each LED being on).  It is powered by 3 AAA batteries.

I was planning on taking it with me on a 5 day sailing trip I will be taking soon.  So I put it into two freezer bags to waterproof it.

I accidently left it on "high" yesterday around 1 pm.  It's still shinning bright over 30 hours later.

I didn't know how good they were till now.

If the fans you are talking about work out, I may go for a smaller solar battery (AA, AAA, D, etc) charger.

Thanks again.

Tom

[austinado16]

That's the beauty of LED's.  They use so little current that they'll run for hundreds of hours, sometimes thousands, on a set of batteries.

If you look at //www.superbriteleds.com you'll find their 9LED printed circuit boards that have bulb bases wired to them.  Find our recent sticky'd solar thread and read up.  Then find our LED bulb thread and read all those details.

To give you an idea of how good the //www.02-cool.com fans are, we bought one for a trip to the Grand Canyon 2 summers ago.  We would leave it on all night long, and typically run it whenever we were inside the camper.  We went back to the GC last summer, plus one other "hot" camping trip.......still going strong on the original set of duracells.

Also, check out the AA powered single tube fluorescent lights at the hardware store.  They make great lights for the ceiling, over the sink, up in the bunk roofs, etc.  Also, Coleman and others make nice twin tube fluorescents camping lights that are compact, and allow you to run both tubes, one tube, or an amber LED night light.  We've got all of the above and use them all the time.

All kinds of fun ways around not spending a grand on a solar system.