DIY Solar Garden Light Hack - Solar Battery Charger

[techman]

You can use dollar store solar path lights to make a solar battery charger for AA or AAA batteries with no other parts needed except for a singe diode.

Take four solar path lights and remove the base stems. These you can use as garden stakes or for another project.

Twist off the tube shapes lense piece from the solar cell top. Now you have the solar cell and LED light. If you turn it upside down so that you are looking at the LED you can see three screws holding the thing together. Remove the three screws to reveal the internal circuit.

Now you can see a battery socket and a small circuit board.

Cut off all the wires close to the circuit board. You want the wires to be long so you can use the parts later.

Take two of the battery holders and the 4 solar cells for the project.

Mount the four solar cells onto a board as seen in the photo. Then mount two of the battery holders.



Connect all of the solar cells together in parallel. Then run all the negative leads to each of the two negative leads on the battery sockets. Connect both sockets in parallel.

Connect the positive leads of the solar cells to a diode, then from the diode to the positive sides of the battery sockets.

Put two batteries in, place it in the sun and it will charge the batteries.

The full project details can be found here:
http://www.thediyworld.com/Solar-Path-L ... harger.php

[techman]

Here is a schematic for the homemade solar charger.

[Solar98632]

This is the underneath of the cells. as you can see I just simply connected the Charger Circuits as I would connect a battery.
These tiny boards have only 2 components. 1 IC(0116 is a Japanese LED Control Driver/charger circuit) and 1 resistor. there out put is surprising.
The solar Cells them selves throw out a whopping 3.5 volts each. They are to weak to do anything alone, but when combined with there charging Circuits they do one hell of a job.
I can power my mini tablet, that uses wifi (Emerson 543) and the Emerson "Action Cam". Both these devices are extremely high drain.
I am currently having to re work the schematic I drew up.

[Solar98632]

This is What my Solar Charger looks like..eh..with out a home ..lol, I need to make a home for it.

[Solar98632]

The "Block Diagram" I do not the online thing was very Basic Plus no one has the IC Config.
I am dead dog tired, I hope this made sense.

[Solar98632]

I hope I got that right please correct me If I got it wrong.
It is my first in do this

[Solar98632]

I hope that you find this beneficial. I am beat and my brain is fried.

[Solar98632]

Update:
It seem that the solar spot lights have a weaker Circuit in them.
Three of them with out batteries won't even touch the devices. But then again they do have the batteries in them.
I will remove the batteries to make sure that this is the case and get back online later.
I will be back when son is a sleep with the results.

[Solar98632]

Special Note:
Some devices may not charge on a cloudy day they will need full sun light. also the circuits alone with 3 panels I have will show 10 Volts. when a device is plugged in it will bump down to 4.0-6.0 depending on light 4.0 is the lowest I have seen a device charge. I have one Cell phone that requires full sun as it takes a lot more current. I had to have that Phone, a Samsung of some sort that had to be in direct Sunlight for it to charge. It also sucked my 2.3V NimH that had 1/4 charge Dry.
at least with the NIMH one will get a constant 6.9 volts. this could damage devices.
I am going to use a voltage regulator for the battery test as the Regulator I have is rated for Up to 36 Volts in but will be a constant 5V volts DC out.
The regulator will be mounted on on of the old posts where the older circuits used to be.
For some reason the Spot light Circuits would not work. They wouldn't charge any devices. and there meant to charge 2.3 Volt Nimh? I have a feeling that the solar companies are on to us lol, I think they are creating ways to prevent there tech from being beneficial..ok maybe that is paranoia . What I need is to find the older solar lamps that have regular lights in them and not LED those would convert easily.

[coder]

HELLO RESPECTED SIR ,
I AM happy to see tech man again . I wish you would check this . THANKS
YOURS SINCERELY ,
shankar [quote][/quote]