garden solar lights

[Jagsy]

hi I have about 6 sets of 100 solar led fairy lights, about 12 solar globes and 4 solar post lamps..they all take 1.5v batterys connected to there own solar panels,
my question..can I take all the solar panels away and hook them all up to just 1 solar panel using a 12v deep cycle battery and solar panel and I would also need cable ( is there a special kind of cable you need or is normal electrical cable used , also what watt solar panel would I need and any other things I would need) im in uk so solar running from the 1.5v batteries is pretty rubbish in winter... any help appreciated, thanks

[inetdog]

hi I have about 6 sets of 100 solar led fairy lights, about 12 solar globes and 4 solar post lamps..they all take 1.5v batterys connected to there own solar panels,
my question..can I take all the solar panels away and hook them all up to just 1 solar panel using a 12v deep cycle battery and solar panel and I would also need cable ( is there a special kind of cable you need or is normal electrical cable used , also what watt solar panel would I need and any other things I would need) im in uk so solar running from the 1.5v batteries is pretty rubbish in winter... any help appreciated, thanks

Hello Jagsy and welcome to Solar Panel Talk!

Your biggest problem is that if the integrated lights take two 1.5V batteries for a total of 3.0V, you will need to add some electronics to step down the voltage of your 12V battery make them compatible.
Solar running from a single 12V battery will not be inherently any better for you. The issue is that the panels do not produce enough power each day to fully recharge the built-in batteries.
If you go with a central DC power system, you can use panels that are twice or more the total wattage of all of the individual small panels combined. It is not enough to have a larger battery, you also need more PV to charge the larger battery.

[Jagsy]

hi inetdog, thanks for your reply, I was planning to get a bigger solar panel to power a battery what would be the best solution to the problem... can you take me through what I need to buy so the lights will be good in winter aswell as summer..

[Jagsy]

is this what you mean by 12v to 3v converter... http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Waterp...item2ed44fcd09

so I could get 1 larger solar panel, connect it to a controller then connect a 12v deep cycle battery to the controller, then I would need to connect the step down converter to the controller and then run all my lights from the step down converter....would that work?

like this
example.JPG

[inetdog]

hi inetdog, thanks for your reply, I was planning to get a bigger solar panel to power a battery what would be the best solution to the problem... can you take me through what I need to buy so the lights will be good in winter aswell as summer..

Your first step is to to go to a site such as http://pvwatts.nrel.gov/ or http://www.gaisma.com/en/dir/gb-country.html to get an idea of how much actual sunlight (in solar hours or watt-hours per square meter per day) you will get in the winter. That, combined with an idea of the power consumption of the lights you are interested in will tell you what sized battery and panel(s) you would need.
Since you are going to give up the advantage of each light set being self-contained, you should also consider what it would cost to simply wire up low voltage DC from a mains-fed power supply to all of the lights.

[Jagsy]

that's a good idea...converting it all to mains...do you have a link to the type of low voltage dc converter I would need so I have an idea on what to get.. and would I need one for each set of lights or could I connect just one to a junction box and then add lights to the junction box its connected to