Output of Solar Garden Lights from the Big Box Stores

[Sunking]

Space is limited - the speaker box will only be about 10" tall and 6" wide - if I buy a 9v panel thats only 300mah - is that going to be a problem?

Nope close enough

Im going to look up some of the terms you used.. c/10 and isc and learn me some solar goodness.

All C/10 means where C = the battery capacity expressed in Amp Hours. Your battery is rated @ 2000 ma or 2 amps. 10 or any number is the charge rate of 10 hours, or ho wmuch current is required to fully recharge a discharged battery. So to find the amount of current required to recharge a battery in 10 hours all we are doing is factoring out th etime element to leave us the current. A = AH / H, so 2 AH / 10 H = .2 amps.

Isc = Current Short Circuit of a solar panel. Which means assuming the panel is exposed to 1000 wh/meter squared insolation input is th eamount of current will produce when shorted out at the panel output.

Is it Ok to be charging while it discharges?

Yes

[MtnXfreeride]

Thanks for the quick reply, two other questions come to mind then.

Space is limited - the speaker box will only be about 10" tall and 6" wide - if I buy a 9v panel thats only 300mah - is that going to be a problem?

Im going to look up some of the terms you used.. c/10 and isc and learn me some solar goodness.

Im eyeing this panel: http://www.siliconsolar.com/9-volt-3...-p-501643.html

Is it Ok to be charging while it discharges?

[Sunking]

Easy Peasy. Forget the landscape light. Since you have NiMh battery you can safely charge them with a constant current of C/10 indefinitely. So just buy a standard 12 battery panel that has a Isc of around .2 amps, which should be about a 5 watt panel.

Connect the battery directly to th epanel with a diode in series with either polarity of the panel to prevent discharging the battery at night back through the solar panel.

[MtnXfreeride]

Hey, I am looking to do some small solar projects and I was wondering if I can just buy some of the garden lights at walmart and use the panels on them.

Has anyone tested the milliamp output of any of them? I'm looking for a combination of panels that can charge a 4.8V battery pack which power a small 2x3watt Class D amplifier. I only need about 20-30 minutes of use on the amp a day - its a portable speaker for my bathroom - the back of the speaker faces a sunny window - just enough power to keep the battery topped off with 2 10-15min showers daily (fiance and I).

If the walmart panels are complete garbage is there a panel out there that would be a good match for this battery pack?

The battery is "4.8V 2000mAh Square Receiver NiMH Battery Pack" I dont want to post links as a new member.
The amp is: VMA2012 Class-D Audio Amplifier Evaluation Module (EVM) Board - its easy to google.