Need help with Large LED Project

[Viper]

We are entering the ArtPrize 2013. We will be using 85 - 22' LED RGB light strips. The power for each strip is 50watts 12volts. They need to independently of each other or at least in groups of 10. How can we power these lights with batteries and solar panels ( size and quantity )? The contest is 20 days long. We will be running them about 4 hours each night. We will need to charge them up every day.

The entry will be in the river. They would like us not to run 120v out into the water.

Any help would be great full.

Thanks,
Al

[Sunking]

We are entering the ArtPrize 2013. We will be using 85 - 22' LED RGB light strips. The power for each strip is 50watts 12volts. They need to independently of each other or at least in groups of 10. How can we power these lights with batteries and solar panels ( size and quantity )? The contest is 20 days long. We will be running them about 4 hours each night. We will need to charge them up every day.

The entry will be in the river. They would like us not to run 120v out into the water.

Any help would be great full.l

You will not be happy with the answers. My answer is based on each string using 50 watts x 10 strings, x 4 hours each day = 2000 watt hours @ 12 volts DC

Battery Capacity @ 12 volts = 850 Amp Hours or 600 pounds worth of batteries costing $1500 on the low end for a 1 year battery.
Panel wattage = 750 watts
Mppt Charge controller = 60 amps.

You are Welcome.

[Viper]

SunKing,

So I would have to have 1 battery 850 amp hours and 1 solar panel @ 750 watt per LED 10 strips. Or Just 1 Battery and 1 solar panel for the whole thing?

Could we have one small ACP battery at each pole and one small charging panel at each pole? If so what size would we be looking at?

Thanks
Al

[SunEagle]

SunKing,

So I would have to have 1 battery 850 amp hours and 1 solar panel @ 750 watt per LED 10 strips. Or Just 1 Battery and 1 solar panel for the whole thing?

Could we have one small ACP battery at each pole and one small charging panel at each pole? If so what size would we be looking at?

Thanks
Al

If you did the calculations then for one 50 watt light strip you would need a 75 watt panel, 70ah 12 volt battery and a 10 amp charger.

Multiply that by 85 strings and you could easily purchase a nice quiet generator to run all of your lighting instead of going with solar and batteries.

[Sunking]

SunKing,

So I would have to have 1 battery 850 amp hours and 1 solar panel @ 750 watt per LED 10 strips. Or Just 1 Battery and 1 solar panel for the whole thing?

Could we have one small ACP battery at each pole and one small charging panel at each pole? If so what size would we be looking at?

Thanks
Al

Well sounds like we may not be on the same page. Lets try another approach. For each string of lights based on 50 watts and 4 hours use 200 watt hours. Each string will take:

Panel Wattage with MPPT Controller = 75 watts
MPPT Controller Amps = 6 amps
12 Volt Battery Capacity = 85 Amp Hours.

If you have more than 1 string, then figure it out by muliplying each by the nuber of strings.

Step 2 empty some ones bank account to buy the crap..

[Mike90250]

As Sunking says, 85 PV panels, 85 batteries.......

What you have, even with LED's, is a BUNCH of power.


Another method is to use, is an idea I designed for a art project for Burning Man, to power a zillion LED's, I used a 48V battery bank, and distributed 48V around to 10, 48-12V DC-DC converters, to power all the LED strings. It was still a $10,000 system and it's batteries would not run your system for the 4 hours.

Maybe skip solar and going 48V, distributed to DC-DC down-converters in the river, and continuously recharge the battery bank on shore would do it.

--
Randy Polumbo: The Garden and Grotto of Manifest Destiny:

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/04/08/garden/09joshua.2.ready.html

When the PV and batteries are not powering the trailer display, the XW6048 inverter powers his off grid house.