The continuing adventures of the 5W panel.

As I happened to be out today performing the heinous act of shopping in Walmart, I availed myself of the opportunity to purchase a tea-light lantern. This will be used as a benchmark for all my future lighting. It takes one tealight and will thus produce one Candela of lighting. In terms of Lux, this is 1.19 lux. In Lumens this is 12.56.

I could heartily wish manufacturers would grade all their lighting in candela - it makes far more sense than lumens or lux, both of which measure things other than illumination. Lumens measures brightness (which is worthless without illumination) and lux just measures the light falling on a particular area. I could put a laser in a box and call it a light and say “oh yeah, this produces 20,000 lumens” but the fact that those 20,000 lumens illuminate only an area the size of a pinhead pretty much defeats the purpose.

I know my candle will produce 1 candela or 12.56 lumens. Doing a quick and worthless calculation, my whooptie-do-dah GE lantern that allegedly produces 350 lumens thus produces as much light as 27 candles. That really does not sound that great! Interestingly, hurricane lamps powered by kerosine can produce more light. A standard domestic unit with a 3/8 inch wick produces 4 candela. A bigger one with a 2.5 inch wick, as used in stores would produce 300 Candela. Now, interestingly I was in Walmart and measured the lux at about 300. In the kitchen in the trailer here, I measured it at 130 lux.

As I don’t currently possess a tea-light, I’ll have to hold off on my investigation as to the brightness of my tea-light lantern. Suffice to say, when I used to travel a lot, I used always to carry tea-lights and a tea-light lantern because it worked out at lighter and better value than a flashlight and batteries. One tea-light provides up to 3 hours of usable, consistent light. I don’t want to use anything flammable in my bus as a matter of routine though. I have fire extinguishers - I just don’t want to have to use them.

Another project today was to try out my 5w solar panel on my 7AH battery. Placing the battery on the hood of the bus and slipping a volt meter into it, I measured the resting voltage of the battery at a shade over 12.1v. In fact the meter kept flipping between 12.1v and 12.2v.

It was a matter of seconds to undo the battery clips and clip on my solar panel, placing the whole lot in the sun. It was placed in situ at about 1:45pm so it’ll be interesting to see how much if any the voltage has risen after an hour or two. I’d imagine since it’s a bright day and that I aligned the panel pretty well straight at the sun that my 5w or 0.4A of power will raise the voltage to 12.3v. A few days and I’m sure the battery would read 12.8v (full). My installed solar panels will be of lower efficiency than stated because they’re fixed in place and not angled correctly at the sun. They do, however, provide plenty power.

The ultimate plan is to link in a 50W portable panel on an extension cord that I can link to my existing solar system. That is one that I can angle straight at the sun. That should provide approximately 3A of power or enough to keep one of my fans running constantly or, buffering, my two fans running 50% of the time. One hour on, one hour off. I wouldn’t want to put a bigger panel on the ground where somebody could steal it. A 50W panel would cost probably about $50-$80. I did see a couple listed at $18 on ebay but given that one was from Sri Lanka and one from Spain, both with vegetation that looked distinctly similar and more Russian then I’d say they’re scams. A look on Amazon proved their cheapest 50W panel was by Renology and was $56 which confirmed my suspicions about the ebay listings being fraudulent. We know the procedure - long quoted shipping periods which gives the crooks 30 days to grab the money and run before anybody suspects anything, leaving ebay out of pocket and everybody pretty much fuming at the waste of time. I had that happen twice when I was buying my IP security camera!

The goal of my small battery plus my 5W panel is to produce something that can be an independent power source for my camera or for cell phone charging. Pretty much it’s a fun little side project that I’m having fun with. I’m certain there will be plenty naysayers out there like always with disparaging comments. In fact that’s pretty much the kind of thing that was one of the topics of one of the work meetings the other day - people that create a toxic work environment. I’d been going to contribute to the fare for the Christmas festivities at work and to participate but having encountered some of the toxic people the other day, I’m having second thoughts about contributing and attending. I certainly didn’t join the Secret Santa thing because I’d rather buy my own stuff.

Eventually, I whipped out the angle-iron that I’d bought a week or so back and cut it with my angle grinder. Then I whipped out my welder and my new Vulcan weding rods. There’s a difference! I’d only been using the older Harbor Freight rods and been struggling. These Vulcan rods sizzled their way to success very quickly and easily. I’m wondering if half my welding issues were related to poorer quality rods.

Now the theory is that should be pretty darned close to 90 degrees and flat. Only time and addition of the other members will tell. (Blogging as I work). The aim is to produce a new, lighter battery base than I made out of the older bed frame steel. Many times I tried to recycle what the hillbillies had used but their choice of materials was so poor that the vast majority of their stuff could not be recycled. Steel angle that was ludicrously heavy, electrics that were woefully underpowered and woodwork that while well made was not of substantial quality. It was as though they’d had the idea, had no idea what materials were appropriate and no idea how to put it all together.

Shortly after that I ran into the usual problem with a weld not sticking and rods not performing. That was compounded by the steel I’d been clamping things to deciding to wobble and fall off its perch. Major cussing ensued for several minutes as everything conspired to confound and frustrate. If the neighbors 200 yards away aren’t now blushing, I’d be very surprised!

The solution to my dilemma was pretty straightforward. Rather than relying upon wobbly supports, I decided to weld my supports together so they won’t wobble. that’ll give me another issue when it comes time to take the supports apart but as they’re not made of steel destined for use in the bus, right now I just don’t care!

At one point, I was even looking to find my thinner rods and had a good hunt but still couldn’t find them. I know I have a ton of welding rods in the bus but they’re being elusive today. Perhaps another day will prove more fruitful.

Anyway, having welded my workbench together more securely I recommenced work on the battery base. Within a few minutes I had achieved my aim and had three portions securely welded together. I’ll need to work more on one of the welds and I’ll have some angle grinding to do but it’s definitely getting there.

I’ll have to trim and weld on the 4th side another day and then try the battery for fit. Currently it’s about an eighth bigger in width than need be. That will facilitate snug installation of the battery.

Meanwhile I had completely forgotten about my battery that was busily charging from my 5W solar panel. Checking the voltage it had crept up to 12.4V. That’s not too bad. I figure a full day of sunshine should see that maxed out at 12.8v. I have no idea when it went dark but it was plenty dark when I put it inside the bus at 6pm.

I’m still quite favorably impressed by the Vulcan welding rods, despite my issues earlier with starting and maintaining an arc. Part of the problem is the rods are so long and harder to handle than my previous rods. I suspect I’ll have to use pliers or something to hold the rod closer to the end. Mind, tightening the sloppy jaws on my rod holder would go a long way too!








lolc.