LED's for Home Lighting

Nice start.

nice LED thread. *l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/emoticons7/41.gif

i will post my last dialogue again:

if u guys are looking for these 1 watt LEDs for power saving, the drivers, if transformer based, (read ac adapters) have energy efficiency in the range of 20-75%.

that is, to deliver 1 watt to the LED, it may draw from 1.33W to 5W from wall.

however, if drivers are just resistance based, its different.

Click to expand...

From Post Your Latest Purchase Thread

icebags said:

if u guys are looking for these 1 watt LEDs for power saving, then let me tell u, the drivers, if transformer based, (read ac adapters) have energy efficiency in the range of 20-75%.

that is, to deliver 1 watt to the LED, it may draw from 1.33W to 5W from wall.

however, if they are just resistance based, its different.

Click to expand...

I think when we are considering energy efficient lighting, we can't make use of ordinary step down transformers as these are not that energy efficient and using one might, well, negate the energy efficiency you're getting by using LED's. Buying efficient transformers is a tricky job as first of all you'll not get them so easily and even if you find them, you'll have to pay too much. By efficient transformers, I mean to say the kind of AC step down transformers that have a comparatively better build quality with high quality copper or aluminium winding and well designed core.

PLEASE DON'T TRY AT HOME

use of main 220 - 240V AC as per the following circuit diagram will result in wayyyy better efficiency (i m guessing 60% - 90% or more), it will depend a lot on the quality of capacitor C1.

also, efficiency is like : input power = circuit flow power + circuit generated heat.

its a diagram for 0.5 watt (total) LED lighting. but to drive four 1 watt LEDs , replace the R2 with 240-250 ohm 1W resistance. all parts are very important and should not be altered without prompt knowledge. also don't forget to protect the circuit with proper ventilated case with proper insulation. and don't touch it, while its working or even after switching off because of the charge holding capacitor .

CX is not normal capacitor, its X rated capacitor, and 472K is not its pico farad value.

to read full article, click the image.

*electroschematics.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/clip_image00210.gif

Ok, will post the one my brother designed specifically for driving 8 mm LED's in the evening.

icebags said:

use of main 220 - 240V AC as per the following circuit diagram will result in wayyyy better efficiency (i m guessing 60% - 90% or more), it will depend a lot on the quality of capacitor C1.

also, efficiency is like : input power = circuit flow power + circuit generated heat.

its a diagram for 0.5 watt (total) LED lighting. but to drive an 1 watt LED, replace the R2 with 240-250 ohm 1W resistance. all parts are very important and should not be altered without prompt knowledge. also don't forget to protect the circuit with proper ventilated case with proper insulation. and don't touch it, while its working .

to read full article, click the image.

*electroschematics.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/clip_image00210.gif

Click to expand...

Those, who don't have some knowledge of electronics and soldering, PLEASE DON'T TRY AT HOME.
Even after unplugging the circuit, don't touch the circuit before you short circuit both the terminals (marked P and N) of the wire leading to mains using an metallic piece, as such a circuit tends to store some power and may give you a lethal shock.

^^ thanks for the warning, much appreciated.

CyberKID said:

Even after unplugging the circuit, don't touch the circuit before you short circuit both the terminals (marked P and N) of the wire leading to mains using an metallic piece, as such a circuit tends to store some power and may give you a lethal shock.

Click to expand...

R1 is for that purpose. But it will take some time to discharge the capacitor. So shorting P & N is not required, just leave the circuit alone and it will discharge itself.

How much lumen I need to get light comparable to a tube-light ?

Informative thread.... But how to replace these with CFLs ? :chinstrach:

CyberKID said:

@ sjoardar, d6bmg, NIGHTMARE, ajayritik, icebags : I think we should continue the LED discussions is this thread and shouldn't clutter the Post Your Latest Purchase thread with our LED discussions.

Click to expand...

You are right! I kinda got carried away! Your new thread is really great and very informative.

ajayritik said:

Guys even I was looking for these LED Tube lights. These are available in electronic shops here in Hyderabad and also available with the footpath vendor. So you guys saying these are not reliable? I need 3-4 of these. Which ones should I go for? I see Cyberkid suggesting some expensive ones. Can I have the link for these. Also any link in ebay for these?

I need these in case of powercuts as backup.

Click to expand...

Well, we're saying such and such items are not available in Kolkata! In case you do not already know, the Kolkata market is one of the most backward in the country. Easily available here are only the low-end stuff. If one wants any high-end or nu-tech stuff, one usually has to hunt, wait and 'pray' for months here.

So, here is the circuit my brother designed for 8mm LED's.
This is a simple circuit using cheap easy to available components, which can be sourced from any electronics repair shop.

*i.imgur.com/fnICI.png

The maximum cost of this circuit including all the components might not be more than Rs. 40 and if you get yourself General Purpose PCB's to easily mount all the components, then it might cost you around Rs. 16-20 for a 4x6 inch PCB, but this will easily accommodate all your components and working on it will be a lot easier.

pratyush997 said:

Informative thread.... But how to replace these with CFLs ? :chinstrach:

Click to expand...

Good question.
For replacing the CFL's we need to move up towards the UltraBright LED's, which are somewhat expensive than the regular 5mm LED's.
We'll be discussing that too a bit later in this thread.

why is the 1 watt led has a big heat sink? it seems it will heat a lot. how much watt/energy is wasted as heat ?

Sorry guys for not being a techie even though I'm from Electronics Background. So I was checking if there is any good LED Light thing available in market currently which I can use as back up when my power goes out.

@ajayritik
u want to battery power LED ?

@CyberKID
u still want to add a 480k resistor across CX, if u want to discharge it automatically after switching off. and good job with the zener.

Informative thread guys.

tomys24 said:

why is the 1 watt led has a big heat sink? it seems it will heat a lot. how much watt/energy is wasted as heat ?

Click to expand...

Yes, it generates quite a lot of heat. That's why it has large aluminium heatsinks. As far as the energy wasted is concerned, the total consumption of the LED is concerned, if it's rated 1 watt, it's 1 watt.

icebags said:

@CyberKID
u still want to add a 480k resistor across CX, if u want to discharge it automatically after switching off. and good job with the zener.

Click to expand...

Good suggestion. Will give it a try. Though, it gradually gets discharged as the stored up energy is consumed by the LED's, which takes time. I never bothered about this as this gives a different effect to the LED lamp as when you switch it on, it glows instantly, but when you switch it off, it goes off slowly, giving you some time before the light goes off.

^^ well, slow going off is the electrolytic's doing more the mf value, longer the led stays on after switch off. CX circuit breaks the moment u switch off main AC. purpose of CX is voltage dripping from 220V ac to something like 12V AC.

hmmm. you're right. I just forgot that I sometimes increase the value of the capacitor to make the LED's glow longer.

I'm going to input my knowledge & works with LEDs in few weeks. Presently occupied with some exams.
BTW, very good initial guide.

^ Looking forward for that. Will be helpful for all of us.
BTW, All the best for your exams.

icebags said:

@ajayritik
u want to battery power LED ?

Click to expand...

Yes Bro. I have lots of problem with these emergency lights I need them especially now since there are lot of power cuts here.
Any good suggestions? I was planning to go for the China made LED lights as backup. But I feel they give out very less power.
I think someone in the forum had built something using an UPS.

If you want something based on a battery, it's one of the easiest things to do.
All you need is a circuit for charging a battery, a battery (or battery pack), either regular Lead Acid Battery which is relatively cheaper or NiMH or NiCD or Li-Ion batteries.
Alternatively, you can get yourself a cheap chinese emergency lamp and convert it into an LED based setup with LED's of your own choice.
Even a 6 Volt Lead Acid Battery rated at 4.5 AH will give you enough power to light up 3-4 rooms/other places for almost more than 2 hours using 3-4 UltraBright 1Watt LED's or more than 6 hours with 6-8 8mm LED's.

For a Lead Acid Battery Charger, I think this link would help you. All you have to do is order this circuit kit, a 12/18 Volt Transformer for a 6/12 volt battery and a battery. I'm suggesting this because, getting components is a very tricky part as most of the times you won't find the all the right components at one place. Though, I feel that the cost is almost 2 times more than you would pay if you get the components yourselves, but, when you're getting everything as a kit, so it's worth it.

for people at kolkata searching for electronic components try Railtron electronics it's near the masjid at chandni, they have nice stock.

ajayritik said:

Yes Bro. I have lots of problem with these emergency lights I need them especially now since there are lot of power cuts here.
Any good suggestions? I was planning to go for the China made LED lights as backup. But I feel they give out very less power.
I think someone in the forum had built something using an UPS.

Click to expand...

get an ups battery @ ~400/- they re 12 volts, right ? (pls confirm, i forgot)

white LEDs are 3.6v ..... so to drive an 1 watt LED u need 1/(12 - 3.6) = 120mA current.

so, add (12 - 3.6)/0.12 = ~ 80 ohm resistance (x watt) to the LED while connecting it to the 12v battery.

or for 6V source (5x NiMH batteries - but dont put much load on these... better not more than 2 watt for 6 volt config), add 40 ohm resistance (X watt).

well, for battery charging ? want to consider these ? (u need a little higher than battery voltage, so u have to add a few of them in serially)
4V SOLAR PANEL Hobby KIT DIY AA AAA rechargable battery charger CELL TOY GIFT | eBay
6V SOLAR PANEL Hobby KIT DIY Mobile & rechargable battery charger CELL TOY GIFT | eBay

^ sorry to say, you can't get a 12 Volt 7-7.2 AH battery for Rs. 400. Last time I bought one for my UPS about 4 years ago, I had to shell out 580 bucks, and unfortunately, my UPS died soon after that.
As far as driving 1 watt LED's, IMO (most of them are rated at 300-350 mA), so, you need that much current. Alternatively, if you want to use LED's with a 12 Volt source, try connecting 4 LED's in series directly to the battery and if the light is less, remove one of the LED's and you're still good to go. Most of these UltraBright LED's are capable of handling voltages around 4.5 volts, so, IMO, 4 volt won't do any harm.
As far as the battery charger is concerned, you can't rely on this solar panel, you have to get yourself a mains charger.
The solar panel gives 6 volts and 200 mAH current an hour (both at peak power output), so, if you want to charge a 4.5 AH battery, i.e. 4500 mAH, you'll need 4500/200=22.5 Hrs - at peak power output of the solar panel which is not possible at all times in a day. So, even if you consider the panel working at it peak output for even 6 hours a day, you'll need more than 4 days to fully charge a flat battery. Moreover, that panel won't be able to produce the necessary 7.2 volts to charge a 6 volt battery.

Nice Info...

How much it will cost to replace all tubelights/CFL bulbs @home with LED?

*i.imgur.com/r6Zxj.jpg

Guys any suggestions on the best option for power back up during power cuts. I'm not sure if I can assemble the parts and build up the LED thing.

^^ yes, put some 4-5 1w LEDs in ur room ceiling, so that their total spread remains < 2' (imagine a 2' tube) and connect them in parallel (watch their polarities) connection with wire. And also, stretch the wire to a suitable corner of the room. make a 2 pin socket there with 40-50 ohm resistance (non mains type preferred). now when power's out, connect a 6v storage battery to that socket. and enjoy some light.

lt's like :

Finally I made my totally custom made LED light. I can't find particular driver for my LED because it's different specification form the model selling on ebay or electrical shop. I use fused CFL connector and use phone charger circuit to supply 5V 700mA. This phone charger circuit is very small to fit inside connector. Now looking forward to use 12 V supply with two LED. I saw many LED in shop I can't find match for my LED in term of light mine is Superb. Just on that socket to show you.

*i.imgur.com/W5Znp.jpg
*i.imgur.com/PCbn0.jpg
*i.imgur.com/ItpWo.jpg

Congos! For your first DIY LED Lamp. I use the same CFL circuit enclosure for mounting the LED's. I hope that's not Aluminium Foil you've used as a reflector. As you've noticed by now that LED's are directional, they don't need any reflectors as no light is being emitted at the back.
I'll post pics of my LED lamps today. We've made lamps from 8 mm LED's as well as the UltraBright 1Watt LED's as well. For 8 mm LED's we've used a circuit design I've posted earlier in this thread. For the 1Watt LED's I've used the 3x1watt Driver Circuit purchased from Ebay.

Thanks, yes that a normal paper sheet but at back there is aluminium to tight the LED on this connector. I'm eager to wait to see yours ideas.

Sorry guys, didn't get the time to post the pics.
Here I am with the pics:

The lamp with 3, 1watt ultrabright LED's and 3x1 LED Driver

*i.imgur.com/5EXt2l.jpg

*i.imgur.com/Vajrql.jpg

*i.imgur.com/cQHKDl.jpg

The other one with 6, 8mm LED's and the circuit based on the design, I posted previously in this thread.

*i.imgur.com/LtigDl.jpg

the white portion is a depressed part of a white styrofoam plate.

One of the earliest lights we prepared with 12, 5 mm LED's.
*i.imgur.com/1b6x5l.jpg

Right now, at my home, I'm having 2 lamps made out of 3x1 watt LED's and the LED Driver. 2 lamps made out of 6, 8 mm LED's and 2 lamps or rather I should say lights made out of 12 and 16, 5 mm LED's.

giving me whole room look so i can see how much light is spreading

hey guys,been reading this thread for a while & want to try out too..but not able to find LED's easily in mumbai..where do i look for it?Esp the 1 watt ultrabright LED'S..also how much does it cost?

@ Ronnie11: Thanks for your interest in LED's lighting.

I think this link (post) would help. I bought the LED's and the drivers from Ebay. You could expect to spend between Rs. 16 to Rs. 21 for each 1 watt UltraBright LED's.

@ Nightmare: What would you expect from 3, 1 watt LED's? The light's not too much to impress anyone considering the cost, moreover, my room being a relatively large one with the dimensions being 15x12 feet, it's rather hard to light up the whole room. One thing I'm pretty sure, that if I hook up 9 or 10 of these 1 watt ultrabright LED's, it'll probably replace my 23 watt CFL. Anyways, I'm posting one pic wall opposite wall, with my phone's flash turned off, to show the actual capability of the light.

*i.imgur.com/wphtt.jpg

I posted this pic because I thought it was the part of the room best lit by the light, moreover, since it was 11 in the night, my brother had already put up the mosquito net, and had went to sleep, so I had to leave that part.

Just wanted to see how much area it can be covered by yours LED, So I can get rough idea for further use. Thanks for mentioning the dimensions of room.

so i told my mom to buy some led's from the market...turned out to be a bit of a disaster.. ..got this instead
*imageshack.us/f/803/dsc05166l.jpg/
*imageshack.us/f/502/dsc05169t.jpg/


forgot to get resistors

can i do anything out of these??
It cost me 400 bucks...

If you're gonna tell your mom to get yourself such stuffs, it'll be like this only!!!
Just kidding. She's got you pretty decent stuff, if I go n say my mother to get such stuff, she'll yell out on me.
Though, the driver's pretty ok, what about that LED? It isn't one meant for DIY's. If you want those 1 watt Ultrabright ones, you can have simply go to ebay.in and search for 1Watt LED and hundreds of results will be up there for you to choose from. You can actually use three of those ultra bright LED's (1 watt ones) to directly connect to the driver circuits your mom got. No resistance required.

CyberKID said:

If you're gonna tell your mom to get yourself such stuffs, it'll be like this only!!!
Just kidding. She's got you pretty decent stuff, if I go n say my mother to get such stuff, she'll yell out on me.
Though, the driver's pretty ok, what about that LED? It isn't one meant for DIY's. If you want those 1 watt Ultrabright ones, you can have simply go to ebay.in and search for 1Watt LED and hundreds of results will be up there for you to choose from. You can actually use three of those ultra bright LED's (1 watt ones) to directly connect to the driver circuits your mom got. No resistance required.

Click to expand...

LOL..i have exams coming up..so i asked her to pick up ultrabright 1 watt led's from the market...she didn't quite get it...
oh ok..the thing is i don't have a credit card to buy off ebay..so was hoping to buy them from local stores...will see if i can buy off ebay..btw what is DIY??

BTW is there a step down trasformer & rectifier inside the unit?

will post the pic again since imageshack is not posting it properly...

You don't need a credit card to buy from ebay. You can use a regular debit card (atm card) to make payment for an ebay item. You were lucky she got something for you. I did searched a lot at local shops but couldn't get the ultrabright ones, so moved to ebay for those. The circuit inside the enclosure is a pretty small circuit. I'm posting the picture on the internals of the 3x1watt led driver bought from ebay.

*i.imgur.com/beyH4l.jpg

DIY stands for Do It Yourself

CyberKID said:

*i.imgur.com/wphtt.jpg

Click to expand...

Hey is that a Ajanta wall clock? Even if not it looks like the same we have. We have that since my childhood when I was in class1 or 2.

^ No, that's a Citizen one. My dad got it about 22 years ago.

Working on a new DC lighting system which will work during power cuts.
Am using 8mm LED's connected in series of 3 or 4, to keep the power consumption at the lowest. So, here are the basics.

The setup:

Will be using the LED's to a 12v 7 AH SLA battery, which I'll be procuring soon.
Also working up on a smart charger most probably with a charge level indicator (LED's connected and aligned vertically to show the level of battery).
For now I'm covering two rooms and the kitchen, so have prepared three arrays of LED's (4x2 8mm LED's for now, designed to operate in half/full mode controlled by a 3way switch)

*i.imgur.com/ZdH8hl.jpg

*i.imgur.com/sCQT8l.jpg

*i.imgur.com/RFdmjl.jpg

*i.imgur.com/IIaB0l.jpg

*i.imgur.com/b7TnDl.jpg

Have also planned to include a Hybrid Power Back-Up system, where I'll be using arrays of Solar Panels mounted on my roof along with a Mains Inverter to charge the battery bank or switch the load of some low power consuming devices/appliances to Solar mode when the batteries are fully charged. Currently trying to gather some much needed money and technical information on such a system. The lights will help me identify the feasibility of using them with solar panels to completely switch over to Alternative energy and LED home lighting.

@CyberKID, I like the 8mm LED setup you have made. I've been thinking on the same lines for LED lighting and been following this thread for a while. I've all the stuff needed sans the Solar Panel. Are you planning to have an enclosure for the LEDs and some reflectors as well?

I got few 1 watt LEDs which are extremely bright. Not able to find a suitable heat sink, as these get too hot within a few seconds of usage. There are no heatsinks available on ebay.
I've isolated some space on my terrace for Solar Panels. but, they are damn costly for a 12v 30-40 AH setup.

Including a Solar Panel is something I'll be doing after a while. Right now I'm just in some research phase, (have been following a few softwares called SAM-SYSTEM ADVISOR MODEL-Aided by US Department of Energy and NREL-National Renewable Energy Laboratory and HOMER to design the system as well as to well know the climatic data for example Solar Irradiance and Solar Insolation Data over the months all round the year. I suppose, gathering some workable knowledge around the system will take about an year or so before I may be able to gather enough technical expertise to install such a system on my own, as well as I'm also adding up some pennies (big ones) to invest in such a system (will need about 35-40K for a hybrid power back up system with 2x150/180 AH Deep Cycle Batteries, a mains inverter atleast a 1.5KVA one for charging the system through mains when input from the solar panels is low or absent-occasionally experienced during extreme winters and for converting the DC output of the batteries to AC, a Solar panel, Initially a 100 watt 12 volt panel, and a charge controller preferably a 1000-1500 watt one.
The commercially available solar photovoltaic systems that are available are seriously costly (costs about 1.5 Lacs for a setup of 1KVA), which I suppose will cost someone almost half if done on ones' own.
Initially I planned, buying a 230 Watt panel from Ebay for 22.5K for the panel itself, but, now I've changed the plan to design a rather upsizable one with a pretty capable Solar Charge Controller, one greater than 1000 watts, so as to accommodate solar panels as I feel the need to upscale the system. So, planning to buy a 100 watt panel initially, put it up on a test with the conditions and with a rather small amount required to be invested. According to the trend I've found on Ebay, following >Everything Else>Alternative Energy -Solar/Wind, for the past one-and-a-half-year, the panels cost about Rs. 1000 per 10 watt, and somewhat decreases going upwards in the panel capacity.
As far as the LED setups are concerned, I'm planning to use enclosure (looking up for ideas for an enclosure) for the LED's (atleast for the one I'll put up in the Kitchen, because the last one I designed and put up using 5mm led's had greasy oily deposit over time due to cooking), but no reflectors as the LED's are already directional, and emit light in the front only, so do not need any reflectors to focus their light. And for the heatsink, you can get hold of an IC heatsink, which will be available for about Rs. 10 each from any of the electronics repair shops (preferably those repairing television sets).

CyberKID said:

LED's for Home Lighting​

Introduction to LED's

In simple terms, LED's are simple devices made up of semiconductors which emit light when electricity is applied to them. peimar lighting or Light Emitting Diodes are becoming extremely popular owing to their extremely low power consumption, bright light, and longer life. Till a few years back, LED's were being used in Avionics, such as beacons, landing guidance lights, etc, but, the advances in the LED technology and drastically reduced prices have made them extremely popular for other applications. Most of us would have seen the LED's are fast replacing the buggy old signals on roads and railway lines. This is because of extremely compact design, high durability and higher light intensity adding to higher visibility and power efficiency the LED technology has provided us.

Basic Design of an LED

*www.off-road.com/aimages/articlestandard/trucks4x4/242009/603132/LED-labelled.jpg

Shapes and sizes in which LED's are available

*upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9e/Verschiedene_LEDs.jpg/640px-Verschiedene_LEDs.jpg*linova.cn/upfile/hpledcomp/DGL-100-W.jpg*linova.cn/upfile/ledcomp/5050w.jpg*linova.cn/upfile/hpledcomp/1-3W.jpg*linova.cn/upfile/hpledcomp/1-3WnoBase.jpg

Various Colours Available in LED's and the Semiconductor Materials Used in Producing Them



The beauty of LED's is that they are extremely compact, very power efficient and in the recent times, have become almost dirt cheap. Those who have some experience of working with electronics components and soldering can easily make an LED light with some cheap components and some LED's from any local electronics components store. However, for those who don't have any experience in working with electronics components and soldering, well, they can try working on with some simple circuit designs with less number of components. And at last, those who don't want to get their hands dirty buying components and putting up a circuit to power up the LED's can simply buy LED's and LED drivers and just connect the LED's to these drivers or simply go and buy LED lamps. Though, they are costly, but will simply save you the cost difference between the CFL's and the LED lamps within one year.
For those living in Delhi, BSES is offering (selling on subsidy) upto 4 LED lamps per bill. You can go and get one of these. Show bill, buy LEDs at half price from tomorrow - Times Of India

Comparision Between LED, Incandescent and Compact Fluorescent Lamps

Click to expand...

I have got some led lights. They are expensive but saves a lot of power

Update: I've completed the work on the Emergency Lighting system, the only thing left is to fix those at the proper places. Will do that probably on Sunday. Did a few modifications to the original design, I was thinking. Changed the LED arrays from 2x4 (2 parallel connected arrays of 4 LED's) to 3x3 (3 parallel connected arrays of 3 LED's). Got the much needed 12V 7AH SLA battery (Exide-Chloride SafePower) for Rs. 780 about a week ago. My brother got the circuit components to build the Smart Battery Charger, which adjusts the Battery Charging Current, and built up the charger circuit. He used this circuit to build the charger. Have housed the battery and the charger in an old UPS housing. The LED's will be working in offline mode, i.e. will only work when the battery is not charging. I'm expecting to get close to 3 hours of light backup power with the current setup.

Some Tech Specs:

Power Consumption of each 8mm LED: 80mAh
LED's connected to the setup: 3x3x3=27
Total Power Consumption 80mAhx27=2160mAh (2.16AH)
Power capacity of the Battery: 7 AH (7000mAh)
Total Backup time: 7000/2160=3.24Hrs (~3 Hrs including other variables)

For now, I'm missing out on the push button switches, I've planned to put up with each Light. Will try getting those and once done, I'll post the pics of the setup.

So, I finally got the setup up and running. Here are a few pics.

Got everything housed in an old UPS cabinet.
*i.imgur.com/t4lotl.jpg

*i.imgur.com/fYwDvl.jpg

*i.imgur.com/aXkRjl.jpg

The charger circuit-Is a smart charger, automatically adjusts the charging current as the battery gets charged.
*i.imgur.com/ll947l.jpg

Operation
Put up three different LED's - as indicators
A blue one, to indicate power reaching to the transformer; A green one, to indicate battery charging, and a red one to indicate battery being used.
Have put up a three way switch for different operating modes. moving the switch to the extreme left will start the battery charging; Moving it to the center will stop the main battery charging and enable the external battery charging port (connected to a regular molex connector); which can be used to charge an external battery. Moving the charger to extreme right will enable the battery out to be used to power the LED's (Battery charging will stop in this mode-as this is supposed to be used while power is gone).

Indicators

*i.imgur.com/CAd7Fl.jpg

*i.imgur.com/UsmLGl.jpg

And now the LED's

One evening when I reached home, the power was gone, so, had a good chance to test the setup.

*i.imgur.com/doBoCl.jpg

*i.imgur.com/MjVoCl.jpg

*i.imgur.com/X5vQpl.jpg

The light is not too much, but, is better than none.

I was looking for LED lights after noticing camera flash light quality in my smartphone. No retailer were able to provide me such quality lightening bulbs. This thread shown me a way to get such lights. Its very helpful post for me.

Here is the setup I made. I've used 5 arrays of 3 connected 8mm half watt LEDs. Initially, I had made a test setup with 4 arrays of 3 connected LEDs. The results were pretty good. When placed at a height the spread is better than regular tubelight based emergency lights. Now, I've decided to LEDify my whole house. Here are few pics of my progress:

*img689.imageshack.us/img689/1821/05122012472.jpg

*img685.imageshack.us/img685/121/05122012473.jpg

*img211.imageshack.us/img211/2546/05122012475.jpg

*img202.imageshack.us/img202/1629/07122012477.jpg

I've added a three way switch here. but didn't have the necessary diodes to make it work. So, it is acting as a simple switch for now.
*img18.imageshack.us/img18/5496/07122012478.jpg

We are having a half an hour power cut everyday. These will be used as the primary lighting during those times.

@CyberKid, Did you buy a transformer to supply the charger circuit with 14.5-16v? I searched yesterday, couldn't find a transformer or power adapter with atleast 16v 2A. The shops here stock only the 12v 1A ones. Currently, I'm charging the two batteries by connecting them directly to a 12v 2A adapter that I have. It's more of a trickle charging.

I'm planning to buy this 16v 4.5A IBM laptop charger from eBay and connect it to the charger circuit which you have shown. Will this setup work?

I did bought an 18v step down transformer to power the charger circuit. As far as the battery charging is concerned, the adapter you're using, I suppose, provides output at ~12 VDC. As far as the battery charging theories are concerned, a 12v battery needs around 14.4 volts to charge, and the charging current must remain @ ~1/10th of the battery output capacity (in Ah). Did you try checking the current at which your adapter is charging your battery at?

As far as the laptop adapter you're looking for, IMO, seems to be much expensive as a replacement for an 15-18v step down transformer and a bridge rectifier. I'll suggest try a bit harder for the transformer. you can try looking for an outlet of Kits 'n' Spares in your city.

I haven't checked the charging current, but yes, it should be ideally, 1/10 the Ah rating. I didn't check because it's in trickle charging mode. I've asked local electronic shops. All they have is the 12v 1-2 amp wala stuff.
Kits n spares shop is there is kerala, but it's too far away from my place.
I searched online and found one 6-9-12-15v 3Amp multitap transformer at onlineTps. I wanted an 18v output type..

So, that laptop charger may be the only viable option.

^ But onlinetps charges hefty shipping charges. In this particular case, it's even more than the item itself (Rs. 220).

oops, didn't notice that
Had ordered couple of items from them long back.
I got a 19.5v dell charger and a dead 18.5 HP charger at home. Not able to find a suitable female port for these pins.

I've added two more LED blocks for other rooms. It's 45 LEDs in total now. Thinking of a circuit which will shut of the LED once the charger powers on. the 14.5 volt may burn out the LEDs

i have 3 microtek 800va doublebattery+ ups'es, 1000va twin power+ ups, 1 numeric 600va ups(working condition), 1 powercom 600va ups(working condition)
so out of these three, 3 7.2Ah batteries are working. i would like to modify this for led lightning, and can a ceiling fan be added as well?

or-
buy solar panel from ebay and make charging circuit?, add few leds

Whoosh! You have hell lot of backup power. I hope, you're not using those UPS'es, that's why you want to modify these for LED Lighting. IMO, you can use one of the double battery UPS'es (if in working condition) to charge two batteries. You'll need to see whether the batteries are connected in Parallel or Series. If the batteries are connected in parallel, you'll have 12-14 volts to power up your LED's, where you can connect 3 LED's in series directly to the batteries. In case, the batteries are connected serially, the batteries are being charged with ~ 27-28 volts, in that case, you may connect 7 led's in series. I recommended this because, I, personally, won't like to fiddle around with that UPS circuit.
As far as connecting a regular AC ceiling fan is concerned, it'll take a DC to AC inverter, which, your UPS may provide, but, it won't be able to provide you a good backup with the ceiling fan. Though, a regular table fan my give you a backup of say around 1 hours. But, I'll suggest keeping both the things separate.

Buying a solar panel, would also be a good idea, since you're having the batteries, you'll just need a suitable solar panel and a charge controller. The charge controller, is nothing but a simple battery charger, that's been optimized to work on low voltages of solar panels (12-24 volts). Though, you'll again be able to use only DC appliances, without a DC to AC inverter.

CyberKID said:

Buying a solar panel, would also be a good idea, since you're having the batteries, you'll just need a suitable solar panel and a charge controller. The charge controller, is nothing but a simple battery charger, that's been optimized to work on low voltages of solar panels (12-24 volts). Though, you'll again be able to use only DC appliances, without a DC to AC inverter.

Click to expand...

tell me about solar power. the batteries are connected in series in ups, but tell me some solar panel and a charge controller, i will use only DC, okay? diy is also ok but parts should be available. keep it as cheap as possible, maybe i will buy online something like eBay it search local

For a solar panel, I have saved one in my ebay wishlist, here it is 12 Volt, 50 Watt Solar Panel ( Solar PV ). 3, 5, 10, 20 watt panel available. | eBay
Though, I have been doing some online research for quite some time now, for a planned Alternative Energy source for my home, I don't have any practical experience with that, as I'm still doing some research, before making such a hefty investment into that. So, I'll suggest you to do some research before making an investment.
What I have found and understood till now, with some research for past 2 years is that the hardware is important. Here are a few points, that, I feel, everyone, thinking to work in this direction should consider
Things to buy-
1. A solar panel: It is the most important component of such a setup, and also, pretty expensive, as around 50-55 percent of the overall costs are of the solar panels.
2. The Solar Charge Controller
The Solar Charge Controller, is nothing, but a simple circuitry to harness the power from the solar panels and charge the batteries. While choosing a charge controller, you should keep in mind, the upgradeability. If you are planning to increase the panels, you should purchase a charge controller keeping in mind the capacity till which you're going to add the solar panels. Also, MPPT, (Maximum Power Point Tracking) is a good add on, if you're investing ample amount in such a setup.
MPPT as per Wikipedia, is:

Maximum power point tracking (MPPT) is a technique that grid-tie inverters, solar battery chargers and similar devices use to get the maximum possible power from one or more photovoltaic devices, typically solar panels, though optical power transmission systems can benefit from similar technology. Solar cells have a complex relationship between solar irradiation, temperature and total resistance that produces a non-linear output efficiency which can be analyzed based on the I-V curve. It is the purpose of the MPPT system to sample the output of the cells and apply the proper resistance (load) to obtain maximum power for any given environmental conditions. MPPT devices are typically integrated into an electric power converter system that provides voltage or current conversion, filtering, and regulation for driving various loads, including power grids, batteries, or motors.

Click to expand...

Link to the Wiki article: Maximum power point tracking - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

3. Batteries: Since the setup is working during day time, you'll need batteries to store power for use during the non functioning phase of the system, i.e. during night. Deep Cycle batteries are better suited for this application. The battery bank, should be chosen, while keeping in mind, the other factors, including the solar panels, and the load the setup's going to serve.

Apart from these, there are a few other factors like the Wires, the distance between the solar panel, the charge controller and battery bank. Also, the intended use, may need you to buy an inverter, to convert the DC voltages supplied by the batteries to AC power for use in AC appliances.

These are some important things, which I could recall at this point of time. There may be some other things, that I might have failed to mention here.

So, I'll suggest, before making any investment (even the smallest one), give yourself some time to study, how a solar power generation system works, then try weighing the options available with you, and the usability of that system.

I have seen this website which deals with LED Lighting Systems which is very near to my native place.Efftronics LED Lights
People here in AP generally go to Vijayawada to buy wholesale electrical goods when ever a new house is constructed, so I hope this is the right place to go.

Awesome thread, that's some impressive DIY work there CyberKid

I have been meaning to do some DIY myself, I am interested however, I am a complete noob in this department, so I have do some more learning-research before I start. This thread seems to be a good place to start learning!

bssunil said:

I have seen this website which deals with LED Lighting Systems which is very near to my native place.Efftronics LED Lights
People here in AP generally go to Vijayawada to buy wholesale electrical goods when ever a new house is constructed, so I hope this is the right place to go.

Click to expand...

In case you want to use LED lighting, you may get LED lamps from some reputed brands like Philips, or Osram, though, the prices are initially prohibitive, I believe, the investment will pay you in the long run.
You may be interested in the LED lamps on offer on Ebay also. Though, I'd suggest, if you are going to buy one, from not-so-reputed-brand, just take a look at the ones you are choosing, as you might not be very satisfied with the results.

@ Abhishek: Thanks for the encouragement mate.

Some News: Source

Today, LED manufacturer Cree has announced a series of light bulbs that cost just $10, cutting the going rate in half with one fell swoop. What's more, these LEDs don't seem to have a catch. They're as bright, efficient, and long-lasting as practically anything on the market, and they look like incandescent light bulbs to boot. They're on sale today, exclusively at The Home Depot in the following three configurations:

$12.97 for a "warm white" 60-watt equivalent, providing 800 lumens of light for 9.5W of electricity, at a warm color temperature of 2,700K
$13.97 for a "day light" 60-watt equivalent, with 800 lumens of light at a cost of 9W of electricity, at a cooler color temperature of 5,000K
$9.97 for a "warm white" 40-watt equivalent, with 450 lumens of light for 6W of electricity, again at a warmer 2,700K.

And yes, they are dimmable

Source

Thanks for that info, @lywyre. Hope, that other manufacturers follow this.
Unfortunately, CREE, doesn't have presence here in India.
What we have here, is Philips, and Osram, though these two are also limited in the field of LED's.

CyberKID said:

In case you want to use LED lighting, you may get LED lamps from some reputed brands like Philips, or Osram, though, the prices are initially prohibitive, I believe, the investment will pay you in the long run.
You may be interested in the LED lamps on offer on Ebay also. Though, I'd suggest, if you are going to buy one, from not-so-reputed-brand, just take a look at the ones you are choosing, as you might not be very satisfied with the results.

@ Abhishek: Thanks for the encouragement mate.

Click to expand...

I want to set up my whole apartment using only LED lamps, so please provide me with prices from reputed brands like Philips or Osram.Thanks again for reminding me not to go with cheaper alternatives CyberKID.

^ Sorry mate. I don't have a very good idea about the pricing of commercial LED lamps, though, a very rough idea is that each one of around 7 watts costs a staggering ~Rs. 650 or so, that's why I've been in some DIY for changing my home lighting from CFL to LED.

In this series, my brother ordered a few SMD LED's from Ebay 6 nos. of 3 watt warm white led's, along with 3 nos of 28 mm LED mounting plates, which can accommodate 3 LED's each for Rs. 450.
We tested the LED's with a multimeter and then, mounted 3 of them on a mounting plate, to check it's effectiveness. The warm white colour, was much warmer to my liking, and thus, I suggested my brother that we could use a number of regular cool white ones with one warm white one.
Here are some images of our testing.

The LED's - 6 nos. of 3 watt warm white LED's
*i.imgur.com/luUepccl.jpg

The LED mounts
*i.imgur.com/neXNNtYl.jpg

Soldering the LED's on the mounts
*i.imgur.com/PQROnbGl.jpg

A complete mount with 3 LED's mounted.
*i.imgur.com/bVcrVjZl.jpg

Testing Time. Unfortunately, my cell camera auto adjusted the light such that we can just see the lights coming out of the LED's.
*i.imgur.com/h6zvkHal.jpg

I'm a little caught up in my professional role, so don't have too much time for my DIY's. Will give shape to some new LED lamps, very soon.

bssunil said:

I want to set up my whole apartment using only LED lamps, so please provide me with prices from reputed brands like Philips or Osram.Thanks again for reminding me not to go with cheaper alternatives CyberKID.

Click to expand...

I've found a page, that, I suppose will help you out:
*www.mygreenkart.com/energy-saving-...ar-inverter/led-based-lighting/led-lamps.html

Purchased this LED light @150 shipped, battery charge by Nokia charger

imgur: the simple image sharer

^ from where? link please. Do post an image with the light on.

They don't have in stock.
*mginger.com

*i.imgur.com/5rBFIV2.jpg

Ok, so, I'm reviving this dormant thread. Have been a bit busy with some other things (my blog), so couldn't do much in this area.
I've worked upon an LED lighting solution using an unused cellphone charger and some 8mm white LED's. Work on another one is in progress. Will post some pics in some upcoming days.
This one's extremely simple, as one doesn't have to worry about the power supply, as this is being handled by the now ubiquitous cellphone chargers (of course an unused one). The light's pretty decent for the staircase of my home. Will be posting pics in a day or two, and for the one in progress, you guys'll have to wait a bit.

Yes I used same inside my CFL holder to power up the LED.

NIGHTMARE said:

Yes I used same inside my CFL holder to power up the LED.

Click to expand...

May we have some pics? And how many LED's you're using with the charger?

I have one in the staircase with 14, 8mm LED's in a 2 x 7 configuration, powered by the charger. Will post pics in the evening today.
I've encased the whole setup in an old Pen Case and glued it up on the wall.
The second one I'm working on is a 16 LED setup, (the other charger I'm planning to use has a max wattage of 5 watts) may increase it to 18 LEDs, if the headroom allows. This one will be on my roof, out in the open, in the rains and the sun, so I'm planning it to be rugged, leakproof, and moreover, shockproof in case of water seepage, so has to carry low voltage in the wires that will power up the LED's.

Here are the ones-
The working one:
*i.imgur.com/R5ZKePwl.jpg

*i.imgur.com/FrNsAkWl.jpg

The one I'm working on

*i.imgur.com/SzYCzgJl.jpg

*i.imgur.com/mKVxksIl.jpg

how about this cheap and simple setup/idea

buy 70 white LEDs for Rs140 (costs Rs2 per led in my area)
1. connect all of them in series (make sure that all leds are in perfect condition)
2. connect a 400v capacitor (used in mobile phone charger) in parallel to this led bulb cluster
3. and then connect a diode at a terminal of capacitor (keeping polarity in mind)
4. now connect other terminal of capacitor to a terminal of 220v ac supply and diode's free terminal to other terminal of ac supply.

efficiency will be maximum because there is no adapter or transformer
only leds are using the energy
this setup will cost only Rs100-150 (as we are purchasing leds in bulk so they may charge low)
this setup will use 2-5w only (i dunno what will be the current consumption of series of leds, but i guess 10-20mA only)

i made mistake here, white led voltage drop is 3.5v, not 0.7v. so replace all 0.7 with 3.5 and re calculate the math please. *l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/emoticons7/9.gif

220-70*0.7 = 171 V at the end terminal of led series.

so to limit current to 20mA, u will need to add 171/0.02 = 8550 = ~10K ohm register in series to those leds. the diode should be 1N4007.

if the current to be 0.02A then resistor has to be 0.02*220 > ~ 5Watt rating, like 8W or something. (same as current consumption of circuit)

first diode & register to come in series with led series, then capacitor to be connected parallel to the leds after diode & resistor.

if u really want to implement this, do it in open space, make sure the mains have fuse installed and u are at least 10 meters away while switching ON the circuit.

CAUTION: U R PLAYING WITH 220 AC ELECTRIC VOLTS, CHANCE OF FATAL INJURY IF NOT TAKEN EXTREME PRECAUTION AND PROFESSIONAL GUIDANCE.
GET THE CIRCUIT VERIFIED BY A PROFESSIONAL ELECTRICAL/ELECTRONIC TECHNICIAN/PHYSICS/ELECTRICAL/ELECTRONICS TEACHER, BEFORE USING.

when was kid, i once connected a led to the mains, and it exploded, throwing away burning fragments.

p.s. 220-70*3.5 = 245 so i think they may not glow, cause mains voltage = 220-230v.

truegenius said:

how about this cheap and simple setup/idea

efficiency will be maximum because there is no adapter or transformer
only leds are using the energy
this setup will cost only Rs100-150 (as we are purchasing leds in bulk so they may charge low)
this setup will use 2-5w only (i dunno what will be the current consumption of series of leds, but i guess 10-20mA only)

Click to expand...

Pretty easy setup, but, the complexity of this setup is since this is working on 220v ac, and I suppose that you're planning to use those 70 led's in series, in case of some issue with the circuit, you risk all those led's killed. Moreover, I believe you won't be using that much light as generated by these many led's (I'm supposing that you're talking about 8mm led's, because Rs. 2 is too much for 5mm led's)

and what icebags has noted about working on 220 vac has to be taken into consideration seriously.

@icebags: those resistances (>5 watts are white hard to find) I haven't been able to find one beyond 5watts)

truegenius said:

how about this cheap and simple setup/idea

buy 70 white LEDs for Rs140 (costs Rs2 per led in my area)
1. connect all of them in series (make sure that all leds are in perfect condition)
2. connect a 400v capacitor (used in mobile phone charger) in parallel to this led bulb cluster
3. and then connect a diode at a terminal of capacitor (keeping polarity in mind)
4. now connect other terminal of capacitor to a terminal of 220v ac supply and diode's free terminal to other terminal of ac supply.

efficiency will be maximum because there is no adapter or transformer
only leds are using the energy
this setup will cost only Rs100-150 (as we are purchasing leds in bulk so they may charge low)
this setup will use 2-5w only (i dunno what will be the current consumption of series of leds, but i guess 10-20mA only)

Click to expand...

Hello i am very less or have nil back group in Electronics /electricity but i am interested in this led project in my free time and i would like to ask few questions

1) Is this diagram correct acc. what you mentioned above
2) Since this is a AC circuit i dont have to worry about + / - ve rite? [ or is there any specific place i should worry about +ve /-ve
3) Diode is there any specific name when asking in shop ? [i heard there is pnp and npn diode and is there any Rating i should ask ?
4) To make custum design for say i use 10 LED's how much capactor and Diode's or its rating should i have ? is there any formula for it ?
5)What would the shock from a 400V capacitor do to a person?
What would the shock from a 400V capacitor do to a person? - Yahoo! UK & Ireland Answers


so what is the amperage ?



Note : sorry for all these beginer /Noo. questions

*s22.postimg.org/ct4si17oh/Untitled.png
B32521C6104J - EPCOS - CAPACITOR POLY FILM 0.1UF, 400V | element14 India
*in.element14.com/productimages/nio/standard/4434301.jpg

1. see attachment for diagram.

2. we will need to take care of + and -
because we are using a capacitor as a temporary power source for that half cycle of ac which will be blocked by our main diode.

3. you can buy it by saying rectifier diode of 1N4007 code (this code means this diode is meant for 1000v or less voltage and, 1A max circuit current)
pnp and npn doesn't matter, just a simple diode (i.e not zener othef diode)
just like this one
1N4007 - FAIRCHILD SEMICONDUCTOR - DIODE, STANDARD, 1A, 1000V, DO | Farnell United Kingdom

4.
image of flat head white led
*img.diytrade.com/cdimg/1065269/11468843/1/1261115322/5mm_White_Flat_Head_LED_Lamp.jpg
*www.powerledworld.com/images/small/1368012548843455080.jpg
since a white led use 3.5v to give full glow, so if we want to use this circuit for 240v ac then we will need to use 240v/3.5v =68.6=~70 diodes in parallel (in led cluster)
so if our supply voltage is say 110v then we will need 110v/3.5v=31.4=~35 diodes

formula is
number of leds needed per led cluster = supply voltage / voltage of led (for which it is rated to glow at full strength)

idea behind this formula is to keep voltage drop in range of 3 to 3.5v per led (because voltage above 3.5v will lessen the life of our led and destroy it, and voltage below 3v won't be enough to get full glow out of our led)

so for 10 led circuit, we will need supply voltage of 35v, and we can keep same diode and same capacitor i.e no change needed in diode or capacitor.

5.
capacitor's image
*www.futurlec.com/Pictures/C010U400E.jpg
if we use a 12v source to charge capacitor then we can safely touch its terminals by finger (finger without any wound)
as max potential difference will be only 12v and our body does not feel voltage below 20-30v)

but 400v capacitor will be able to hold 0.004coulomb of charge when charged via a 400v source, so it can give shock as same as 400v dc source for few milli seconds to few seconds (depends on resistance of body)

when charged with a 240v source then capaciot will hold 0.0024coulomb of charge

so avoid touching capacitor terminals when charged, first short circuit it via a screw driver like tool (it will create a loud sound with spark) to fully discharge it.

we are using 400v 10uf electrolytic capacitor to store enough charge to deliver around 10-20mA of current for 0.02 seconds and 50 times in every second

so 10uf will be enough
and 400v range will keep us at safe side, i.e, capacitor will be able to work in 0+ to 400v range.

we fan use 50v capacitor if our supply source is 35v only (as in the case of 10led circuit)

There is a small circuit for using in the AC application, somewhat back in this thread. check that out for some help.
As far as your question and the circuit, I think, it won't work, because though you are using AC to light up those LED's, as a rule of thumb, LED's work on DC and thus using all those circuits, components and a Bridge rectifier, we convert that AC current to DC and this lights up the LED's. So, you have to worry about polarity.

Rajesh345 said:

*s22.postimg.org/ct4si17oh/Untitled.png

Click to expand...

leds will explode. don't even think of doing it without a high watt resistor.

capacitor in series to ac will act transparent, will do nothing.

Guys need a little help. I need suggestions for bright dimmable LED. Either multiple 1 watt leds or a single ~5 watt led is also fine.
I need to control these with a microcontroller using a relay and a relay driver.

nice thread also nice tutorial

I talked to a local dealer for led pop ceiling lights, he showed me a led down panel light of 15w and 5 year warranty for fitting and 1 year for choke for 1.9k...

kARTechnology said:

I talked to a local dealer for led pop ceiling lights, he showed me a led down panel light of 15w and 5 year warranty for fitting and 1 year for choke for 1.9k...

Click to expand...

I think 1.9K is a bit more than what it should be. BTW which brand is he offering? Can you post some pics?

CyberKID said:

I think 1.9K is a bit more than what it should be. BTW which brand is he offering? Can you post some pics?

Click to expand...

Well it is FM LIGHTS LAVOV
For showroom, as if I do diy there it will look ugly
It's really slim(2-4cm only)

He is forcing me to take CDM-T 35W also (10pcs, and use occasionally) he says it provides really good lights for showroom and each bulb costs 1.1k and fitting + light is nearly 2+ k. It takes 3mins to start to full brightness

See their catalog in website, 2009 catalog under LED PANEL LIGHTS

kARTechnology said:

Well it is FM LIGHTS LAVOV
For showroom, as if I do diy there it will look ugly
It's really slim(2-4cm only)

He is forcing me to take CDM-T 35W also (10pcs, and use occasionally) he says it provides really good lights for showroom and each bulb costs 1.1k and fitting + light is nearly 2+ k. It takes 3mins to start to full brightness

See their catalog in website, 2009 catalog under LED PANEL LIGHTS

Click to expand...

If it's for showroom, then I'll suggest you to go with it. This is one reason I made this a LED's for Home Lighting thread.
DIY's are prone to fail (though chances are low, if done well) and it'll take you too much of an effort to make it look good.

quagmire said:

Guys need a little help. I need suggestions for bright dimmable LED. Either multiple 1 watt leds or a single ~5 watt led is also fine.
I need to control these with a microcontroller using a relay and a relay driver.

Click to expand...

What you actually want to achieve?
As for dimmers, mostly use resistances, so there's no point in using resistance based dimmers which would eventually waste more energy than you intend to save using LED's.
There's can be one solution though. You can make use of those multi-way slide switches and connect varying number of led's for variable applications.

^Thanks for the reply buddy. Its for a Home Automation project. I want to control brightness based on sensor data (person presence, ambient light, open/close curtain situation) etc. Are those available in the market or should I make one?

quagmire said:

^Thanks for the reply buddy. Its for a Home Automation project. I want to control brightness based on sensor data (person presence, ambient light, open/close curtain situation) etc. Are those available in the market or should I make one?

Click to expand...

I think you can well make use of PIR (Passive Infrared Sensors,-to detect activity), LDR (Light Dependent Resistors) for application based on ambient light and open/close curtain situation (I'm taking this as a situation of varying light scenario)
I think such controllers with PIR sensors and LDR's are available, though, AFAIK both these are available as separate modules, so, you'll need to buy one and use accordingly. check out kitnspares.com for more such circuits.

^Yes I'm using a PIR sensor. And a photodiode OPT101

icebags said:

i made mistake here, white led voltage drop is 3.5v, not 0.7v. so replace all 0.7 with 3.5 and re calculate the math please. *l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/emoticons7/9.gif

220-70*0.7 = 171 V at the end terminal of led series.

so to limit current to 20mA, u will need to add 171/0.02 = 8550 = ~10K ohm register in series to those leds. the diode should be 1N4007.

if the current to be 0.02A then resistor has to be 0.02*220 > ~ 5Watt rating, like 8W or something. (same as current consumption of circuit)

first diode & register to come in series with led series, then capacitor to be connected parallel to the leds after diode & resistor.

Click to expand...

i think that if i use 70 leds then i will not need any resistor , isn't it ?

if u really want to implement this, do it in open space, make sure the mains have fuse installed and u are at least 10 meters away while switching ON the circuit.

CAUTION: U R PLAYING WITH 220 AC ELECTRIC VOLTS, CHANCE OF FATAL INJURY IF NOT TAKEN EXTREME PRECAUTION AND PROFESSIONAL GUIDANCE.
GET THE CIRCUIT VERIFIED BY A PROFESSIONAL ELECTRICAL/ELECTRONIC TECHNICIAN/PHYSICS/ELECTRICAL/ELECTRONICS TEACHER, BEFORE USING.

when was kid, i once connected a led to the mains, and it exploded, throwing away burning fragments.

p.s. 220-70*3.5 = 245 so i think they may not glow, cause mains voltage = 220-230v.

Click to expand...

*4.bp.blogspot.com/_MuBl9In_0iQ/TS2VkmMNhaI/AAAAAAAAAUE/F_Ck3OipnQk/s1600/fingerscrossed-fingers-crossed-goodluck-smiley-emoticon-000674-large.gif

though i am 100% sure that the circuit (in attachment of my previous reply) will work and is 100% safe and may replace traditional 220v cfl

CyberKID said:

Pretty easy setup, but, the complexity of this setup is since this is working on 220v ac, and I suppose that you're planning to use those 70 led's in series, in case of some issue with the circuit, you risk all those led's killed. Moreover, I believe you won't be using that much light as generated by these many led's (I'm supposing that you're talking about 8mm led's, because Rs. 2 is too much for 5mm led's)

and what icebags has noted about working on 220 vac has to be taken into consideration seriously.

@icebags: those resistances (>5 watts are white hard to find) I haven't been able to find one beyond 5watts)

Click to expand...

yes these leds will be in series.
according to calculations that i have done it wipp definately work like a charm

recently i made a setup in which i used 4 blue leds connected in series and then i attached this circuit to my pc's smps's 12v line and 8) i got lightning for my pc in just Rs10
but then i sold this setup to my friend for Rs70 only (i have a big heart )

i will tell that friend to invest on this 70led setup (because i will be total 'kangal' because i will buy a cycle from all my money left that i saved )

i will tell him that this setup will cost Rs200-250 ( sevice charge added )

i will use 5mm led or maybe smaller like ~3mm one
and 5mm one cost Rs3 per bulb, and Rs2 when purchasing in bulk (am i paying too much ? )

also i want to know how to purchase that pcb plate thingy to connect all these leds in series

truegenius said:

i think that if i use 70 leds then i will not need any resistor , isn't it ?



*4.bp.blogspot.com/_MuBl9In_0iQ/TS2VkmMNhaI/AAAAAAAAAUE/F_Ck3OipnQk/s1600/fingerscrossed-fingers-crossed-goodluck-smiley-emoticon-000674-large.gif

though i am 100% sure that the circuit (in attachment of my previous reply) will work and is 100% safe and may replace traditional 220v cfl



yes these leds will be in series.
according to calculations that i have done it wipp definately work like a charm

recently i made a setup in which i used 4 blue leds connected in series and then i attached this circuit to my pc's smps's 12v line and 8) i got lightning for my pc in just Rs10
but then i sold this setup to my friend for Rs70 only (i have a big heart )

i will tell that friend to invest on this 70led setup (because i will be total 'kangal' because i will buy a cycle from all my money left that i saved )

i will tell him that this setup will cost Rs200-250 ( sevice charge added )

i will use 5mm led or maybe smaller like ~3mm one
and 5mm one cost Rs3 per bulb, and Rs2 when purchasing in bulk (am i paying too much ? )

also i want to know how to purchase that pcb plate thingy to connect all these leds in series

Click to expand...

Mate, I told you, you'll need DC current to use those LED's while you're using AC. The PC SMPS converts 220v AC to 12v and 5v DC, that is the reason you were able to light up those LED's. And as icebags has commented, the setup you're using will damage all the led's, releasing dangerous fumes all over.
And yes, at Rs. 2 each, you're paying atleast double the price of what you should ideally pay for 5mm white led's. These led's are normally available at Re.1 each in retail, so, in wholesale, you should get it in lesser than that. As a matter of fact, the wholesellers sell the lot of thousand pieces for around Rs. 700-750, and not to mention, a number of led's in these lots are faulty. So, ideally you should pay a maximum of Rs. 1.25 to 1.5 for each 5mm white led.
And to purchase, the General Purpose PCB, (I'm taking that you live in Delhi) you can go to Lajpat Nagar market (this is one famous place for hobby electronics components, besides Bhagirathi place market) to get some pre-drilled general purpose pcb. You'll be offered the PCB in various sizes like 3x5, 4x6 and so on, and you could expect to shell out anything between Rs. 20 to 40 for each general purpose PCB.

And if you're seriously considering making the 70 led setup, make sure to add in an MOV (Metal Oxide Varistor) rated at atleast 450 volts, or an NTC Thermister, which can also be used as a spike buster, as AC current is generally known to generate spikes or surges, which will surely damage your components, and blow them out.

i did some miscalculations above.

even though theoretically 70 while leds can stand 245v AC, its too risky to do that, first of all leds will be facing AC, then suppose 2-3 leds getting short - then the result will be drastic increase on circuit current flow and leds will soog get overloaded and start exploding.

there is a strong reason leds are never left in a mains without a driver circuit with high resistance and perhaps a diode.

u have to limit current to safely use leds.

sjoardar said:

You are right! I kinda got carried away! Your new thread is really great and very informative.



Well, we're saying such and such items are not available in Kolkata! In case you do not already know, the Kolkata market is one of the most backward in the country. Easily available here are only the low-end stuff. If one wants any high-end or nu-tech stuff, one usually has to hunt, wait and 'pray' for months here.

Click to expand...

What Crap,its not the Kolkata market thats backward its YOU actuaally. Update yourself,visit Ezra Street ,Chandni and Poddar Court....to open your eyes.

Bumping the long sleeping thread again!

This time, with a Practical Implementation Project - A Dual Axis Solar Tracker for mounting Solar Panels

The work on the Alternative Energy source based on an array of solar panels, for my home is underway. Though, I planned, going through some more DIY and design changes to accomplish the stuff, before actually implementing the idea.
In the series, I, along with my brother, planned on to design a Solar Tracker to mount the solar panels that we'll be buying, to achieve, the maximum potential output from the solar panels and letting the panels work at their maximum possible efficiency that can be achieved by following the light source (except for other environmental factors).
So, now, we are midway into designing an Arduino Based Dual Axis Solar Tracker that would work with an ATMega328 microcontroller based Arduino board (Freeduino), working as the main controller for all the components used in the tracker, along with an L298N based H-Bridge Dual Motor Driver Circuit, to drive the two motors to work out the best possible placement of the solar panels, according to the solar radiation.

So, for now, I've procured the following items:
1. Adruino (32 Bit microcontroller)
2. L298N based H Bridge Dual Motor Driver circuit
3. 2 x 12VDC-10RPM DC geared motors having a Stall Torque of 45kgcm each. (Servo Motors would have best suited for the project, but, I couldn't find servos capable of handling so much load )
Other components including Photo Sensors (Light Dependent Resistors), resistances, and other stuff.

Scouring through the internet to get help landed me to some valuable help, including help from instructables and arduino forums.

I got an idea from this instructable, on how to go through the design of the tracker.

Till now, I have completed some coding to drive the motors using the Arduino to control the (L298N based) Motor Driver Circuit. Then added some Light Dependent Resistors to the circuit to get realtime data from based on the lighting conditions, and making some decision based on comparision of data from two of the four sensors to drive individual motors.

A shot of the setup I captured today:
*i.imgur.com/oswPH37.png

UPDATE
After fiddling on with the hardware, electronics, and a prototype (a working model of the tracker), before starting the work on the actual tracker, I've reached one milestone.
It's that the tracker prototype is now functional, though, the prototype for now, is just a simple single axis one where the Zenith (Altitude) of the sun is being tracked by a piece of thermocole (acting as the frame holding the panels) that, I've mounted on a small platform made out of some wood, with one side of the thermocole being handled by a fixed bolt, while another side being driven by one of the motors. The sensor part is being handled by a couple of simple 5mm Light Dependent Resistors (LDR's) with wedges in between all four sensors to let them track light independent of the other sensors. These sensors are mounted on the thermocole only, so as to track the sun most efficiently.
The code, a small one, just 75 lines have been written for now, and the tracker is actually tracking the light on one axis, while the other one has to be integrated in the prototype design and it'll work too. Will post a video of the tracking part tomorrow!

Inspirational. Do you have a blog teaching electronic circuit design? If not, you should have one. It would be a huge success.

awesome thread.

[MENTION=96386]CyberKID[/MENTION] : you into robotics ?
you are making a rotating solar panel . right ?
awesome .
i'm also interested.

do you guys know what led id there in mobile phones (behing the number pad) ? they are very powerful and are like 1 mm in size. they are cubic or couboid in structure .
i saw one in a micromax phne when i tried to take the pieces apart and tried to clean the trackball,
the LED is very very bright and very tiny. i don't know what its called.

i also forgot my soldering iron in hostel. so probably, will buy a new one. any suggestions ?

- - - Updated - - -

edit : found out i always googled for "Bright white small LED keypad trackball mobile cell phone"
when i simply searched types of LEDs, i found out they are the SMB LEDs but where to get them and are they really better than general 3 mm or 5 mm LEDs ?
one more question .
why do we need LED driver circuits ?

- - - Updated - - -

can i get 1 mm LEDs (as in here ) locally in kolkata ?
are these LEDs called as just "1mm LED" and "3mm LED" ?

And now, here's the video of the partially working prototype!
Thanks, Chetan. What I do is purely hobby DIY stuff and working on things, and at times, takes a lot of time to complete, and sometimes, I have to let it midway to take care of something important, so, having a blog or something like for the DIY stuff, I work upon, won't be feasible, because, a blog needs frequently updated content, while, I can't feed that much stuff to a blog to keep it alive for long.
@mastercool8695: The LED's you're referring to from the cellphone flashes are called SMD LED's. Even the ones found in the backlights of phone's keypads, and such are SMD LED's and owing to their size, are quite hard to work upon. These are small LED's supposed to be connected to circuits and such directly. If you check out the starting pages of this thread, a list of types of LED's is available. You can check out Ebay for LED's (1 watt, 3, watt, 5 watt, 7 watt LED's, etc). The SMD LED's mostly are high powered ones, with ranging capacities, and thus, generate a lot of heat, which needs to be dissipated using proper heat sinks, and without one, an LED will get damaged in seconds.
Prices are not much, you can expect to shell out anything between 7-10 rupees for each 1 watt LED (with heat sink-mostly star shaped).
And no, I'm not into robotics. I just wanted to put up solar panels on my home's rooftop, for alternative power generation and power backup, so, planned to build a tracker to get the maximum of the panel's potential, using a dual axis solar tracker.

CyberKID said:

And now, here's the video of the partially working prototype!
Thanks, Chetan. What I do is purely hobby DIY stuff and working on things, and at times, takes a lot of time to complete, and sometimes, I have to let it midway to take care of something important, so, having a blog or something like for the DIY stuff, I work upon, won't be feasible, because, a blog needs frequently updated content, while, I can't feed that much stuff to a blog to keep it alive for long.
@mastercool8695: The LED's you're referring to from the cellphone flashes are called SMD LED's. Even the ones found in the backlights of phone's keypads, and such are SMD LED's and owing to their size, are quite hard to work upon. These are small LED's supposed to be connected to circuits and such directly. If you check out the starting pages of this thread, a list of types of LED's is available. You can check out Ebay for LED's (1 watt, 3, watt, 5 watt, 7 watt LED's, etc). The SMD LED's mostly are high powered ones, with ranging capacities, and thus, generate a lot of heat, which needs to be dissipated using proper heat sinks, and without one, an LED will get damaged in seconds.
Prices are not much, you can expect to shell out anything between 7-10 rupees for each 1 watt LED (with heat sink-mostly star shaped).
And no, I'm not into robotics. I just wanted to put up solar panels on my home's rooftop, for alternative power generation and power backup, so, planned to build a tracker to get the maximum of the panel's potential, using a dual axis solar tracker.

Click to expand...

saw those johnsons. thats why.

Great work [MENTION=96386]CyberKID[/MENTION].

Some questions:

1. If you're using a DC Geared Motor wouldn't it require a huge current just to stay in place, ie., balance the torque?
Do you have a gear system to lock the mechanism into place, at a required angle?

2. Where are you sourcing your Solar panels from? How expensive are they?
How much current can you source from them?

3. Maintaining (or plan on) a inverter - battery - charger system with this?




-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------





To mention some of my work :

I had made a 5W LED string using five 1W LEDs (3V,300mA).

*Powered by a 19V Laptop charger
*Controlled by a MOSFET circuit, with PWM on the gate by a microcontroller..
*I'm using inexpensive aluminium channel as a heatsink.
(The aluminium channel is the one the carpenters us for holding sliding cupboards onto place)

Some pics:
(I dont have the image with the LEDs turned on, will post them next time)

quagmire said:

Great work [MENTION=96386]CyberKID[/MENTION].

Some questions:

1. If you're using a DC Geared Motor wouldn't it require a huge current just to stay in place, ie., balance the torque?
Do you have a gear system to lock the mechanism into place, at a required angle?

2. Where are you sourcing your Solar panels from? How expensive are they?
How much current can you source from them?

3. Maintaining (or plan on) a inverter - battery - charger system with this?




-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------





To mention some of my work :

I had made a 5W LED string using five 1W LEDs (3V,300mA).

*Powered by a 19V Laptop charger
*Controlled by a MOSFET circuit, with PWM on the gate by a microcontroller..
*I'm using inexpensive aluminium channel as a heatsink.
(The aluminium channel is the one the carpenters us for holding sliding cupboards onto place)

Some pics:
(I dont have the image with the LEDs turned on, will post them next time)

Spoiler

*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=14423&d=1401121566


View attachment 14423






*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=14424&d=1401122121

View attachment 14424







*i.imgur.com/5mDcGOf.jpg






*i.imgur.com/AE1jRiS.jpg

Click to expand...

i was also thinking about the same thing actually (power consumed by the johnson motors.)
but the share of power consumed now is high (as very less power is generated from the sunlight)
when we put an array of several such panels, the power consumption would be lower as compared to what is generated from the sunlight.

just a suggestion. : what if we use Stepper motors instead ? they would be costly at first but then you loose less power in the function of the motors as they dont have to be powered constantly for holding the panel bed at any desired angle .


would it be possible to design a system of gears to stop and lock the motion and position respectively of the panel bed ? i think it might be

- - - Updated - - -

i found this :
*electronicsforu.com/electronicsfor...85&article_type=1&id=1018&tt=unhot&b_type=new

quagmire said:

Great work @CyberKID.

Some questions:

1. If you're using a DC Geared Motor wouldn't it require a huge current just to stay in place, ie., balance the torque?
Do you have a gear system to lock the mechanism into place, at a required angle?

2. Where are you sourcing your Solar panels from? How expensive are they?
How much current can you source from them?

3. Maintaining (or plan on) a inverter - battery - charger system with this?




-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------





To mention some of my work :

I had made a 5W LED string using five 1W LEDs (3V,300mA).

*Powered by a 19V Laptop charger
*Controlled by a MOSFET circuit, with PWM on the gate by a microcontroller..
*I'm using inexpensive aluminium channel as a heatsink.
(The aluminium channel is the one the carpenters us for holding sliding cupboards onto place)

Some pics:
(I dont have the image with the LEDs turned on, will post them next time)

Spoiler

*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=14423&d=1401121566


View attachment 14423






*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=14424&d=1401122121

View attachment 14424







*i.imgur.com/5mDcGOf.jpg






*i.imgur.com/AE1jRiS.jpg

Click to expand...

That's some great work there, quagmire. Just a week back, I bought a lot of 50 - 1 watt LED's from Ebay. Will source 1 watt x 3 and 7watt x 3 LED drivers locally. Locally the drivers seems much cheaper than getting from Ebay, as the regular 1 watt x 3 LED driver costs ~150 bucks on Ebay, while locally it costs just 50 bucks, while the 6-7 watt one costs a 100 bucks. I plan to LEDfy the recently completed first floor of my house.
Coming to both of your query, @quagmire, mastercool8695:
I am using two geared DC Motors running @ 10RPM @12VDC, to track the Azimuth (the direction of the sun, relative to the a fixed point on the earth) and the Zenith (The elevation of the sun, travelling from east to west, along it's course, during the day). These motors have a stall torque of 45kgs each, which, for the time being, I think, is sufficient to handle the entire load of the tracker with a pair of 100 watt multicrystalline solar panels, with each panel weighing ~8 kg's, and the frame of the tracker , I'm planning to make out of Aluminium, which would be lighter, and strong enough to hold the thing in place (with the entire setup estimated at around 30-35kgs, well below the max capacity of the motors). As such, the power requirement of the tracking as per my estimates aren't much, because, the motors have to be driven just for a couple of seconds, with each alignment, that too, mostly one motor, that will be tracking the diurnal movement of the sun. Along with that, an element of delay can be added with the arduino code to fetch the data from the sensors, and based on this delay element, the arduino will command the motors to adjust the position of the panels relative to the sun, thus curtailing the power requirements further, with the constant supply of power needed for driving the arduino board only. Additionally, I can try accommodating a separate 10-20 watt panel to drive the motors and other electronics required for tracking purpose, of there is a requirement.
As far as driving the tracker and the panels in place, these geared motors seem sufficient, as one can't move them without applying large amounts of force, but, to be on the safer side, I plan on using a gear mechanism based on a set of Worm gears, with the worm gear having a property of not being able to be moved by the attached gear, and thus can be relied upon to support the motor shafts sufficiently to hold the panels in place.
With regards to the panel sourcing, the best source to me, seems to be Ebay for now. I've tried checking out the commercial solar-hybrid power backup systems, but, was largely disappointed by - the cost, and the capacity, where an 850 VA system from Sukam, consisting an 850VA Solar-Hybrid inverter and an 80 watt panel costs ~30,000, while, such a system can be built well under 20K and with an additional 10K bucks, I can build a 2KVA inverter setup with 200 watts of solar power. The ones available to be installed on demand usually cost upwards of 1.5L for a 1KW system with the inverter and batteries, while, a similar 1KW system would cost half of that cost, ~ 25K for a 1.5KVA inverter and another 30-40K for the panels. Additionally, I can't afford to shell out a 1.5L for a 1KW solar power backup system, so, plan on to gradually increase its capacity.

Thanks, Chetan. What I do is purely hobby DIY stuff and working on things, and at times, takes a lot of time to complete, and sometimes, I have to let it midway to take care of something important, so, having a blog or something like for the DIY stuff, I work upon, won't be feasible, because, a blog needs frequently updated content, while, I can't feed that much stuff to a blog to keep it alive for long.

Click to expand...

You don't need to update a blog of that nature very frequently, only occasionally. You might not get regular visitors that way, but there will surely be lot of new visitors.
Consider how many engineering students are in our country, and how many of them are in sub standard colleges with teachers who have little to know practical knowledge. You'll be doing them a favor and could make some money through advertisement or affiliate links as well.

BTW, do you think this little decorative item can be made cheaply here?
*ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/410d2ZDFkgL.jpg
Could you elaborate from where can one procure parts to make one, and how to power it through USB?

This is actually something that is debatable. I already own a blog, and beyond managing my professional responsibilities, it's quite hard to manage this single blog itself, so, it'd be quite hard managing a new one. Though, I've thought of a host of tutorials blogs, but, adding a DIY electronics blog is something I haven't thought of.
I don't know whether you have a blog or not, but, with whatever experience I've gained in the last 1.5 years of my blogging career, it's mandatory that you update your blog regularly with new stuff, every once in a while, or your blog will die. When you start a blog, and add contents regularly and attract readers, you need to serve new content to them, or there are thousands of other blogs to serve them stuff.
As far the decorative piece is concerned, I planned on making one like that long ago, about 3-4 years back. I used some wires pulled out from the CAT-5 lan cable and soldered some 5mm led's at one end and the other end to power source, but, it never saw light of the day: P all you need is some creativity with this kind of stuff, some LED's, a soldering iron, a bunch of wires (preferably single strand wires) and some other components to make a power source (a cellphome charger will do good) You can use an unused one, by removing the charging connector, or get an appropriate jack from a nearby cellphone repair shop. Try it out, you'll love it.

I think those are fibre optic cables not copper ones. You know where I can get some? The difficult part will be to make a good looking base.

When you start a blog, and add contents regularly and attract readers, you need to serve new content to them, or there are thousands of other blogs to serve them stuff.

Click to expand...

AFAIK know, there aren't many sites explaining electronic circuit design and its practical aspects well. You seem like one who could do that. If you are aware of sites that teach circuit design, could you please mention them.

Chetan1991 said:

I think those are fibre optic cables not copper ones. You know where I can get some? The difficult part will be to make a good looking base.


AFAIK know, there aren't many sites explaining electronic circuit design and its practical aspects well. You seem like one who could do that. If you are aware of sites that teach circuit design, could you please mention them.

Click to expand...

this seems good :
*www.electronicsforu.com/electronicsforu/lab/

Chetan1991 said:

I think those are fibre optic cables not copper ones. You know where I can get some? The difficult part will be to make a good looking base.


AFAIK know, there aren't many sites explaining electronic circuit design and its practical aspects well. You seem like one who could do that. If you are aware of sites that teach circuit design, could you please mention them.

Click to expand...

I think the copper ones too would work just fine. Optical fibre cables are good for carrying light and are not very much suited to carry electricity. You can use the neck of cold-drink bottles big and small, suitably cut, (small one placed inside a big one and both acting as a mould to create a vase like structure, using some cement/plaster of paris, and decorated using some paint. This can easily be used to house the circuitry and some detachable connectors and wires to easily detach it from the power source.
With Regards to sites explaining electronic circuit design, there are literally thousands of such sites that guide you how to design and develop electronic circuits for a variety of purposes, like, a circuit to make an emergency light to as big as building full fledged inverters and such. All you need to do is search the mighty google for the words and you'll get hundreds of pages with the results.

Thanks. Optic fibres look beautiful when they carry light. Where can I get some?

Chetan1991 said:

Thanks. Optic fibres look beautiful when they carry light. Where can I get some?

Click to expand...

Can't say where can you get some. But, you can actually get the Optical Patch up cables used for digital audio equipment, but, mind you, these are expensive.

- - - Updated - - -

If you want something like this, I'll suggest buy one locally. it shouldn't cost any more than a 100 bucks.

*i.imgur.com/ysP2fV0.png

[MENTION=96386]CyberKID[/MENTION] at #101 : Awesome bro. This is some pro stuff.

Some questions (again)

1. Can you tell what kind of power supply you're using for the 50 1W LED lights?
AC rectified DC or something else?

2. Buddy, what are you doing for Power Factor Correction of the LED light systems?

3. Are you implementing some smart dimming in the LED arrays for power optimisation? If yes, which ICs are you using?


Please do keep us updated on your project..

---

mastercool8695 said:

this seems good :
Circuit lab, Diagrams,Free circuits, Electronics periodical, Design: India

Click to expand...

Yeah they are good but their content feels archaic.. Some of their circuits in their magazine use individual transistors for logic.
There's nothing wrong with that and its good for learning about discrete components, but often the entire 10+ transistor circuit can be easily replaced by low cost ICs like ATtiny, MSP430 etc..
Its pointless to even look for some of the old 70's logic ICs that they use..

I have even seen EFY "steal" (read repost) from other blogs, DIY sites etc..


I would recommend magazines like Circuit Cellar, Everyday Practical Electronics, New Electronics, Nuts and Volts, Embedded Systems Design etc over EFY anyday.

---

CyberKID said:

Can't say where can you get some. But, you can actually get the Optical Patch up cables used for digital audio equipment, but, mind you, these are expensive.

- - - Updated - - -

If you want something like this, I'll suggest buy one locally. it shouldn't cost any more than a 100 bucks.


[IM]*i.imgur.com/ysP2fV0.png[/IMG]

Click to expand...

Cool. I also wanted to make a completely controllable mood light using cheap fibre optics lights, even bought some 3W RGB LEDs from Dealextreme, but couldn't get the fibre optics..
Will try again during Diwali time..

quagmire said:

@CyberKID at #101 : Awesome bro. This is some pro stuff.

Some questions (again)

1. Can you tell what kind of power supply you're using for the 50 1W LED lights?
AC rectified DC or something else?

2. Buddy, what are you doing for Power Factor Correction of the LED light systems?

3. Are you implementing some smart dimming in the LED arrays for power optimisation? If yes, which ICs are you using?


Please do keep us updated on your project..

Click to expand...

I'm not planning to use all those 50 LED's in one place. I don't need a floodlight for now.
Will use the LED's in series along with some locally procured LED drivers (1Watt x3) and (1Watt X 6~7). Have bought some the last time I visited the electronics market to get some stuff. It's ridiculously cheaper (almost half the price) than for what we get these things at ebay, so, it was the way to go. Each of those 6-7 watt LED lamps shouldn't cost any more than 160 bucks, (Rs. 100 for the driver-bought in retail, and 45-50 for 7x1 watt LED's), so, there goes the PFC question. However, you can use an MOV (Metal Oxide Varistor) rated at around 400-450 volts to guard any ac powered circuit against voltage surges, PFC.
Dimmers normally use resistances, which would waste energy. So, for a different implementation of LED lights I'm having at my home, I planned to use pairs of LED's along with some 2-3 way switches, that would be able to control the light intensity along with the battery usage.
And yes, I do intend to keep you all guys updated with the progress that's why I bumped this thread.

---

Yeah they are good but their content feels archaic.. Some of their circuits in their magazine use individual transistors for logic.
There's nothing wrong with that and its good for learning about discrete components, but often the entire 10+ transistor circuit can be easily replaced by low cost ICs like ATtiny, MSP430 etc..
Its pointless to even look for some of the old 70's logic ICs that they use..

I have even seen EFY "steal" (read repost) from other blogs, DIY sites etc..


I would recommend magazines like Circuit Cellar, Everyday Practical Electronics, New Electronics, Nuts and Volts, Embedded Systems Design etc over EFY anyday.

---

Cool. I also wanted to make a completely controllable mood light using cheap fibre optics lights, even bought some 3W RGB LEDs from Dealextreme, but couldn't get the fibre optics..
Will try again during Diwali time.. [/QUOTE]

So, now works on the final prototype based on the actual design are underway. Got some wood last sunday, collected some other required pieces, including some gear sets, got some cylindrical iron shafts fabricated to hold on to the motor's shaft on one end and also to allow mounting one of the gear from the set.

Here's a new design we're thinking of building.

*i.imgur.com/XKQ5QFz.png

This is a Dual Axis Solar Tacking system design that we're planning to build. The system has been thought of to accommodate a couple of solar panels initially, around 100-250 watts for experimental purposes, with the scope to expand it further, upto a maximum weight of 130 kilograms for the current motor-gear mechanism combination.
Further, we can expand it more with changing the motors to something more capable, and it should work great. This design beyond being a dual axis tracking setup is being planned to be safe from other environmental factors, like storms, like the dust storms we've had here in Delhi a couple of days back, with the wind blowing in at speeds in excess to 110kmph. What we are planning is that based on inputs from a freely moving small dc motor attached to a fan blade, we'll accomplish the speed of wind based on the electricity it produces as the fan blade moves the copper coil in motor's core between the magnets to produce electricity. Beyond a certain threshold, we'll program the system to first align the panel's sun facing face downwards towards the floor, then aligning the panel horizontally parallel to the floor, to reduce the panel's resistance to the air/wind, and then a third motor attached to some kind of pulley mechanism will start on to enclose the entire system within a self contained frame.
We started off with the wooden prototype frame, did some work, then got stuck because I didn't have a drill to take it any further. Without a drill, it becomes a cumbersome task to make holes and such in it. So, ordered a drill, got it today, and, will carry on the work from today onwards.
Here are a few pics of the wooden frame work that has been done.

1. The frame that will hold on the solar panels. Since this is a prototype, I'm not going to mount any panels, just the sensors to check if it's working properly.
*i.imgur.com/CRAuSMB.png

2. The part of the tracker frame which will hold the above frame with the solar panel. This frame is the one on which the motor and the gear sets for aligning the sun vertically (for tracking the sun East to west, during the day), will be fitted. We plan to mount the motor on the this frame, along with the smaller gear on this frame, while the larger gear would be directly mounted and joined with the above frame holding the solar panels. Apart from that, this second frame will be the one, joint to the main body of the entire frame set fixed on the floor. This frame will be joined to the rest of the body with the help of some ball bearing sets and the second DC motor to provide the horizontal tracking, tracking the sun from north to south.

*i.imgur.com/L0Q2jz1.png

3. This is the final setup of the above two parts of the frame, we are trying to achieve.

*i.imgur.com/WXgzroE.png


And this is what we are trying to achieve:

*i.imgur.com/HG7FJL7.png

Will post the pics of the shafts, gears in the evening, maybe, by that time, we'll move a bit further with the design part.

So, here's the progress.

First, some parts, that we got.

The motor, and some shafts that we got fabricated to facilitate the transfer of rotary movement from the motor to the frame, and a ball bearing to allow easy movement..

*i.imgur.com/mgenfWx.png

We were waiting for the drill to arrive so as to start the work on the frame. We completed the mounting of the frames, for the single axis tracking part only, for now. Had mounted the gears on both the frames, and the motor was attached to the gears.

*i.imgur.com/KJMgMW2.png

*i.imgur.com/MgcWp1N.png

Then we found a fatal problem with design. The motor mounted independently, was not capable enough to handle the entire frame mounted on and being driven by the gear. As such, this was a design defect that we didn't seem to figure out, before actually working on it. We had more issues with the mounting. The bolt, which we used to fix the smaller gear with the motor was obstructing the movement of the entire frame. We'll need to replace the bolt with a different one, to allow hinderance free movement of the frame.

*i.imgur.com/giIAuyr.png

So, we moved on to try it out without the gear mechanism. While we search for answer to the problem at hand, we thought to give it a try by mounting the frame directly to the frame, as the motor was capable enough to handle the load of this small wooden frame. So, here's the resultant frame. This will atleast let us try on the arduino code to check it's proper functioning with an actual working model. Again this will probably be a single axis initial test, as actually getting the second axis is a tricky part, and we need to sort out priorities first, as the vertical movement tracking is the vital part, horizontal movement tracking is still manageable, as there won't be too frequent changes in the sun's direction.
Before we again go back to the design table, redesigning the mounting of the gear mechanism, the motor and the frame, we will give another try with some "jugaad" to work out the design defect with design. I will be keep this area updated with the progress of the project, and we are trying our best to finish this off atleast before the last week of June.

Finally got the code working proper enough to let the hardware decide and track on both the axis.
There were a few issues, with the earlier code, which was running the tracker on one axis, so, we had to indulge deep in the code again to modify and fine tune it enough to to make the code for dual axis tracking proper enough to work in tandem. Earlier code was making both the tracking take place independent of each other. I tested it yesterday, out in the open, will put it on test on Sunday, again, probably the whole day, out in the sun, to be sure of it's working conditions.

considering current electricity situation in delhi ( ache din ) , this project very well worth the effort it takes

truegenius said:

considering current electricity situation in delhi ( ache din ) , this project very well worth the effort it takes

Click to expand...

Probably yes, and given the expected hike in the electricity tarrifs (after the meeting of DERC today, and courtesy achche din) , it'll probable save me some money as well.

After years of planning and dozens of design changes, and of course, not much, but still a couple thousands in investment [though the biggest chunk of investment is yet to be done], today morning, I have finally installed the tracker assembly on my rooftop. This means that the hardware part is almost over (almost, because I still need to install the Azimuthal rotation mechanism on the vertical shaft, which shouldn't take a lot of time, since I have planned how this will be done.)
Here are a few pictures I took before and after installation.

*farm6.staticflickr.com/5800/23494373582_d04ba25b45_c.jpg
DSC_0470 (Custom) by CyberK1D, on Flickr

*farm6.staticflickr.com/5835/22975850443_b20a7bc40e_c.jpg
DSC_0467 (Custom) by CyberK1D, on Flickr

*farm6.staticflickr.com/5725/23602907275_cfd83be4c2_c.jpg
DSC_0468 (Custom) by CyberK1D, on Flickr

*farm1.staticflickr.com/760/23494356662_4013288259_c.jpg
DSC_0485 (Custom) by CyberK1D, on Flickr

*farm6.staticflickr.com/5631/23494367212_284e14a513_c.jpg
DSC_0491 (Custom) by CyberK1D, on Flickr

*farm6.staticflickr.com/5648/22975872073_674d649750_c.jpg
DSC_0492 (Custom) by CyberK1D, on Flickr

The part covered inside that black polybag is the gear and motor mechanism that will be driving the zenithal axis. For now I have kept it covered because I will need some time to assemble up the remaining things, on the software and electronics and control front to make it fully functional. The panel mounted is the 40 watt panel I had bought earlier this year, and am using to directly drive 3 arrays of 1 watt x 5 LED's that are currently lighting up the ground floor kitchen in my house, which needs light to be switched on, even in the afternoon.
This setup will help me test and refine the mechanism before the foggy days set in, which, if not done within time, will further delay the project by a month or so. And singlehandedly, (because my brother, who was quite enthusiastic till the prototype phase, didn't really get the idea beyond the drawing board, and has thus mostly abstained in the development of this project, since.) it will be hard to me to work on this for a couple months starting March. So, I want to finish the design, implementation and testing phase over this month (December), and have a new year's present from January 1, 2016.

What's been done: The Tracker platform is ready. Almost all of it has been done with crude tools with hands, and a power drill, except for the small bits of welding that has been outsourced. The electronics control systems have already been worked upon while making the small prototypes that we have been working on for around 2 years now. This means that part of the electronic control systems along with software is already there, all I need to do is to hook it up to this platform. The Altitudinal or the Zenithal tracking has been readied, which means that once I hook up the power cable of that DC motor to the motor driver, it will begin working. The Azimuthal tracking too has been set up, except that this has not yet been attached to the power systems, and the DC motor, and gearing mechanism for this is yet to be attached, but this one shouldn't take too much time, maybe, less than a week, if I work for around 1 hour everyday, in the evening, after getting back home, from office. In the last couple of days, I have also worked over the LDR based sensor assembly, which, I intend to use with this platform to provide inputs for an active tracking of the sun.

What's Left: As described above, most of the complex things have been done. What's left is not much time consuming, but is definitely, money consuming. I have got to set up the Azimuthal tracking motor and the gear mechanism so that this could be called a Dual Axis Solar Tracker, as I wanted it to be. After that, I will be working on finetuning the Arduino code that we wrote for the prototypes, to make sure that it works as I want it to. Also, some more securing of the tracker platform needs to be done, to ensure that the really expensive stuff costing around 25K doesn't fall down two floors in the neighbour's empty plot, or even on my own roof, and get damaged. The money consuming part too is left. I am planning to hold a meeting with the guy who will help me get the two 250 watt panels for the initial setup, within this week or the next week. Next will be the Charge controller, which, I need to make sure that it is able to take in the power generated from the remaining two panels I have already planned to add in, to make a 1KW system comprising of 4x250watt panels, maybe, around 2 years from now. Also, I need to keep in mind that the charge controller should be a hybrid one, which accommodates input from both, the Solar array, and the grid mains, which will be charging the inverter battery from which the inverter will provide the power to run the appliances.

Future Goals: Though, it's too early to set up future goals, since, I am yet to set up the system, and make it functional, anyhow, I have something in mind, to expand the system over time, to try and be self reliant in terms of my electricity needs. For now, the system will have two panels 250 watt each, both of which will generate a combined power of 500 watts in an hour, which translates to close to 3-3.5KW through the day, if we take the most conservative figure for a sunny day. Further, I have planned to include two more panels of 250 watts my modifying the panel frame to accommodate two more panels and make the system a 4 panel one. Once this has been done, I will need to upgrade my inverter, and batteries too. The motive is to move as many appliances to solar power as possible. This includes the ones that are currently not running on my inverter, like the heavy wattage appliances.

^^Awesome

from where u brought that solar panel board ?

Thanks, Bought this from eBay.

CyberKID Man long time I was busy with work no time for forum. Bro you done great work. Started from the normal led and now solar panel. Awesome

Which Solar panels are vfm ?
Please suggest low cost but efficient panels to start with some portable and some for home/ one or two rooms led lighting.

Great job cyberkid. :thumbup:

If possible, can you make a instructable? It will help many others who want to build something similar, but don't have ideas on how to build it..
Just wanted to know how does the power output vary from morning to evening? Do you have a graph?

NIGHTMARE said:

CyberKID Man long time I was busy with work no time for forum. Bro you done great work. Started from the normal led and now solar panel. Awesome

Click to expand...

Thanks mate. I too have been mostly missing from the forum, just giving a peek once in a while. This was something I thought I should share with you guys here, since I had shared it through the beginning too.

- - - Updated - - -

satinder said:

Which Solar panels are vfm ?
Please suggest low cost but efficient panels to start with some portable and some for home/ one or two rooms led lighting.

Click to expand...

Actually the answer to this one is tricky. Here, Quality (Efficiency) and Cost are directly related. This means that costs go up with the quality. As such, commercially, (as far as I know) there are two major kinds of solar panels available. Monocrystalline, and Poly Crystalline. Monocrystalline cells are considered more efficient than their polycrystalline counterparts, and thus are more expensive than the latter. In terms of physical form, there are two kinds of cells available. One is the regular glass laminated which are bulky, and the second type is the flexible one (thin film) wherein the cells are built up over flexible and thin plastic sheets. These are cheaper, but then, are less efficient.
To start with, you can opt for a 40-50 Watt solar panel, a suitable small solar charge controller of 12 Volt 6 Amps, and one or two 7AH lead acid batteries (the UPS ones). This will give you enough power to have enough energy to drive a couple of LED's in a DC configuration. You can optionally go for readymade kits that are on offer for roughly the same cost you will bear for the above mentioned system.

- - - Updated - - -

quagmire said:

Great job cyberkid. :thumbup:

If possible, can you make a instructable? It will help many others who want to build something similar, but don't have ideas on how to build it..
Just wanted to know how does the power output vary from morning to evening? Do you have a graph?

Click to expand...

Yeah, I was thinking of the instructable, afterall, I have to thank the guy whose idea helped me think through, as a base for this, plus, I have to help spread the knowledge I gathered while transforming that small palmtop model idea into a real world working rig. But the problem is that I haven't completed the work on this. Once this work gets completed, and the tracker starts working, as planned, it will be the right time to build an instructable.

As for the power output, I am just using a 12 volt 40 watt panel, on this, as a test rig, before I bring in the planned 2x250 watt panels, and put the system to work, by feeding the panel output to the inverter. Plus, the tracking part is not functional yet. So, essentially, this is just a stationary solar panel, as of now, which can be moved by hand. In terms of power output, all I can say is that the 15 watt LED arrangement I have done that is powered directly by the panel output kicks in at 7 in the morning, and goes away at around 4-4:30 in the evening, which is when the light is not enough to be used alone. I feel this is good enough, considering that we are in the middle of the winter season here in Delhi, and this Sunlight hours is not at it's peak. Once the system is complete, I will then focus on the remaining things like plotting the daily power output, and a couple of other ideas.

^ cool stuff dude, did u complete the program to drive the motors and tested it ?

icebags said:

^ cool stuff dude, did u complete the program to drive the motors and tested it ?

Click to expand...

Not yet. The IC on the motor driver I was using has broken somehow, so I am waiting for a new IC to be shipped to me. Till then the remaining tasks won't move an inch. I tried looking for the places I usually get these components from, but couldn't find them, so had to rely on online shops.

^thats a normal dc motor right ? whats the current requirement ? if it's less than 400mA, just use a 2N2222 with pulse code modulation, or even without modulation, with a BC548 previous stage. our you can use a mosfet, or even u can use a lm386 amp.

try it without the expensive driver chips, they work fine for low power motors.

icebags said:

^thats a normal dc motor right ? whats the current requirement ? if it's less than 400mA, just use a 2N2222 with pulse code modulation, or even without modulation, with a BC548 previous stage. our you can use a mosfet, or even u can use a lm386 amp.

try it without the expensive driver chips, they work fine for low power motors.

Click to expand...

Yes, but actually that's a geared DC motor which needs current in access to 1Amps to work well, and it's limit is 4Amps. Additionally, I need a very good amount of torque to move those panels, once installed, hence I have opted for the L298N Dual full-bridge driver circuit that can supply a max of 2Amps per channel. The driver board is already there, just the problem is that the terminals of the IC somehow broke down from the chip and hence, I need to replace it.

After more days of part hunting and scratching around heads here and there, today I can say that the tracker is finally in field testing phase. The modified designs of sensor assembly, motor and gear assembly and the rest of the stuff are finally working in tandem to give me a near accurate tracking of the sun throughout the day.

What's the cause of concern now is the somewhat jittery and abrupt movement in case of sudden cloud cover and during overcast conditions (seen during earlier phases of field testing). Though some more logics have been integrated to make sure that the tracker falls dead once the light coming through the sensors falls below a certain threshold value, the efficacy of this code needs to be checked in real life, i.e. on a day with cloudy conditions.
Also, the tracker needs to be restricted to a certain limit to make sure that the horizontal tracking doesn't result in winding the wires in the rod and thus causing damage to the system.

Change Log:
1. Certain mechanisms have been changed from the last build posted here. We found out that the vertical tracking by the DC motor and the gear assembly was putting a lot of strain on the assembly when the panel moved from a near horizontal level from the ground to an angle thus causing an seemingly dangerous jerk, which could cause serious problems once I add on the two panels weighing ~40kgs. So we decided to make the vertical tracking possible with the help of a linear actuator which could take care of the panel's inclination till around 100 degrees. So a linear actuator was built using a long bolt, some nuts and some other stuff including the DC motor.
The geared mechanism now works at the bottom of the tracker to take care of the horizontal tracking.
2. Additional support bars have been added on the two sides to provide additional support to horizontal bar that holds the shaft which will be used to mount the solar panels.

Here's the tracker in action. In this video, I am intentionally blocking the light on a couple of sensors so that the tracker could be seen in action, otherwise, one has to see throughout the day to really make out what it is doing.

^ cool ! does it adjust elevation too ?
what is the amount of electricity u r producing with this ?

icebags said:

^ cool ! does it adjust elevation too ?
what is the amount of electricity u r producing with this ?

Click to expand...

Yes, that's why it's a Dual Axis tracker. It has the possibility of doing both, the daily tracking as well as tracking the seasonal changes of the sun's location/direction, i.e. both Azimuthal as well as Zenithal tracking. As far as the electricity generation is concerned, for now, just ~40 watts an hour. Once the tracker is fully functional, I will be getting two more panels 250 watt each to start with the real life application, and that is when the real power will be generated.

Finally the real life tracker testing is underway. Also, as you might be knowing, the solar modules and the charge controllers are on the way. I am hoping that the system would be ready to give me some power beginning the new financial year.
Some updates:
1. Changed the sensor module with a better built piece with bigger LDR's, and better connections and mountings to be properly mounted along with the solar modules.
2. Just doday had to change one of the drive gears as the earlier one had got damaged because of poor design, and had, of late started to go free, and, thus failed to drive the system towards West after around 1pm. So, today, I replaced this gear with a new one with some additional and mandatory design changes, and am now hoping that this will be able to keep up in tomorrow's testing, for the whole day.
3. The tracker mechanism has now been made almost self sufficient, with the 40watt module being used to power the drive systems, throughout the day. The MCU too is being powered by a battery bank throughout the day, and this has removed a lot of unwanted problems.
4. The tracker code too has been optimized a bit to ensure it doesn't act weirdly enough in the morning and evenings.

What's in future: 1. Some more changes to realign the panels towards East in the morning, automatically.
2. I have also planned to make this an IoT project, which will enable me to have real-time data logging and viewing abilities, where the values will be automatically updated from the MCU to a Web host, and from there, it will be displayed on a special webpage, for monitoring purposes.

Today, I tried on making an 11 hour time lapse video to capture the functioning of the solar tracker, and document it in action. Appears, the 10 second capture interval was a bit too much, for a fast acting thing like this, also, the phone didn't have a very good placement, was using my phone because my camera had a limitation in terms of battery life which meant there was no way I could've captured such a long time lapse video with it.
[YOUTUBE]*youtu.be/QOoARMGo7v4[/YOUTUBE]by

CyberKID said:

Today, I tried on making an 11 hour time lapse video to capture the functioning of the solar tracker, and document it in action. Appears, the 10 second capture interval was a bit too much, for a fast acting thing like this, also, the phone didn't have a very good placement, was using my phone because my camera had a limitation in terms of battery life which meant there was no way I could've captured such a long time lapse video with it.
[YOUTUBE]*youtu.be/QOoARMGo7v4[/YOUTUBE]by

Click to expand...

How much energy efficiency you are able to achieve with such arrangement of a solar tracker compared to a fixed setup.

kunalgujarathi said:

How much energy efficiency you are able to achieve with such arrangement of a solar tracker compared to a fixed setup.

Click to expand...

Theoretically, a tracked solar PV installation with a provision to track down Zenithal and Azimuthal position of the sun to align the solar photovoltaic array perpendicular to the sun, throughout the day, and the year, is said to have a better efficiency that can go as high as 45%, when compared to a fixed PV array. Now, this is just a piece of claim made by - maybe, tracking equipment manufacturers-purely for business purposes, or others, and I can not however, at this point of time, give you a first hand experience about the efficiency of such a system and whether it is better than a fixed setup, by giving you data to support my claim. Anything that I say now, for such a system will be just a speculation, because I do not possess any data to prove it.
However, based on some research that I have done over the past few years, and some common sense - that says the greater the deviation from the sun rays falling perpendicularly (90 degrees) on the panels the lesser the efficiency of the panels, so, I do expect the tracked system to have a better efficiency in converting the solar radiation than a fixed array (even after considering the power spent in driving such a system, throughout the day).
You can consider this real-life scenario to understand it better - At 7 in the morning (during summer months), the solar panel in my setup gets the first direct rays of sunlight, and at 5:30 in the evening, my solar panel still has the sunlight falling directly on it. Now try comparing this with a fixed solar panel that sees the direct sun light falling on it, maybe, around 11:30am to 12:30pm in the noon, and the rest of the time, it's not direct sunlight, so lower power density, when compared to the position where the panel was aligned almost perpendicular to the sun. Now in my setup, I am getting the peak power density at all the times throughout the day, which means, my panel is getting peak power from 7 in the morning to 5:30 in the evening (i.e. for a good ten and a half hours, because it is being aligned perpendicular to the sun throughout the day. Compare this with a fixed setup which sees the period of peak power for say 2 hours, 11am to 1pm. Which one is supposed to have better efficiency?
As I have said in a previous update in this thread, I am working on a data logging system that gives me realtime data to analyze the actual power generation from my PV array, and this is something that I need to provide you with a proper analysis with data to support my claims. I will be including data related to Current, Voltage, Module Temperature and Time, which, I think will help me plot a proper analysis of the power production throughout the day. Once this is functional, I can also do a test by aligning the array in a fixed-tilt setup for a day to get comparative data of power generation in a dual-axis tracking setup versus a fixed tilt setup.

CyberKID said:

Today, I tried on making an 11 hour time lapse video to capture the functioning of the solar tracker, and document it in action. Appears, the 10 second capture interval was a bit too much, for a fast acting thing like this, also, the phone didn't have a very good placement, was using my phone because my camera had a limitation in terms of battery life which meant there was no way I could've captured such a long time lapse video with it.

Click to expand...

ftfy

why it is moving at all directions though ?

icebags said:

why it is moving at all directions though ?

Click to expand...

Because that's what it has been designed to do. It follows the sun. Now the actuator that we have made that the panel up and down, had a limit of a maximum ~100 degrees, so this is being compensated by moving the entire platform, along with the panel, throughout the day to follow the sun.

- - - Updated - - -

Finally, today, I have got the panels delivered.

*i.imgur.com/0C6jSf7.png *i.imgur.com/Q4R3Pyc.png

CyberKID said:

Because that's what it has been designed to do. It follows the sun. Now the actuator that we have made that the panel up and down, had a limit of a maximum ~100 degrees, so this is being compensated by moving the entire platform, along with the panel, throughout the day to follow the sun.

- - - Updated - - -

Finally, today, I have got the panels delivered.

*i.imgur.com/0C6jSf7.png *i.imgur.com/Q4R3Pyc.png

Click to expand...

Hey why didn't you consider monocrystalline solar panels instead?

kunalgujarathi said:

Hey why didn't you consider monocrystalline solar panels instead?

Click to expand...

There are a few reasons.
1. Availability - It is pretty hard to get these things easily, that too in retail, when one is looking for individual components. When I was in the search for these panels, monocrystallines were almost unavailable. Places where these panels were available, I could only place a bulk order, and then the cost of a 250 watt monocrystalline panel is almost 33% higher than a 250 watt polycrystalline panel.
2. Cost - Monocrystalline panels are quite expensive, in comparision to polycrystalline. Now, considering the improved technologies into solar cell manufacturing, polycrystalline solar cells are reaching almost the same efficiencies as of monocrystallines. The other advantage of monocrystallines over polycrystallines is the better performance in high temperature, which, puts polycrystallines at a disadvantage, but then this advantage of monocrystallines doesn't really justify the premium cost. At 16.65% module efficiency, the panel I have got here is one of the highest efficiencies I've seen that are commercially available, at this price point.
Now considering the usage, I did not feel the need to invest a premium for a small scale application like mine.

CyberKID said:

Because that's what it has been designed to do. It follows the sun. Now the actuator that we have made that the panel up and down, had a limit of a maximum ~100 degrees, so this is being compensated by moving the entire platform, along with the panel, throughout the day to follow the sun.

- - - Updated - - -

Finally, today, I have got the panels delivered.

*i.imgur.com/0C6jSf7.png *i.imgur.com/Q4R3Pyc.png

Click to expand...

is it a Canadian company or a Chinese??

anirbandd said:

is it a Canadian company or a Chinese??

Click to expand...

Haha, then we can also ask if Apple Inc. is an American company or a Chinese one.
In their own words, they are one of the largest Solar Panel manufacturers, based in Canada and having presence in 20 countries across 6 continents.
My choice was entirely governed by the price to performance ratio and the availability.

okay so canadian company, manufacturing in China... sounds good!

And finally, (just about) the moment I have been working towards, for close to three years now, and have been planning on for around 8 years - Powering up my solar power plant!

*i.imgur.com/AUWwvpc.png
Both the panels, eagerly waiting to be mounted on the tracker rig.

*i.imgur.com/sVmYzX7.png

*i.imgur.com/ZDqqwdr.png

*i.imgur.com/TX1oXAv.png

Though, I still haven't mounted the panels on the tracker rig, since it needs some time and lots of man power to mount that ~50 kilogram assembly on the tracker rig, hopefully, this will be done tonight.

Nice Information about LED (Light Emitting Diode) lights. Yes, I am very much Interested in transforming my home lighting to LED'S. It saves a lot of power and it is very good for eyes.

Waking up this long dead thread. Finally, after years of tiring work, literally pulling my hair out, for days altogether, and over all these months, I can finally say that my Dual Axis Solar Tracker is functional now. The tracking works good in good sunlight. The tracker does not need any human interference in the normal circumstances. The platform too is quite stable now.
What does this mean? This means I have now achieved the basic functionality that was expected from the Dual-Axis Solar Tracker. Both the axes now work in good tandem with each other, none misbehaving, or working out of synchronization. The basic hardware and the tracker rig has now been setup, and from here on, there can only be improvements.

*geek.digit.in/community/attachments/dsc_0743-custom-jpg.17109
So, pictured above is the tracker rig along with both the panels mounted and the sensor assembly visible in between. The sensor assembly sends the information related to the sun light to the MPU (Arduino Uno in this case), which processes the information, and sends the instructions to the motor driver, which in turn drives both the DC motors to align the panels perpendicular to the sun. The one below, in that clear box houses MPU and the Motor Driver.

awesome job cybo, now that its working, convert the tracking controller from arduino to esp8266 or esp32 & access all the tracking settings and info real time on mobile fone !

icebags said:

awesome job cybo, now that its working, convert the tracking controller from arduino to esp8266 or esp32 & access all the tracking settings and info real time on mobile fone !

Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion, mate. The plan is to move to an Arduino Mega based WeMos (built on Arduino Mega Platform, comprises of an ESP8266 on the board itself). ESP will allow Datalogging on a remote webserver, that can be used for a). Realtime to near-Realtime monitoring of the rig and performance tracking. Why we are moving to an Arduino Mega is wehave planned to build this as an entirely autonomous system that, for most parts does not need human intervention for any of it's daily O&M. b). Possibility of remote control of the Tracking Rig, if human intervention is needed at all, over the internet, set/change certain configuration parameters, if the need be.
c). Local User Interface to control the tracking rig, in case human intervention is required.
All these will need dozens of sensors, both Analogue and Digital, for which I'll be needing dozens of I/O ports on the MCU.

r u sure you need mega ? esp8266 has somany pint itself, you can put somany sensors on i2c bus already. or may be you can use the bigger esp32.

Yes, am quite sure. Have explored a lot of options including ESP826612-A, NodeMCU, Arduino Uno, Arduino Nano and Finally the Mega. What I need is a combination of Analogue and Digital I/O pins. Analogue pins are important. Uno has six of them, Nano has eight of them, ESP12-A has two. NodeMCU was something considerable, but it's too complicated to program and make use of. Did explore the possibility of using a Rasp Pi as well. So just went off with the hybrid Mega+ESP. I do not want to use an ADC, as adding more components makes it hard to troubleshoot.
I have a lot of Analogue sensors, 4 pins for the light sensors for tracking, two will always be used as SDA and SCL, for things like an RTC and LCD, running on the IIC bus. Then one for a DHT 11/22 for temperature/Humidity, another one for voltage measurement, and yet another for current measurement. One more for an anemometer and then, if it further allows, a rain sensor.

i see.

CyberKID said:

Yes, am quite sure. Have explored a lot of options including ESP826612-A, NodeMCU, Arduino Uno, Arduino Nano and Finally the Mega. What I need is a combination of Analogue and Digital I/O pins. Analogue pins are important. Uno has six of them, Nano has eight of them, ESP12-A has two. NodeMCU was something considerable, but it's too complicated to program and make use of. Did explore the possibility of using a Rasp Pi as well. So just went off with the hybrid Mega+ESP. I do not want to use an ADC, as adding more components makes it hard to troubleshoot.
I have a lot of Analogue sensors, 4 pins for the light sensors for tracking, two will always be used as SDA and SCL, for things like an RTC and LCD, running on the IIC bus. Then one for a DHT 11/22 for temperature/Humidity, another one for voltage measurement, and yet another for current measurement. One more for an anemometer and then, if it further allows, a rain sensor.

Click to expand...

you could get the esp8266 wemos and a MCP3008...to get analog + digital I/O
and initially use ubidots to send and control, view the data too.
and it can run standard arduino code as well as the new Lua ones which is more advanced imo, but as async capability.

kARTechnology said:

you could get the esp8266 wemos and a MCP3008...to get analog + digital I/O
and initially use ubidots to send and control, view the data too.
and it can run standard arduino code as well as the new Lua ones which is more advanced imo, but as async capability.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestions, mate. For now, I think we are sorted out, the prototype PCB has been built around the Mega. Let's see what comes up next.

Update: 18-12-2017
While I am currently in testing mode to have a better understanding of environmental conditions throughout the varying seasons, and how to mitigate the unfavorable conditions, like sudden cloud cover, to ensure that the system keeps working as independently as I ever wanted. The test rig is still based on the Uno, has the minimal add-ons since my motive is to make the system better able to adapt and respond to the sunlight conditions.