Solar light for outdoor pavilion
mlail
Registered Users Posts: 22 ✭
Hi all,
I am being asked to install a solar powered light(s) in the community pavilion. We have had some teenagers doing things they probably should not be doing and the homeowner association board has agreed to install some lighting. Since power is not at this site, I was thinking about installing two motion detection solar lights in the pavilion structure. This should light up the area nicely. What do you think and do you recommend any products? I still need to investigate how much sunlight actually will reach the pavilion.
Thanks,
I am being asked to install a solar powered light(s) in the community pavilion. We have had some teenagers doing things they probably should not be doing and the homeowner association board has agreed to install some lighting. Since power is not at this site, I was thinking about installing two motion detection solar lights in the pavilion structure. This should light up the area nicely. What do you think and do you recommend any products? I still need to investigate how much sunlight actually will reach the pavilion.
Thanks,
Comments
What is your budget and the amount of sun it will receive (you need a few hours of full sun per day usually).
For a first pass--You might be better off just purchasing a couple LED Motion Detector solar power lights from Home Depot or equivalent... They will probably only last 1-2 years before they need to be replaced (usually the battery fails--but they are not well made and electronics/wiring can fail too).
A full solar powered system will be quite a bit more expensive--and you would probably need to install in a metal box of some sort to prevent theft/damage.
-Bill
I would just spay paint over the whole solar panel to keep those lights from disturbing my bad teenager activities.
Bill,
I'd say the budget is as cheap as possible so I am anticipating the Home Depot variety. I didn't see any LED versions that are solar and motion detection but I'll go back and check.
I expect that those pesky teenagers will trash these pretty quickly, so I'm going to suggest that someone build and install a wire cage over the lights. It might prevent someone from getting lucky when they start throwing rocks at the lights!
I believe that we will get about 3-4 hours of light per day (including winters). However, I have tasked my wife to ask the people around the pavilion to get a closer estimate.
AntronX - Personally I would add an electric fence station to the wire cage so it will teach those pesky teenagers an important lesson but I know that I always do things over-kill! The neighbors will never go for that idea!:-)
Thanks for these suggestions!
There is this one from HomeDepot for $50:
And there is this one with a 15 bulb--perhaps, graft a 1 watt+ LED assembly instead for longer life ($90)
Neither of them are high quality and I would save the receipts of they fail to work.
You can search the web and see what else is out there like this one from Amazon--Again, low quality and low price.
I am not sure you are going to find what you are looking for--Also, I am not sure a small security light is going to really keep teenagers away.
Doing a little human engineering to keep the folks away at night?
-Bill
Classical music has been known to work.
|| Midnight Classic 200 | 10, Evergreen 200w in a 160VOC array ||
|| VEC1093 12V Charger | Maha C401 aa/aaa Charger | SureSine | Sunsaver MPPT 15A
solar: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Solar
gen: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Lister ,
i think opera might work better.:roll::p
Then, there is the Age Sensitive "drive away the kids" noise maker:
The Mosquito - Wikipedia
Your mileage may vary...
-Bill
That device has been banned due to some unwanted side effects.
Usually the best thing is to channel the kids energy into something constructive. Anything that has girls and music should work.
Isn't that how this whole thread started in the first place? :roll:
-Bill
Interesting ideas and I would love it if there were places that these kids could go but the element that wants to have sex with each other usually go to the fun places and then later to the dark places. This morning my wife went to the pavilion to see when the sun was hitting the roof and she found two kids skipping school and doing what teens do when no one is watching. No easy answers but maybe we can deter them some!
I forgot about the sound devices but in either case, no grid power really limits what we can do. At least shedding some light on the area will make some look elsewhere, maybe.
How about a couple of dummy cameras?
I have not noticed the need to chase these teens away but from the reports that I have herd, throwing kids bikes into the pond, sex, drugs... I can understand why some are concerned. Since this is community property, the whole neighborhood is responsible for what happens there. So maybe a little human engineering is in order!
I read up on these and I also thought up another idea where we purchase a larger solar panel, say about 80w, light fixtures, motion detectors, fixture cages, some fluorescent bulbs, and cabling. I can donate all the UPS batteries we can use for a couple of years. Box it all in the rafters of the pavilion and that might work. I know the UPS batteries won't last and they will need protection or removal in the winter... Still just thinking out loud. I have to talk to the board members to see just how much money is available.
Thanks for these ideas!
Probably the simplest is programming the sprinklers to come on a few times during the night and a few "misdirected" towards the pavilion.
Otherwise, an 80 and some 12 volt motion detectors with LED spots would probably do a pretty good job of lighting the place up.
-Bill
As a farm kid I can tell you that I had pigs that were smart enough to short out the electric fencing so ... I would say that with the punks today, you have a 50/50 chance of the fence being smarter then they are.
One thing that might actually help is to put a camera there along with the lights. Hunters use game cameras all the time and they work fine. I expect that a person could trigger the shutter as well as a pig or deer.
The community where I live also has a bunch of small pavilions right on the lake near a side walk. Each pavilion has small lamp post with what looks like 60 Watt solar panel and 9 - 11 Watt CFL enclosed in down facing reflector with glass and wire cage. They don't seem to run all night, just until 2 - 3 am when hardly anyone would be out there. So, 60 W * 0.8 * 0.87 * 5 * 0.9 = 188 Watt/hours / 11 W = 17.1 hours of run time. 188/12.5 = 15 Ah, so use at least 30Ah 12V gel-cell or AGM battery. Use simple and cheap PWM or shunt charge controller with load voltage cutoff set to 11.5 Volts to preserve the battery life. Also, the timer may be a good idea, instead of running the light from dusk to dawn. Set it to turn on at sunset and turn off 8 - 10 hours later.