Glowing Solar Balls

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  • niel
    niel Solar Expert Posts: 10,300 ✭✭✭✭
    #32
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    Re: Glowing Solar Balls

    i guess i should be more specific as my weed whackers are 120vac or in the case of my utility, 126vac. i wasn't even thinking of batteries being unreliable, but that would be a concern with the cordless types. i did note that the larger swaths even with a more powerful electric motor don't seem to do well. my last one was 14" and vibrated and wobbled all over the place. weed eater i think. i'm not looking to spent several hundred to get one good one either as that would be the same as several of the cheaper ones and if the more expensive one lasts longer it is negated by the costs.

    anyway, i'll drop this as it is not along the lines of the thread. sidetracked again.:roll:
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  • ChrisOlson
    ChrisOlson Banned Posts: 1,807 ✭✭
    #33
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    Re: Glowing Solar Balls

    Well, it seems I am back to Square One with my wife's Glowing Solar Balls (GSB's?).

    Yesterday we had good sun and a fresh set of Ni-Cd's in them. They worked beautifully all night. Today, just to give you guys an idea of what sort of solar insolation we get here in the "shadow" of Lake Superior, our 3.5 kW solar array has produced a grand total of 0.2 kW today as I write this. That's really impressive - NOT. But it's more the rule than the exception here in the winter time.

    The result is that those GSB's have refused to turn off all day. They are just about dead and glowing very dim now.

    We depend on wind power for our home in the winter time. Without it, the only thing we have is the generator for power. Our wind turbines have produced 19 kWh since midnight. Well, my wife has always wanted an ornamental windmill for the yard. So I'm going to build a scale model of an Aermotor water pumper and put a small axial generator on it. With a 3 foot rotor I can generate 500 mA @ 2 volts with no problem, run some wires to that string of lights and use it to charge the batteries up in the things in the winter time.

    Probably be the first wind and solar powered GSB's ever. But without putting in low voltage wired lighting I see no other way. Solar Lighting has one key word in it - "solar". Without it, they don't work. Add wind power, and they will. 8)

    I just invented myself yet another project....... :grr
    --
    Chris
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  • CDN_VT
    CDN_VT Solar Expert Posts: 492 ✭✭✭
    #34
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    Re: Glowing Solar Balls

    Dang , Quick reply has a bug, Just lost .5 of typing .


    Clean the toxic plastic over sensor & PV panel . Clean coal is not Clean. The sensors & pv are seeing fog/cataracts , in the reading of this thread.
    East coast is different from west coast, Bugs are seen on my windscreen only on the west coast , east I can drive daily .. Acidic Toxic hase from 122* west to greenwich to mid Atlantic where the stuff settles.
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