Garden Solar lights help

**bob-n** · 11-28-2020, 05:12 PM

Brett, Welcome to the forum.

From what I can tell, you took an existing light system, put in larger batteries and put in larger solar panels. It sounds like you did not replace the electronics that charges the batteries from the solar panels, however. If that's the case, it could mean that the charger built into the system is only large enough for the old batteries and you're not taking advantage of the larger panels.

**Utdfederation** · 11-28-2020, 05:44 PM

When you say charger do you mean the YX8018 4 pin chip

**chrisski** · 11-28-2020, 08:22 PM

First figure out the voltage and amps that your LEDs consume. A multimeter can tell you that if you have no ratings. I don’t know what a YX8018 4 Pin Chip does.

There’s some sort of Charge controller after the panels to regulate the battery charging. Many different types to match batteries.

If you have a 12 volt system, I would recommend getting a charge controller to handle your battery.

LEDs don’t draw hardly any light, but the battery you mentioned has less than one amp hour, which to me I think you need something much larger. I think in car sized deep cycle batteries which are 100 ah at 12 volts, and that should provide you enough power overnight. keep in mind this Lead Acid Battery can’t be discharged less than 50%.

I Have LED grow lights which 19 watts lights a 2 foot by 1 foot tray. In Arizona in the winter, I’d need them on for 13 hours. At 19 watts, I would need to provide them 1.5 amps an hour X 13, so I would need 21 Amp Hours at 12 volts to power these LEDs. So, with one of the car batteries I mentioned, I would be able to have two of my grow lamps, provided my battery got fully charged every day. I would need two, but more likely three 100 watt panels to put enough power into each of those batteries for the limited number of charging hours. Even though the sun may be up 11 hours, I only get five hours of charging time in the winter.

The example I gave was for LED lights for growing. If you’re using them for illumination only, your power requirements will not be anything close to what I put above.

**bob-n** · 11-28-2020, 08:23 PM

Yes. The YX8018 seems to be a really economical LED driver that also manages charging. You can read more about it here:

YX8018 Joule Thief Solar LED Driver - Electronics-Lab.com

https://www.electronics-lab.com/yx8018-joule-thief-solar-led-driver/

YX8018 is a 4-pin integrated circuit for driving solar powered garden LED lights and is found...

**Utdfederation** · 11-29-2020, 11:01 AM

Ok going a different route.
i have a 50w solar panel and a couple of 12v batteries.
if i hook those 12v batteries upto my charge controller tjat should charge the 12v batteries.
so what i was thinking was would i be able to hook all the 1.2v lights to the 12v batteries?
So effectively remove all 30 batteries from all the lights then hook them all into 1 and onto the 12v batteries, but what would i need between 12v and 1.2v to allow me to run all the lights.
hope you follow whst im trying to do here.

**bob-n** · 11-29-2020, 11:38 AM

Yes, you can do it.

To power an LED itself, you need approximately 3.5V. Some are 3V, some are 4V, but it is roughly in that range. Your garden lights start with a 1.2V battery and boost the voltage to 3.5V with a circuit called a boost converter. The YX8018 and a few other parts in the light do the boosting. So you'll need to keep all of that.

The garden light has terminals for a 1.2V battery. That is the input to the boost converter. You have a 12V battery. To get from 12V to 1.2V, you have two choices: either regulate down or connect a number of garden lights in series. Connecting them in series will be much easier.

I suggest wiring 8 garden lights in series. Remove all of the 1.2V batteries and wire the battery terminals of each garden light in a loop, as shown below. For simplicity, I'm only showing 4 lights. You will want to have 8 to 10 lights in a string, powered by the 12V battery.
light.png

**bob-n** · 11-29-2020, 11:41 AM

It just occurred to me that you have 30 lights. You'll probably want 3 strings of 10 lights. Connect the top of each string of lights to the + terminal of the 12V battery and the bottom of each string of lights to the - terminal of the 12V battery.

**Utdfederation** · 11-29-2020, 02:06 PM

So the + & - of the lights do they not go into the load side of the controller or do they simply just connect to the 12v battery?

sorry for keep asking.
just dont wanna blow any boards

**Utdfederation** · 11-29-2020, 02:12 PM

Forgot to ask.
what type of timer would you suggest to put between the live side of the lighting circuit so i can manually set on and off

**bob-n** · 11-29-2020, 02:42 PM

Leave the lights wired as they came from the store. Remove the battery. Only wire to the battery socket per the sketch in my previous post. You can even leave the tiny solar panel wired in place.

Good question about timers. I'm not sure what to suggest. I'd look on ebay, amazon, and other places that sell small electronics boards.

**bob-n** · 11-29-2020, 02:45 PM

Error Page | eBay

https://www.ebay.com/itm/LCD-Digital-display-DC-12V-16A-24-HOUR-7-DAY-TIMER-TIME-RELAY-SWITCH/143720681441

This came up in a search on ebay. It looks possible.

**bcroe** · 11-29-2020, 03:20 PM

Originally posted by bob-n

Yes. The YX8018 seems to be a really economical LED driver that
also manages charging. You can read more about it here:

That device looks like it will wipe out your AM radio with interference. Bruce Roe

**littleharbor** · 11-29-2020, 09:06 PM

How much wire are you running between the battery and the farthest light?

**Mike90250** · 11-29-2020, 09:47 PM

Originally posted by Utdfederation

Forgot to ask.
what type of timer would you suggest to put between the live side of the lighting circuit so i can manually set on and off

If you use a timer, you don't need to manually switch it.

Page not found - Backwoods Solar

https://www.backwoodssolar.com/programmable-timer-12v

You can also get a charge controller that will switch a load on and off at night, for night lighting, works by the voltage from the PV panel, when it's dark, it turns the lights on.

SunLight - Morningstar Corporation

https://www.morningstarcorp.com/products/sunlight/

Morningstar's SunLight™ solar lighting controller combines the SunSaver design with an advanced microcontroller for automatic lighting control functions.

However. This all may not work, because wiring LED drivers in series, sometimes does not work. It all depends on how well the individual drivers and LED's are matched. If some consume more current, they will be starved because the driver needing the least current in the string, won't let more thru for the others. They may be dim, blink, or not even light.

Garden Solar lights help

Garden Solar lights help

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