Solar charger switch

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bdickens
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Solar charger switch

Post by bdickens »

My fishlight is working (thanks to a lot of suggestions) and I am now charging the battery with a solar panel (with diode) and thats working great. But I am also manually disconnecting / reconnecting light and charger. Is there a simple DC relay that will switch off the light when the solar panel starts to charge ? The presumption is that the fish light is pretty useless when it's broad daylight. <p>Thanks
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jwax
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Re: Solar charger switch

Post by jwax »

What is a "fishlight"?
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Chris Smith
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Re: Solar charger switch

Post by Chris Smith »

Im asuming your talking about a fish tank light?

You can have a simple low power relay, or biased transistor to do the flip flopping from day to night.

Because the battery has the least amount of energy to spare, its better to fail at night, switching into battery mode in the relaxed position with no extra energy required.

In the Day light mode, the solar cell feeds the relay coils or transistor base, which diverts the power to the battery for charging, and cuts out the light at the same time.
zotdoc
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Re: Solar charger switch

Post by zotdoc »

www.discovercircuits.com has free downlaodable circuit schematics, and there is one on the site for both a daylight on circuit and a daylight off circuit which should work. I assume your light is to attract fish or see what your are doing at night while fishing?
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jwax
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Re: Solar charger switch

Post by jwax »

Bill seems to have gone fishing.
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bdickens
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Re: Solar charger switch

Post by bdickens »

Sorry: I was on the road and it took a while to get back. Yes, the light is to attract fish to the dock. I'll look at the circuits. Thanks for aiming there.
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