solar powered algae scrubber, by main tank lights?

[simon wright]

right i thought i would put this one forward for the people with the electrical knowhow , as i am not very good with building electrical things .
i am sure this is possible to do .
have and led array over the scrubber that is powered by the main tank light through the use of a small solar panell.
basically small solar panell under the main tank lighting so it charges the battery for the scrubber leds for the night time scrubber lighting , a censor attached to the unit so when main tank lights go off the scrubber lights come on .
also could be used for a night light over main tank .
i have seen outdoor security lights that have small solar panells to power them , so thought it could be an idea with something else .
could this be done ?

would save a lot on electricity bills also .

just an idea i had running through my head .

[Ace25]

Interesting idea. I get the feeling it won't be possible yet. Solar panels are not very efficient in regards to turning light into stored energy. I think the best commercial solar panels are only getting upwards of 40% efficiency, while the solar panels used on the international space station are around 80% efficient.

So in my scenerio, I use around 100w of LED light as my main display light (48 LEDs). You would need small solar panels only on the edges of the tank to collect light (because you don't want to block light going to the corals). So you would be using small inefficient solar panels to collect a small amount of light. I would think it would take many days just to charge a 12v battery. I just don't see it being enough to power even LEDs on a scrubber over night. Just taking a wild guess here, I would think you would get about 1hour of light out of scrubber LEDs off a days worth of charging a battery using your main display light.

Here is a link to a solar light I had thought of using in the past just for playing around with (using the panel, not the actual light). Look how big the panel is (about 6"x5"), imagine that, or multiples over a tank in order to collect light. Too big in my opinion. It takes 6-8 hours to charge in full sunlight and can only run 10w worth of LEDs overnight. I would need it to run about 40w of LEDs for 18 hours. On top of that, the cheap panels are the "get what you pay for" type of thing, many bad reviews about them failing (both solar panels and batteries), so not something I would want to rely on for my filtration. Cool concept and something to think about in the future (when both solar panels and batteries get better) but for now I think it is more of a novelty and something to just play around with vs using it in a critical application like being part of your main aquarium filtration.

http://www.harborfreight.com/36-led-sol ... 98085.html (http://www.harborfreight.com/36-led-solar-security-light-98085.html)

http://www.harborfreight.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/370x/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/i/m/image_12010.jpg

[Aeros]

It's feasible. It will be a costly build however. And will not "pay" for it self anytime soon. Add to that the ever decreasing cost, and increasing efficacy of LEDs, and your left with a "not yet" decision. At least I am.

The biggest hurdle in my mind is: the size/cost of the solar panels needed (estimated 60 1 watt LEDs x 18 hours equals over 1000 watt hours), the size/cost of the battery needed to store a kilowatt, the lousy performance of commercially available photo voltaic cells, and their degraded performance over their lifespan.

My opinion regarding LEDs is to get the most efficient chips available, and under volt them by 20-50%.

Then, even if run on the grid, your only pulling ~30 watts. Keep in mind that watts is not equal to brightness regarding LEDs, e.g. the new Cree XP-L is a lot more efficient at turning electrons into photons, thus could be run at a lower wattage to the same effect as older LEDs.

I won't even get into solar panels...

[kotlec]

Google brings nothing on XP-L. :roll:

About project - just forget it all together.

[kerry]

Google brings nothing on XP-L. :roll:

About project - just forget it all together.
Here is the link http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q= ... u1KnvNCCvA (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=cree%20xp-l&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CEAQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cree.com%2Fproducts%2Fxlamp_x ml.asp&ei=BxyrTvL4L8HkiALWvuWQCw&usg=AFQjCNHg4yK6j6jlnzYn-Wr6PUdkNUqp0w&sig2=ZcJv6PYy7sQVu1KnvNCCvA) .

[kotlec]

Ah ok - you mean XM-L. Now its clear.

[AngeloTurner]

right i thought i would put this one forward for the people with the electrical knowhow , as i am not very good with building electrical things .
i am sure this is possible to do .
have and led array over the scrubber that is powered by the main tank light through the use of a small solar panell.
basically small solar panell under the main tank lighting so it charges the battery for the scrubber leds for the night time scrubber lighting , a censor attached to the unit so when main tank lights go off the scrubber lights come on .
also could be used for a night light over main tank .
i have seen outdoor security lights that have small solar panels (http://www.shinesolar.net) to power them , so thought it could be an idea with something else .
could this be done ?

would save a lot on electricity bills also .

just an idea i had running through my head .

Seems like very impressive idea..Were you able to implement it? please share experience as it will help others in saving electricity..Waiting for reply thanks in advance:)

[SantaMonica]

Welcome Angelo,

Have you also tried anything solar?

[billy mitchell]

I have a security light the same as that one but mine has 60x1watt led's and I think can run for a few hours....never tried to see how long it lights up for
has same type solar panel produced 12Vdc