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I'm sure this topic have been covered but I ran a search and came up with so many unrelated entries that I became frustrated and decided to just post and ask.
Has anyone converted an outdoor lighting fixture to solar?
You see we live way out in the country. Our front gate is realy too far to run electric to. The gate itself run off of solar power and works fine. Last year our contractor installed the exact light fixtures I wanted out at the gate with the intention of running electric to them. He told us it would not be as expensive as we thought. He then discovered he had underbid the job and said he could not finish the job. We've asked several neighbors how to convert these fixtures to solar and they mentioned that so-and-so down the road has done it or relatives have done it but they don't know how to do it. We have a new contractor working on another project. He mentioned that he would finish hooking up the lights to solar if I could get the information about how to do it. He has never done this before although his assistant is a certified electrician. They would like to know how to do it so that they can add this to their repetoir.
Can anyone help or direct me to a website with directions? I would greatly appreciate it.
Oh, dear. I realized I forgot to introduce myself.
We moved to Texas and into our new house about 3 years ago. I joined Dave's at about that time. I usually lurk and/or post on the rose, Texas Gardening, and Livestock forums.
Greetings from AZ. Do you know what voltage is being produced and stored from your solar system? 12 Volts 24 Volts? Does it use an inverter to boost and convert the stored voltage to AC to run the motor or is it a DC motor? (I'm assuming it's a motorized gate of some type) You may be able to tap power off of the gate system to run your lights also. There are new LED type light bulbs that take far less power than Incandescents or CFL,s and you may be able to use them in your fixtures reducing the load on the solar system.
This can get kind of complicated not to mention dangerous if you are not familiar with AC and DC circuits. I would recommend that you contact a qualified licensed electrician to help you with this. If the contractor that installed your gates does solar installations, it should not be too far of a stretch for him to add a lighting circuit. The (2) 12 volt batteries can be supplying either 12 Volts Or 24 volts depending on how they are wired into your system. This voltage can then be used directly by a DC motor or converted to AC for use by an AC motor to run your gates. The AC converter you say is listed seems to indicate this. This may also mean that the AC voltages are higher than the dc voltages because they may be “stepped-up” through a transformer (Like the wall-warts you plug in to charge your cell phone and other electronics, only in reverse.) Now you need to decide how much light you need which will affect bulb selection and how much power they will consume and if your system can handle the extra load. Since the light fixtures are already in place, this will limit your selection to bulbs that fit into the fixture and fixture socket. See what I mean by getting complicated? Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFL) give good light at reduced power consumption. Bulbs that are constructed from Light Emitting Diodes (LED) are extremely power efficient but give less light and are more expensive. Both are available in low or standard household voltages (check RV or solar parts places and websites sites. They also carry low voltage photocells and timers. Either way, calculations need to be made depending on what your available voltage is, and the type of bulb you choose to use for that voltage. It might be cheaper in the long run to look at solar landscape lights that may be able to be adapted to your fixtures and come with their own panel and batteries. Sorry to be so long winded but there are a lot of variables.
The contractor's assistant is a certified electritian. And its cool that you explained in detail. That is what they are looking for =). I'll show them your responce. The are looking for a starting point and some details. I think you've given them a really good start! Thank you.
Glad to be of assistance. Come and visit the Southwest Gardening Forum sometime. It's a great bunch of people with lots of ideas. If I can be of further assistance, just give a shout :-)
Jim
You'd think the Mighty Mule people (gate opener brand) would come up with a combo package for solar gate opener and lights. They'd sell a few I'll wager!
