Monday, October 6, 2014

Solar Lantern Design for Villagers

On request by a village in Thailand to provide lights for the villagers, we have designed a portable rechargable battery lantern which can be recharge by a common solar powered charging station.

The lantern comprise of a PWM charge controller, sealed lead acid battery (12V 7AH), switch and LED array (1.2 Watts). With a single full charge, the lantern can operated for 5 hours, 4 nights continuosly before needing to charge again.

A picture of the lantern and charging station is shown below. A 130W solar panel is connected to the charging station where 10 lanterns can be charged at the same time. The charging cable is a USB connector modified to provide electrical connections to the lantern.

In October 2014, I will be visiting the village and give 10 villagers the solar lanterns for trial. Will publish the results of the pilot run in the next update.


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