Overseas Community Project October 2012, Prey Veng, Cambodia

On October 2012, we went to help an Orphanage at Prey Veng, Cambodia. Two teaching staff and 20 students went for this expedition. We stay at the orphanage for 6 days.

During the stay, we did the following projects:
1. Maintenance and Repair of solar lights
2. Install new alarm system at the office and French Mansion

3. Replace new roofing for the walkway

Solar Lights Maintenance

We had replaced several faulty lamps with new lamps. There are altogether 3 zones for the lighting. They are Dormitory Front (Zone 1), Domitory Back (Zone 2) and Office Area & Classrooms (Zone 3).





 

Installation of New Alarm System

We replaced the existing alarm system which comprises sensors and a control box. They are faulty. We have rewired and install new sensors at the office and PC lab, and also replaced new sensors along the corridors. Zone 1 comprises of Office and PC lab and Zone 2 indicates the corridors.

 

Replace Roofing at Walkway

The existing roofs at the walkways are old and need replacement. The students together with the orphanage staff did the new roofing for the walkways.

 

 

Interaction with the Orphans

The students manage to find some time to mingle with the childrens at the orphanage. They brought along some crayons, colour pencils and drawing papers for the childrens to colour.



And we had a cultural night with the childrens. We perform a song for them and they did a traditional dance.

We also tried their local food at near-by stall.

We brought over some old clothes and toys. We visited a village about one and a half hours away by vehicle from the orphanage and went from house to house to give away clothes and toys to the poor villagers.

Solar 6 at Hope Training Centre, Prey Veng

On 6 April 2010, we went to Hope Training Centre, Prey Veng, to restore the solar lighting and also conduct solar maintenance at the training centre. The condition of the wiring and lamps needed restoration because during the construction of the building, some were damaged.

 

We dug a new trench to provide electrical cabling from the factory to the 6 houses. This will provide the solar battery power located at the factory to the houses.

We also rewire the electrical cables and lamps at the factory

The lamps, charge controller and batteries were located at the factory. There are 2 zones, houses for zone 1 and factory is zone 2. A total of 17 lamps or 85Watts of power is consumed by the security lighting nightly. The security guard will switch on the lights when it gets dark, about 6.30pm and turn off the lights at 6 am the next morning. A total of 6 solar panels totaling 660Watts is capable of providing 12 hours nightly of security lighting. It has a standby charge of 2 days in case of bad weather with no or little charging from the sun. It has the capacity to increase to 22 lamps without compromising its performance.

A picture of the factory during the day time and night time. It provide sufficient lighting at night to improve the security in the training centre.

The daily charging of the batteries starts at 6 am in the morning and reaches full charge at noon. The charging goes into trickle charge after that. At 6.30pm, the lights are turn on for 12 hours where we can see the batteries are being discharge.The cycle continues again the next day.

A block diagram of the system is shown below.