Solar Powered Christmas Lights
Backstory: There is one tree on our property that it on the very tip of a peninsula that overlooks the entrance to our neighborhood. The tree in question is a Pinon Pine and stands about 20 feet from the ground, but probably double that from the street. It stands majesticaly over the intersection, and it is where I had previously chosen to place a gnome, in a place where he could monitor the goings on.
The neighborhood is completely dark, no street lights, etc. and it is located well away from the city, so light polution is at a very minimum. You can see the milky way on a cloudless night without effort. We are isolated, but still within a couple dozen miles of a Walmart and hospital.
Here’s where the project begins: I wanted to put Christmas lights on the tree. The problem is that it is nowhere near electricity and would require a couple of thousand feet of extension cord to get to the nearest outlet. I had looked into solar powered Christmas lights, and they exist, but they weren’t bright enough for my taste and they did not have the amount of lights in a viable package that I could use. It’s a big tree, and even the 1,000 lights that I end up putting on the tree do not adequately cover the entire tree.
My solution: After researching, naturally, I landed upon a solar panel solution with a single string of 1,000 led lights and a battery station all packed into a 5 gallon bucket for weather proofing.
Here is everything all ready to go! I’m already inspired for more solar projects based on how well this has gone.
The battery will stay on while chaging with the solar panel, and as part of the setup I have included a dusk to dawn controller that is responsible for turning the lights on at dusk and off at dawn. With the battery capacity of about 150 amp hours, my lights have a current draw of 0.24amps, giving a theoretical runtime of close to 50 hours. The dusk to dawn controllers also draws a current, but I’m not sure how much.
Here is the battery in-situ all connected up.
Solar panel setup.
The lights in action