Solar powered lights

[ovakil]

Asking this question for father-inlaw,
What he is chasing is similar to garden lights you buy that recharge themslves duruing the day & turn on at night.
He has fixed solar panels on his roof ( 35 ftr boat) & navagation lights.
Wants to get connection between solar panel & light that is on roof.
Hopefully I've made sense.
Thanks

[scottar]

If the solar panels are already charging his house bank, I would simply get some LED nav and anchor lights and replace what is already there. If he wants to isolate the rest of the electrics that run off the house bank IMO, the best option would be to run a dedicated feed to the Nav/Anchor light switches. Either that or install a dedicated battery that is charged by the panels to run the lights.

[cormorant]

Any solar controller that has a day night load circuit in it will do what you want. When the solar panel no longer inputs power to the batteries it turns on the night circuit and you can place a light on that circuit or relay if the light circuit has too larger draw. His existing solar controller may already have this ability

The question is more like why he would want to do it? Anchor lights when not actually anchored cause issues and may be illegal if moored for example.

here is a cheapo as a example With light circuit and some have timer as well.

http://www.dx.com/p/12v-24v-30a-sola...FdcnvQodgCkANw


http://ecopia.com.au/solar-regulator...ing-controller


If he already has a decent solar controller/ regulator then you can use this light sensitive relay / photosensitive switch
http://ecopia.com.au/photoswitch-lig...d-relay-switch

[Yobbo70]

just do what the crappy house boats do on the Gold coast and just use a LED solar powered garden light