hi, i got a pond and i am planning of putting some lights on it during night time. but i want to use solar panels and i have done a bit of research about solar panels and i know how they work, i know that the common voltage to use is 2v so you can use car batteries or deep cycle batteries, but my question is:. what wattage of bulb can you recommend2. how long it would take to drain my battery (can i have it overnight)3. and what wattage of solar panel should i get enough to recharge my battery the next day.hope anyone can help..thanks
select 2V, and it will tell you how big of a battery bank and how big of a solar panel you need. For my example, I need a 7ah 2V battery and a 20watt panel.
You can get 6V cells and SLA batteries. You would get a panel and batteries suitable for the lights you get though. Depending on what you want to do, you shoud look into LED lighting, which is more efficient than incandescent. You do not want to drain your battery flat. Rather you want to draw only 2/3 of its capacity of so. You would find the lights you want (likely 2VDC), and add up the current they draw, and get a battery that would supply enough capacity (in AH, which is amps time hours) for a couple nights use (to account for weak solar days), and a solar panel to charge two days of use in one good day. You would use a charge controller so that the solar panel does not over charge the battery, and some sort of dusk timer to turn your lights on at dusk and off several hours later.
