Solar power question

ReefQueen · May 28, 2016

Does anyone know if LEDs would work with solar powered things? I found some dirt cheap clip on solar powered fans that would be perfect for above the tanks to deal with this heat, but I am not sure if they will work. I figure they will turn on automatically during the day when it is hottest, and turn off at night when not needed, then i wont have to plug them into the reefkeeper. I may just order 2 of them to see what happens

ngvu1 · May 28, 2016

Depending on the output of the solar panel right? And the power consumption of the LED you are using.

Waterjockey · May 28, 2016

Well, they use visible spectrum light, so they theoretically can. Just not sure how useful they would be to power a fan from just hood lights. They are still extremely inefficent. Take however many watts you lights put out and multipy by 2% or 3% or so. That's what you would get from the panels if powered only by your rank lights.
Dropped a bag of ice in my sump tonite. Dropped a few degrees off fairly quickly

Cheers!

AllSignsPointToFish · May 28, 2016

A good solar panel, operating at peak efficiency, would produce maybe 200W. I would hazard a guess that a typical reef aquarium would require 4-5 of these to operate normally... with all solar panels operating at peak efficiency 24 hours a day. Probably not a realistic scenario.

Waterjockey · May 28, 2016

AllSignsPointToFish said:
A good solar panel, operating at peak efficiency, would produce maybe 200W. I would hazard a guess that a typical reef aquarium would require 4-5 of these to operate normally... with all solar panels operating at peak efficiency 24 hours a day. Probably not a realistic scenario.

The OP said a clip-on solar powered fan....200 watts? Not a chance. 200 milliwatts mebbe

Cheers!

Triggreef · May 28, 2016

AllSignsPointToFish said:
A good solar panel, operating at peak efficiency, would produce maybe 200W. I would hazard a guess that a typical reef aquarium would require 4-5 of these to operate normally... with all solar panels operating at peak efficiency 24 hours a day. Probably not a realistic scenario.

Waterjockey said:
The OP said a clip-on solar powered fan....200 watts? Not a chance. 200 milliwatts mebbe

Cheers!

That's not true anyway, I have 315w panels on my house. I made something like 2.19 mega watts last month. Still owed 6 dollars. Lol

ReefQueen · May 28, 2016

Darn, I was so hopeful I wouldn't have to waste a plug on the reefkeeper lol. Oh well, back to chopping up egg crate so I can take the glass hoods off the tanks

one down, one to go!

Waterjockey · May 28, 2016

Triggreef said:
That's not true anyway, I have 315w panels on my house. I made something like 2.19 mega watts last month. Still owed 6 dollars. Lol

Are you sure it was *mega*watts? That is an impressive solar system for a house.

Cheers!

Triggreef · May 28, 2016

Well then whatever Mwh stands for. Mega watt hours I guess. I made 2.16 of those.

AllSignsPointToFish · May 28, 2016

Triggreef said:
That's not true anyway, I have 315w panels on my house. I made something like 2.19 mega watts last month. Still owed 6 dollars. Lol

Must've been a good month. I'm betting you can't count on that every month

AllSignsPointToFish · May 28, 2016

MWh must be thousands of kwh. in other words, you made about 2000 Kwh, enough to power a small household...also about half of what is needed here in the south...Lol...assuming you like air conditioning, of course.

Waterjockey · May 28, 2016

Triggreef said:
Well then what does Mwh stand for? Cuz I made 2.16 of those.

My apologies. I edited my reply...probably around the same time youreplied to my knee-jerk reply ...I was thinking megawatts-per-hour.....not per month when I originally said "no way". Then I realized that probably sounded rude (not my intent), edited it...but you had already seen it and replied.

Nice sized solar setup...would like to know more about it. Again....sorry...as I work in the power industry, I automatically assumed megawatts *per hour*, not thinking over a month.

Cheers!

Triggreef · May 28, 2016

AllSignsPointToFish said:
Must've been a good month. I'm betting you can't count on that every month

Well on the ot, I hope it's better over the summer so I can get credits carry me through the winter.

Triggreef · May 28, 2016

Lol

Waterjockey said:
My apologies. I edited my reply...probably around the same time youreplied to my knee-jerk reply ...I was thinking megawatts-per-hour.....not per month when I originally said "no way". Then I realized that probably sounded rude (not my intent), edited it...but you had already seen it and replied.

Nice sized solar setup...would like to know more about it. Again....sorry...as I work in the power industry, I automatically assumed megawatts *per hour*, not thinking over a month.

Cheers!

Lol no offense taken. I also edited mine right after I posted it for the same reason. I'm still learning the solar lingo my system was only installed in December. That's my best month so far by a lot.

Also, it's 58 panels. LG is the make, all have micro inverters. 25 yr warranty on the inverters. And 20 yr on the panels I think. It's supposed to cover 101 percent of my usage for the year. The cost of the loan is about what my electric bill was, maybe a little more. Obviously the faster I pay it off the more sense it makes in the long run. This month my pool pump and central air comes on so I'm hoping it does better.

Waterjockey · May 28, 2016

Triggreef said:
Lol

Lol no offense taken. I also edited mine right after I posted it for the same reason. I'm still learning the solar lingo my system was only installed in December. That's my best month so far by a lot.

And still owe the power company a few bucks....crazy. lol. I'd love to ask more about your system, but won't derail the op's thread with anymore ot stuff.

Cheers!

AllSignsPointToFish · May 28, 2016

Triggreef said:
Lol

Lol no offense taken. I also edited mine right after I posted it for the same reason. I'm still learning the solar lingo my system was only installed in December. That's my best month so far by a lot.

Also, it's 58 panels. LG is the make, all have micro inverters. 25 yr warranty on the inverters. And 20 yr on the panels I think. It's supposed to cover 101 percent of my usage for the year. The cost of the loan is about what my electric bill was, maybe a little more. Obviously the faster I pay it off the more sense it makes in the long run. This month my pool pump and central air comes on so I'm hoping it does better.

I hope the maintenance costs over the loan period don't offset any potential savings.

As you can probably tell, I'm a skeptic. lol

ReefQueen · May 28, 2016

Waterjockey said:
And still owe the power company a few bucks....crazy. lol. I'd love to ask more about your system, but won't derail the op's thread with anymore ot stuff.

Cheers!

Derail away, my question was already answered and we don't want a perfectly good thread to go to waste lol. I too am curious.

nano · May 28, 2016

Cooling fans would be good to use if using halide lighting.

Isaac_P._Martinez · May 28, 2016

ReefQueen said:
Does anyone know if LEDs would work with solar powered things? I found some dirt cheap clip on solar powered fans that would be perfect for above the tanks to deal with this heat, but I am not sure if they will work. I figure they will turn on automatically during the day when it is hottest, and turn off at night when not needed, then i wont have to plug them into the reefkeeper. I may just order 2 of them to see what happens

You could use a splitter on one of the PC4 outlets so when your daytime lights turn on so does a small fan. That's what I did for a short while until I bought a chiller.