Offsite garage solar lighting - spec me up!

[Vegelen]

Danesol,

It would be really useful if you could post a night time photo of your LED Floodlight in action to show us how bright it is....

Is your house now identifiable to the US military in North Cheshire via satellite imaging by a white blinding light?

 

[solarfred]

I think we are talking 12 volt off grid system here so a mains fed Flood will need an inverter and a solar panel. Plus the fact a 30watt led flood will not give the same light output as a 500 watt halogen. You mentioned 300 watts but now it's 500 watts. Have you compared them ? LED sellers have an amazing ability to "see the light" . Reality needs to kick in so customers are not fobbed off with hype.

 

[Vegelen]

With LED lights the equivalent power output of a light tends to be x5 - x6 the consumed LED power output.
Thus I'd expect a 30 Watt LED flood to output 180W equivalence if it is Warm White 3000K.
If the LED light is very white - 5000K i'd expect the LED light's equivalent power to look higher.
Many reviewers of these 30W LED Security lights are saying that they are equivalent to 300W which seems a tad high.

 

[danesol]

With LED lights the equivalent power output of a light tends to be x5 - x6 the consumed LED power output.
Thus I'd expect a 30 Watt LED flood to output 180W equivalence if it is Warm White 3000K.
If the LED light is very white - 5000K i'd expect the LED light's equivalent power to look higher.
Many reviewers of these 30W LED Security lights are saying that they are equivalent to 300W which seems a tad high.

Well I'm impressed and also re-ordered I think personally they are that good - my three floodlights were 500watts each and Ive replaced with 3 x 30w LED floodlights - so vast saving when the cats go by every hour on the hour - lol !

The only real criticism I have is that the PIR unit is too close to the actual unit, so you cant get the total flexibility some may require ( although they say you should cross the path of light instead of the same direction if that makes sense ), so IMO in some circumstances it would be best to order a non PIR version and wire in a standalone PIR, the price differential isnt that much difference when you can get good PIR's for around a fiver now

 

[danesol]

I think we are talking 12 volt off grid system here so a mains fed Flood will need an inverter and a solar panel. Plus the fact a 30watt led flood will not give the same light output as a 500 watt halogen. You mentioned 300 watts but now it's 500 watts. Have you compared them ? LED sellers have an amazing ability to "see the light" . Reality needs to kick in so customers are not fobbed off with hype.

If the OP has main electric in this barn/garage, Yes he would need to look at the solutions been put forward, otherwise if he has mains electric, its not worth all the messing about with IMO and would pay to get these mains LED units instead.........

Sorry when I was first looking at them, I looked at the 20watt LED version which they claim to be equil' to 300watts, I ordered the 30watt LED versions which they state are equil' to 500watts

IMO they are more or less the same and as stated above have 3 units now replacing 3 x 500watt ( very expensive ) floodlights !

Happy customer - just hope they last....................

 

[danesol]

Could of brought one or more of these off the shelf, the unit inside and the solar panel outside facing South;

LIDL Northern Ireland - lidl-ni.co.uk

Were on sale in the UK 2 wks ago @ £29.99, so no longer on UK site, although some stores may still have some ?


Selling same units at Maplins - for nearly double the price;

LED Solar Floodlight with PIR : Solar Shed Lights : Maplin Electronics

After using for a few weeks now - these unit however arent as good IMO as the mains supply 30watt LED units mentioned above, but they would be OK for internal use, which you could do.........

 

[Vegelen]

Prices on these 30W LED Security Floodlights are prohibitive for what they are. i.e £50+

Prices are certain to rapidly fall as they get embraced by the mass market.

Hopefully they will halve in price to £25+ as the market adopts them.

Once bought I can see their energy saving potential i.e 300W > 30W per floodlight.

 

[Worcester]

The only real criticism I have is that the PIR unit is too close to the actual unit, so you cant get the total flexibility some may require ( although they say you should cross the path of light instead of the same direction if that makes sense )

That's the way PIR's work, they have a number of sensors pointing in different directions and look for changes between them, if you walk straight toward them up a 'sight path' they won't detect. It's a function of the way PIR's are built, hence why you shouldn't use them in corridors...

If you want line of sight interaction you need microwave sensors... Another reason why you should use microwave sensors in toilets and offices - sit still and the PIR doesn't see you. - every seen anyone waving above the cubicle to turn the lights back on

 

[danesol]

Prices on these 30W LED Security Floodlights are prohibitive for what they are. i.e £50+

Prices are certain to rapidly fall as they get embraced by the mass market.

Hopefully they will halve in price to £25+ as the market adopts them.

Once bought I can see their energy saving potential i.e 300W > 30W per floodlight.

I'm doing this for you as I know you like a financial calculation/statement in backup - lol

500watt Halogen costs 7.5p/hr to run ( assuming most pay 15p/kwhr )

so to get initially your capitol back I recon' it would take say 4yrs as follows;


at 500watt thats 666hrs useage for £ 50.00

so if you have your timer set to 10mins on activation thats 666 x 60mins = 39,960mins

divide that by 10mins at a go so thats 3,996 activations

Should your floodlights come on say 3 times in the night at 10mins ago thats 1095 activations

Therefore 3996/1095 = time taken to recoup your money.... alone

30watt LED costs 0.0045p to run per hr, so funny enough it takes 33.3hrs to use up 15pence, as opposed to a mere 2hrs using the 500watt halagen !

So the ongoing costs are very low...........................