The maintainer circuit.

[eisnad karm]

Just a thought
take the led out and put one of those cheap tritium light keyrings in (they go for years ) and see how fast the battery charges up
mark

[eisnad karm]

@romerouk
Have you tried putting a second solar pannel on so you sandwich the tubes? Would be good to see how fast it charges a battery or if it can run an external led light of a few.
Mark

[romerouk]

@romerouk
Have you tried putting a second solar pannel on so you sandwich the tubes? Would be good to see how fast it charges a battery or if it can run an external led light of a few.
Mark

I have just made myself a solar pannel from 6 sollar cells each 0.55v/4w.I will take some pictures.
I have placed this cells on acrylic sheet 3mm and I have the tubes on the sides of the acrylic.This way the light is spread uniform.All I can say is that the batteries(2x1.2v) are never running down.In complete darkness the battery stays charged, actually goes up a bit but very slow.

[eisnad karm]

@romerouk
thanks for the explanation. I look forward to the pictures
i am looking at doing something similar using high efficent triple junction cells.
I am also thinking of perhaps using a special fresnal lnese to concertrate the light.
In theory the batteries should run down in complete darkness. What is the maximum time to have run it in darkness (put a box over it?
I gather you are using a JT device?
Kind Regards
mark

[romerouk]

I have 4 tubes inside, one for each side.I have used only 2 but I am looking to connect all 4.
The frame is from a large computer screen and the plastic used from the same source.