Hey I’m mark in today’s project. We’re, going to be hooking up solder to run a solar-powered nightlight for our chickens. We’re, going to be using a deep-cycle lead-acid battery. It’s, a gel filled. I got this for free from a company that works on electric wheelchairs and stuff electric wheelchair has two batteries, and when one battery goes bad, they automatically replaced both, even though there’s, nothing wrong with it.
This is about a 70 amp hour battery. I’m, going to be running a little LED, 4 watt light mr16 base and you want to go with a red light. Nightlight for chickens, a white light chickens will spot imperfections on each other.
They see a little red dot or something on their neighbor and chicken. They’re sleeping. They’ll peck it now. We start getting sores so use a red light. They can & # 39, t, see it and and they’ll sleep be fine charge controller were using a little 10 amp, fairly inexpensive $ 20 real simple to hook up, and it has a picture of a solar panel positive negative, your bottom bus, Positive negative on the battery and then to your life.
It also has a built-in photo cell sensor that will turn itself on at dark and shut itself off in the morning and light you can set different controls if you want it to come on for two hours. Only after dark or, however, you wanted the solar panel is.
When I made myself, I build these frames and sell the frames and glass on the internet at the website and also eBay. This is going to be a pole mount. We also sell these kits pole. Mount kits for these frames and also Universal home mount kits that will work your panel.
It will simply just sit on the pole. It’s, a it’s a fencepost. Can you simply adjust it south and angle it at the right angle for the right time of year will get it everything wired up. I’m, going to keep all my controls, batteries and everything on the outside of the coop and out of the weather.
We we hose down the inside of our coop every so often so I didn’t want to put anything on the inside and worry about it getting wet all right. We’re hooking up the positive side to the busbar here. Just simple connection: red for positive and black for negative.
Alright, we’re hooking, the positive wire to the battery it just slides in the little slot you unscrew the screw, and then you slide it in the slot. Then you simply tighten it down. It’s, got a little picture of a battery with a positive sign.
So you really no brainer really easy to do all right. We got the controller hooked up. Solid, green light means my battery is charged. If this one is blinking, I believe the speed of the blink lets me know the charge level so the faster it blinks, the closer it is to be in full, and this button is used for tests.
So you can see the light is on and I have it set on zero zero. Has it the light coming on from dusk to dawn, which is what I want all right. We got it all hooked up. You can see the wires going up to the charge controller down to the battery.
I just used some wires. I had leftover, it’s, only a three amps coming out of the panel and not even a half an act going to the light. I just placed the light up on the shelf just sitting there, so I can move it unplug it and get a new bulb if I need and move it out of the way when I’m hosing off inside of the coop.
Well, the light came on about 15 minutes ago, just a little after dark it’s, a 8 watt beau LED and it is it’s way too bright. I turned the light. The other way I have to get another bulb for it may be just a to water or something they don’t quite need that much light.
I still have them in the brooder right now, under the heat light anyway, so another month they won’t need that light anymore. So I & # 39. Ll have to order me a little too light bulb appreciate ya’ll, watching thanks
