Preparing for his 28 month Peace Corps stint, my son and I this weekend put together a highly sophisticated sound system for him to bring.
Electronics were dictated by what was around; enclosure volume was carefully derived from the size of his new hiking shoes. A friend, Solar Schoolhouse in Sebastopol, CA donated the modules for the power source. Pictures here:
SHOEBOOMBOX
50-year old front panel on/off switch from my late dad's basement, stereo mini front input jack from the rat shack... Amps are some little 7W Vellemann kits that had been kicking around. Drivers came with some 6x9's for my daughter's Jeep - 3" dash speakers that I didn't replace. The panels came with 6' leads that I patched together into a long power cord so he can have the box inside and the panel outside.
There's a auto cig. lighter socket with a usb power adapter inside for charging stuff, or for any other accessories that plug into a cigarette lighter. A small gel cell is protected by a simple charge controller and low voltage cutoff both scavenged from one of my sculptures. Finished it at midnight and got up at 430 a.m. to drive him to the airport. i think it has a 50/50 chance of surviving the trip to somewhere remote in Panama...and hopefully it works
Electronics were dictated by what was around; enclosure volume was carefully derived from the size of his new hiking shoes. A friend, Solar Schoolhouse in Sebastopol, CA donated the modules for the power source. Pictures here:
SHOEBOOMBOX
50-year old front panel on/off switch from my late dad's basement, stereo mini front input jack from the rat shack... Amps are some little 7W Vellemann kits that had been kicking around. Drivers came with some 6x9's for my daughter's Jeep - 3" dash speakers that I didn't replace. The panels came with 6' leads that I patched together into a long power cord so he can have the box inside and the panel outside.
There's a auto cig. lighter socket with a usb power adapter inside for charging stuff, or for any other accessories that plug into a cigarette lighter. A small gel cell is protected by a simple charge controller and low voltage cutoff both scavenged from one of my sculptures. Finished it at midnight and got up at 430 a.m. to drive him to the airport. i think it has a 50/50 chance of surviving the trip to somewhere remote in Panama...and hopefully it works
Thanks - those controllers don't have any low voltage protection so I added a little board of my own on the other side that cuts out around 12V.
Yep, exactly. The solar charge controller is between the panel and the battery, and the lvc is between the battery and the amps. If the voltage drops below a set value it cuts out and has hysteresis such that it doesn't reconnect until a higher voltage than the cut-out voltage.
I don't recall the cut off voltage of the charge controller but it's too low to charge flooded cells correctly. Good for SLA's I figure..
You shouldn't damage your battery with that set up. Great design! Have you tested the run time before the limiter shuts things down? Just curious.. 😉
You shouldn't damage your battery with that set up. Great design! Have you tested the run time before the limiter shuts things down? Just curious.. 😉
Not at all, finished it midnight Sunday and got up at 4:30 a.m. to drive him to the airport. The battery came to me low so I'm not sure it's any good, and we didn't get to test the solar panel in the sun. I tested it with some halogen work lights to make sure it put out correct voltage which it did, hoping it works! He's there as of last night so maybe he'll have a chance to set it up today.
p.s. those little morningstars don't have any l.v. cutoff, just charge control. I added my own lvc that cuts out hopefully around 12V. The next model up (the 10 amp one) has lvc.
Did get a text from him that he was able to find a fresh battery and install it, and that it worked. Asked him to test it without the battery to determine whether the panel has enough oomph to power the amps or not. If not I'll buy and send him something with more output.
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