Battery efficiencies for Solar LED lamp
Thursday, April 9th, 2009Hi Jeff,
I am building a solar LED lamp, and I am trying to find the overall efficiency of this system.
There are three options of rechargeable batteries that I am looking at and they are NiCd, NiMH and Li-ion. These three batteries have different efficiencies due to their different charge and discharge methods.
Can you tell me how can I find the efficiency of this batteries?
I was wondering if for each one of them I have to build a protection circuit as well.
Which battery will you recommend if I want it to be cost efficient and also reliable?
Thanks a lot.
Marion
Marion,
Several years ago I wrote an article to test which type of flashlight and flashlight bulb gave the most bang for the buck. This article describes how I tested them to see which battery-lamp combination provided the longest run time.
I suggest you try a similar test using the different batteries you are considering as this way you will not need expensive test equipment or calculations. Here is the link to this past article:
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/yago97.html
Good luck,
Jeff Yago
