# Cheap Solar ideas



## Maine-Marine (Mar 7, 2014)

If you have a local junk yard you can pull the smaller back up lights from vehicles or depending on cost the interior dome lights for use with your solar set up.. they are already 12 volt

check with your local battery store and see if they have any "good" deep cell batteries... they usually pay 20¢ a pound back to the customer for a core charge.. see if you can pick them up for 25¢ ($7 could net you a 55 Amp Hour Bat)

Ebay has some great deals on LED Lights


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## Camel923 (Aug 13, 2014)

Interesting concept Maine-Marine.


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## Mozingo (Oct 9, 2015)

I'm just going to run automotive led strips for interior and fog/floodlights exterior all led


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## Grim Reality (Mar 19, 2014)

Maybe you all know this one...but certainly some won't.

Ya know those "Yard Lights" that charge during the day and then provide light during the evening
to light the path up your walkway? They have a perfect setup inside dedicated to charging a simple
AA battery. Pull out the cheapo battery they come with and replace it with a name brand rechargeable
and you have a ready means of keeping charged AA's always available. Elegant really. Just be sure you
remove your batteries from the mechanisms before the dark hours, which is when the "lighting circuit"
begins working...discharging the battery. In a grid-down situation you can bring them indoors as the
sun is setting to provide you with several hours of light. Meager though it may be, I can imagine there
are those who would be glad to have it.

They can be bought new, of course, but I make a habit of picking them up whenever I see them at
garage/yard sales. CHEAP!

Another solar tip which has seen a lot of mileage but is none-the-less valid. If you want an
inexpensive way to heat water for a shower (a short shower!), carefully coil up a black garden hose
on your Southern facing roof and wait till the evening, of an otherwise sunny day, to drain the water
out and through an improptu shower head. Don't laugh...IT WORKS! The water may be hotter 
than you can tolerate. A means of keeping the hose in place on the roof is necessay, but can be
easily contrived.

Of course I cannot vouch for it's efficacy during the winter!. YMMV.

Grim


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## GTGallop (Nov 11, 2012)

Maine-Marine said:


> If you have a local junk yard you can pull the smaller back up lights from vehicles or depending on cost the interior dome lights for use with your solar set up.. they are already 12 volt
> 
> check with your local battery store and see if they have any "good" deep cell batteries... they usually pay 20¢ a pound back to the customer for a core charge.. see if you can pick them up for 25¢ ($7 could net you a 55 Amp Hour Bat)
> 
> Ebay has some great deals on LED Lights


If you look for a motor home in a junk yard you can find a lit of good 12 LED lights that were in the interior.


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## whoppo (Nov 9, 2012)

We've got a bank of Odyssey batteries in the house to power the non-vintage ham gear. In addition to keeping the TS2000X and shack lights alive, we also ran a 12 volt bus, using 4 ga wire, the length of the house.
This powers several RV LED light fixtures mounted in the hallway and each room, external motion sensing LED floodlights and security cameras.

We use Anderson PowerPole connectors throughout the system... easy to work with and reliable.

The batteries were the only real expensive part of the system, but as MM suggested, your local battery shop might have some used SLA/AGM batteries available for cheap money.


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## Ralph Rotten (Jun 25, 2014)

Maine, that is a very cool concept. It saves the whole hassle of converting to house power for something so essential. All you have to do is figure out how to charge a car battery (or a UPS battery) and thats easy enough.

For my b-day i am getting a small inverter and a folding 10w solar cell. Hook them all to a UPS battery and i have a portable, renewable power source that will charge a laptop or run my vaporizer along the trail. Slight weight penalty, but then my pack always weighs in around 80 lbs or more (100 when we are not going to be on a water source).


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## tinkerhell (Oct 8, 2014)

http://www.banggood.com/buy/white-led-strip.html

You might want to buy these strips by the roll. They can be cut into strips of 3 leds or keep the entire roll as 1 piece. They take 12V.

At $10, your time might be better spent prepping something else instead of roaming a junk yard looking for leds.


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## tinkerhell (Oct 8, 2014)

I'm installing some under my kitchen cupboards and all of my closets, but the prepper in me hasn't missed the possibilities


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