Help...trying to light my 30' flagpole with a Solar light.

Hi there I have a 30' flagpole I'm putting up at my house. I have no way to run power to the pole due to the concrete drivway. Any idea on any ground solar lighting that would burn all night to keep my flag lit? I cannot do the pole mounted lighting due to mine is an internal halyard and the beads roll up and down the outside of the pole. Thanks so much in advance!

well, solar lighting that will burn all night and still light up the flag @ 30' is going to be tough with a small package. i would think a 3-5w Cree with a med spot would do it, but charging enough Li batts during the day would take a fairly large solar panel. i'm sure theres a package available out there that would be sufficient or easily modded enough to be so.
whats your size limit?
how bright do you want it to be? (what the ambient light like? would a med power spot be drowned out or is it in a dark location where little light goes a long way?)
how big's the flag you want to light? if it's small, a smaller spot would require less lm @ 30' but if it's big, lm's will need to be increased to cover a larger area at that distance and still be effective.

Maybe a battery/solor pack near the location of the pole with a light aimed up? Just a suggestion?

Most self contained solar powered garden spotlights I've seen available in hardware stores which use three 5mm LEDS (or sometimes, one big 8mm) are not going to be bright enough to light something more than a few feet away, let alone 30'.

The strongest one I know of is a 1 watt model that Home Depot sells for about 40$. I believe it comes in a yellow and blue box with the "Hampton Bay" brand name on it.


I made my own solar lighting system using some LED landscape lights that were originally intended to be connected to a 12 volt transformer but I used an old UPS Gel battery, a Morningstar "SunLight" controller, and a solar panel from a Harbor Freight kit to operate them. Tried a Malibu 2.5 watt LED "spotlight" that has a Cree XP-G but it had a very wide angle "flood" pattern which would be better for lighting a rock wall but not a tall flagpole. You probably could add some optics over the LED to narrow the beam.

yeah. I guess a solution is to mount a power supply near the target point and you may need to "make your own" light to get the results you want. A spot light that doesn't spot is useless. find a suitable light and go from there!

I dont have allot of ambient light around the area. Im lighting a Flag that is 5x8 Ill try a couple off diferent LED set ups and maybe overdrive them and see what happens Ill let you know!

doublepost

10w LED light, for example ebay auction 180814202565 or 200695166128, or flood version of the VisionX Solstice or Rigid Dually

Dusk:dawn solar charge controller, for example ebay auction 230742696909 or 200523615729. If you go with other charge controllers, add a 12v dusk:dawn sensor for the switch. You don't need the expense of MPPT for low watt LED light.

30w-40w 12v solar panel and a deep cycle or any group 24-31 battery you can source. Used solar panels are showing up in local classifieds, craigslist...

For low wattage lights, free salvage yard automotive batteries work fine. You don't need the expense of AGM/gel.... but Wallyworld has some good new 'marine batteries' at reasonable prices(Sams club, BJs, Costco...).

Wire it all together and you should be pretty good.

I think that you're better off building your own vs. buying something like ebay auction# 110814806735, 260852767315, or 260852760471

deadrx7conv said:

10w LED light, for example ebay auction 180814202565 or 200695166128, or flood version of the VisionX Solstice or Rigid Dually

Dusk:dawn solar charge controller, for example ebay auction 230742696909 or 200523615729. If you go with other charge controllers, add a 12v dusk:dawn sensor for the switch. You don't need the expense of MPPT for low watt LED light.

30w-40w 12v solar panel and a deep cycle or any group 24-31 battery you can source. Used solar panels are showing up in local classifieds, craigslist...

For low wattage lights, free salvage yard automotive batteries work fine. You don't need the expense of AGM/gel.... but Wallyworld has some good new 'marine batteries' at reasonable prices(Sams club, BJs, Costco...).

Wire it all together and you should be pretty good.

I think that you're better off building your own vs. buying something like ebay auction# 110814806735, 260852767315, or 260852760471

Click to expand...

If you do as the above poster states, you will have frequent outages and your batteries will be killed quick from lack of proper charging. Those 10W lights can be 11-12 watts. That 30-40W panel without an MPPT controller is more like a 25-30 watt panel. Those cheap batteries have 10-15% losses. Missouri can get down into 3.5 peak sun hours range ... * 30watts - losses = maybe 80-90 watt hours / night. If that 10 watt light is 12 watts, then you have maybe 7-8 hours during the winter. Battery does not charge properly and since you are not using a proper battery, it quickly dies.

Semiman

Mine works great with no outages. Battery is on year 3. Cobbling something together is easy and upgradeable as needed. Just about everything that I've purchased from lowes/homedepot was overpriced and under-performing. The 1 watt'er and any store bought spot/lawn light won't light a 5x8 flag at 30ft. The DIY'er can do better. For winter use, either up the solar panel or drop the 10w LED for a 5w one. Its not a big deal.

Semiman always trys to turn simple projects into rocket science. It isn't. And, the OP doesn't need to hire a consultant to build a simple flag pole light. The OP might have to tinker a little and re-aim the panel monthly for maximum sun, or use a larger panel, or a 2nd a battery. The OP will also learn and adapt for his location, budget, and expectations.

Semiman builds stuff that works the first time. I do this commercially, and I do it at home for my fun projects. Unfortunately some people are lazy and as opposed to doing a bit of research and learning how something works, prefer to throw crap at a wall and hope it sticks. The problem with that is it may stick once, on one type of wall ,but not always .... but that is someone elses problems. Perhaps your time is limitless, but the OP, is a person and telling him to do something that is not going to work and will actually end up costing him more money by frying batteries is not helpful.

Of course if you are using solar for lighting up something all night, then why would you want to "re-aim" for maximum sun? Set it at the best angle for winter use and forget about it.

rkboyer911, if you want something that will work, get yourself a 10W, 12V LED light knowing it may be more than that. Get an 80W solar panel. Then get a battery that is around 100AH (C\100) rate. Make sure it is an AGM battery or GEL battery designed for deep cycle.

For a charge controller, see if you can find a Phocos brand that has dusk/dawn control. They are more money than the ones on ebay, but still inexpensive. I can't suggest pairing up an expensive battery with a very low cost charge controller. It is just not worth it.

What this will give you is something that works reliably year round (maybe the odd outage) and will give you years of worry free operation. Depending on your battery you will get 3-5 years out of it, maybe even a bit more.

Semiman