We don't have electricity. We want to run a couple strings of led lights off of a battery and recharge with a solar panel. Where do we begin. I know it's possible but don't know exactly what we need. I know battery, solar panel and lights but do we need a inventor or some type? We want to be able to have lights without generator running all the time. Also would light it on a photo cell.

Might be easier to just pick up a couple solar powered flood lights from Harbor Freight.

No system is 100% efficient, meaning you will lose some energy by using a DC to AC power inverter. I would look for 12-volt lights that might be used in an RV. But if you have equipment that only runs on AC, a converter will be a must.

If there are times when more and brighter lights are needed, just create a separate setup with AC lights that connects to your generator.

They also have led string lights for pretty cheap, with attached small solar cell. We bought 3 and they put out a decent amount of light, but more like accent lighting, you wont be reading by them.

12-volt LED Flood Light

With an 18 watt power drain, this light will run for roughly 30 hours on a standard car battery. Two of them would last 15 hours, and so on. Take the wattage and divide by the voltage to get the current/amp usage.

A standard car battery supplies about 45 amp hours, which translates to 1 amp over 45 hours. A current drain of 2 amps equates to 22-1/2 hours, etc.

Oh yeah. Compare lumens output to judge light brightness. And solar panels cannot touch the time it will take to recharge the battery with an AC-powered charger. A good solar panel might put out an amp on a bright, sunny day, while some AC chargers can be cranked up to 6 amps or more.

Hope this helps.

A handful of solar powered landscape lights might work, I hunt hogs using them all of the time, and they last for several hours.

These are the ones we got, they do last a while.

http://www.harborfreight.com/solar-rope-light-68353.html

Buy a $99 generator from HF, put it a ways away from where the conversation is and have all the light you want. You are going to need a few batteries in order to run the lights you want, and by the time you buy the batteries and solar panels and inverters you could've bought a generator and enough fuel for the season

This ^^^^^ Buy them at WallyWorld cheap.

Here is a thread I ran 3 years ago about our LED lights. They are still going strong. We did replace the solar charger for a better one than the first one we bought.

http://texashuntingforum.com/forum/ubbth...cam#Post4680926

I noticed that Northern Tool and Equipment does offer solar panels that match the output of an AC powered battery charger, but at about the same price for what you'll pay for a generator.

There's no question the low power consumption of LED lighting makes this type of setup much more effective than traditional lighting. Just compare the lumens output and wattage needed and you should be fine, keeping in mind that a standard car battery will supply roughly 24 watts for about 20 hours. Marine batteries will do much better. That could be plenty to run lights over an entire weekend and leave time for a good solar panel to recharge the battery between visits.

Use a deep cycle battery, it will tolerate being charged and discharge much better than a car battery. Also if your solar panel puts out more than 2 amps you will need a charge controller.

However you could buy one of the small quite generators off craigslist for less dollars.

The small, Harbor Freight generator puts out about 1000 watts and has a two-cycle motor that requires a 50:1 gas/oil mix.

I have one and can honestly say it never cranks on the first pull. It fact, on cold days it can take several minutes of pulling to get it started.

Yes, Craig's List is a great place to find a generator for a good price.

use some solar, for serious light deep cycle battery

I've got a wireless video camera set up on my hog trap that I can view from the TV in the trailer. I got tired of messing with charging the battery for the camera all the time, so I bought this kit:

Solar

And one of these:

Photocell

Now, the camera comes on automatically, runs all night, and shuts off shortly after dawn. Then the solar panel charges the battery by the early afternoon the next day. You could easily do the same with LED lights. So for a hundred bucks or so, plus the cost of the battery, you get to listen to the sounds of camp as opposed to the noise of a generator.

At our lease we have ac lighting but at home I have these 200 LED (72') copper wire string over my pool area in my backyard. While they are not very bright as far as normal ac lighting, they do light the area to where you can see the ground and walk. They stay the same power all night long on the solar panel supplied as long as you have it in sunlight most of the day to charge. They use very littler power. I have other ac and dc, and solar lighting around the pool as well, but don't want to have to turn them on just to go out there for a minute. The other solar lights end up going dim and or out in a few hours, some last until morning, but these stay on until the sun come up and shut off. I put them up in May of this year and they still work the same to this date.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/WEANAS-72ft-Sola...=item33b30d3b9e

Northern tool equipment is cheap chit! Their warranty system and "mechanics" are bologna! I would not buy anything there unless you plan on loosing breaking or not worried about.

Solar powered landscape lights won't put out this kind of light. This is 5' of the 10' strip I bought from LED City. The other 5' strip lights up the inside of the trailer very well.

How about propane lanterns?

I second the double mantle propane lantern. Very bright....

This. I got my on sale for $90. Runs a long time on very little mixed gas. Puts out plenty of power for lighting, coffee pots, electric skillets or even running a power saw or drill if needed. I've even run an electric chainsaw on mine to trim limbs. Fairly quiet. Put it 40 or 50 feet away with an extension cord run to the lights. Put a pallet standing up between you and it and the noise is reduced even more. Will work great.

Yes, it can be testy to crank but turning off the fuel valve and running the carb dry when you shut it down improves that issue.