OUR president Bush made filament bulbs illegal.. discontinued them.. not much luck with the expensive 120 volt LED light bulbs so far. With the 12 volt dc ones, they have been working great.
I put in a solar panel, Used this 100 watt Renogy panel, connected it to a cheap chinese battery charger-minder in the basement. It has voltage monitoring that will turn off a load if the battery goes too low. (suck the bottom from a battery and it does not last as long), A RV deep discharge battery, (largest one I could find)
Looking for lights, I first had bought 120 volt LED bulbs.. lasted less than a month. I tore it apart to see what happened. THEY..seeing each led had a 1.5 volt drop across it, had series wired them all in rails till they got to 120 volts.. trouble is, was.. if one fails they all fail.. (remember the Christmas lights of the 60s?)
My wife and I started deciding what we want in our home, (not a fancy place).
I wanted post type lamps to move around, heavy bottom, selectable diffuser, since the 48 SMD led's are so bright you see burn marks if you stare at them.. harsh light.. hard to read a book by..
I have been learning how to program a arduino, got my first one a couple weeks ago.. IT IS very easy to produce a pwm (pulse width modulated) signal..
Only problem is, not enough current to do any "real work". SO.. enter the OLD electrician "pass transistor" thinking.. where a small transistor does not go to the load, but triggers a larger transistor..
Ran last night since dusk.. much reduced power, meaning less battery consumption. Thoughts are to monitor battery voltage, have a ac-dc pwr option also to switch to power line current. We discussed motion timers.. too complicated.. and when I build complication in trouble arises.
Parts, (1)Arduino UNO $12-16, (2)LCDKeypad $12-20, (3)Opto22 Pb4 off ebay cheap, (4)opto22 odc5 module off ebay cheap, (5)48SMD LED array $13 for 5 off ebay. (6)EITHER a transformer-dc pwr, or a battery to drive them.
Instead of using the keypad to vary the outputs for each room? we are thinking of using potentiometers. Just rolling the dial up and down to dim. Instead of doing lots of control wires, for right now I am going to mount them centrally over the thermostat with the control pots there. (not a big house)
If some of you guys with more experience on the arduino come up with a wireless way to talk, ie remote.. add your comments..
FOR you guys with less electrical experience, I can post the code and a diagram if you like.