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Charger and Camplight.
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
I built my camplight with it being powered by a lithium battery, which have many benefits over other battery types, except for charging.
Lithium batteries have to be charged with a controller built into the charger because if they have a spike or overcharged, even just once, the battery's stuffed!
If you are using a lithium battery less than 12 volts, you can usually get a 12v cigarette lighter charger designed to charge your lithium battery, that's if you're carrying some sort of 12 volt battery in your kayak.
But if you are using a lithium battery of 12 volts or above, you can't charge it from your 12 volt battery in your kayak. You could charge it from a solar panel, but then you need to have a controller between the solar panel and battery, otherwise you'll 'fry' your battery.
I have controllers (Maximum Power Point Tracker) between my two main batteries that supply the power to 'my world' out in the kayak. Click here to see. These aren't cheep, so I thought if there was another way I could charge the camp light. I looked at pulling my battery packs apart and modifying them to be able to switch the solar panel over from the main battery to my camplight. This was achievable, but it was still going to cost a bit for the switches and waterproof plugs needed to get the job done.
You might by now be thinking why did I go with a 12 volt lithium battery and not a lower voltage? Well to answer that question is that the LED light configurations are designed to replace interior lights in a car, hence the 12 volts.
The battery itself came with a small 240 volt charger and I started to think if there was someway I could use it to charge the battery out in the kayak. That then got me thinking about an inverter, but all the inverters I'd seen before were too big for what I wanted to achieve.
But after some surfing on the good old internet and eBay, I found an inverter just right for the job and not much bigger than a packet of cigarettes. For just $5 and a couple more for postage from Hong Kong, the problem was solved!
The unit is a 75W 12v-220v inverter so it could even charge a computer battery, but no run it. For $5 it's a much cheaper option than buying a 12v laptop charger that start at around $100.
Features:
Input voltage range: DC 11V-15V
Output voltage range: AC 220V
Max, output power: 100W
Continuous output power: 75W
Over voltage shutdown: DC 15V-16V
Low voltage shutdown: DC 10V-10.5V
USB out put: DC 5V
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| 75W 12v-220v Inverter. |
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| Charging the Camplight from my power source. |
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