Getting your car charged with flourescent
Discussion
hi, Dream that:
you have a car with a solar panel. But it is late night and you need to charge your car's batteries for the morning. You have only light source which is a flourescent lamp.
Would this solve your problem? Can you use flourescent lamp to charge your panels? What is the efficiency of the flourescent lamp compared to sunlight?
Have a good day.
you have a car with a solar panel. But it is late night and you need to charge your car's batteries for the morning. You have only light source which is a flourescent lamp.
Would this solve your problem? Can you use flourescent lamp to charge your panels? What is the efficiency of the flourescent lamp compared to sunlight?
Have a good day.
There are two issues: wavelength and intensity. The artificial light is much lower intensity than sunlight, solar cells also will only generate electricity from certain wavelengths of light... The the artificial light doesn't emit, or doesn't emit strongly in this range of the spectrum, then the solar cells will generate little power.
If you have the electricity to run a flourescent lamp, why not just plug in a battery charger?
Flourescent lights are very efficient which means there is very little waste energy emitted. So regardless of wave-length (which is important)you are unlikely to get much of a charge from one.
If you must persist with your indirect way of charging try an ordinary bulb. It won't be much better but it will keep you amused.
Flourescent lights are very efficient which means there is very little waste energy emitted. So regardless of wave-length (which is important)you are unlikely to get much of a charge from one.
If you must persist with your indirect way of charging try an ordinary bulb. It won't be much better but it will keep you amused.
Locknut said:
If you have the electricity to run a flourescent lamp, why not just plug in a battery charger?
Flourescent lights are very efficient which means there is very little waste energy emitted. So regardless of wave-length (which is important)you are unlikely to get much of a charge from one.
If you must persist with your indirect way of charging try an ordinary bulb. It won't be much better but it will keep you amused.
That makes no sense at all, since solar panels primarily use light in the visible spectrum, not the infra-red end of the spectrum which a conventional filament lamp is good at emitting.Flourescent lights are very efficient which means there is very little waste energy emitted. So regardless of wave-length (which is important)you are unlikely to get much of a charge from one.
If you must persist with your indirect way of charging try an ordinary bulb. It won't be much better but it will keep you amused.
The bottom line is that the light from a fluorescent tube, even a big one is very low compared to sunlight. Average insolation during the day is about 250 W/m^2, maximum is about 1000 W/m^2 on a clear day. Even a modern, large flourescent lamp (e.g. an 80 watt tube) will only going to provide a tiny amount of power to the area of cells that would be used to charge an electric car.
As others have said, if you have the electricity to power the fluorescent tube it would be vastly more efficient to use it to charge the batteries directly.
Gassing Station | Engines & Drivetrain | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff