How effective are they, obviously they will only work when the sun shines? Also how long will the last, do they break down quite quickly, or are they reliable? Any other help, such as good source,would be appreciated. It is not practical to run electricity to the proposed pond. TIA
Ours was very good, we propose to re-instate it. We bought it many years ago, they're probably much cheaper now. It stopped when the filter became clogged.
We're also going to install a solar hot waterwith a solar powered pump.
Mary
We have a solar system like that in Italy which I built. The pump used is an LVM "Niagara" which gives a 1 bar head, more than adequate for a circulating pump in such a system and also useful for a fountain. The pumps are submersible and continually rated so should be fine for use in a garden pond. They can either be dropped into the water "as is" or installed as an inline pump.
I found that they work well with a 40W photovoltaic panel, cost of pump and panel is about £150-170 depending on where you shop.
Ours was/is submersible and the claim was that it would raise water to a metre.We only raised it to about two feet, so that it then trickled over stones back into the pond.
Ours was nothing like as much as that - including the panel.
They must be cheaper now.We got a panel which trickle charges the caravan leisure battery in the caravan for £10 from Maplins.
Mary
Err yes, but you've already said that your pump would only raise water to a metre, a 1bar pump will raise water 10 metres and in this case it will do so at a rate of 3 gallons per minute. It's also safe to use with water up to 80C, i.e. it is made out of durable materials.
£130 for a 40W panel is very cheap, £3.25 per watt. For comparison the unit you bought from Maplins supplies less than 1 watt and therefore cost if you got it for the price that you said cost you £10 per watt. The panel that you have, I'm sorry to say will, do almost nothing for your leisure battery. It may well draw more current from it the battery at night than it supplies during the day unless you fit it with a Schottky blocking diode. Even then 80mA isn't really worth bothering with. I think you may have forgotten how much you paid BTW, Maplin only seem to list one unit anywhere near that price, a 1W unit at £19.99.I do have one of these units, I wouldn't reccomend them to anyone. It has been useful as a toy and for experimenting with but it's useless for charging a battery and doesn't provide enough current to operate a pump.
Maplin's price for a 50W unit is £300 BTW, so the price I mentioned was a lot lower than the nearest Maplin equivalent.
Fair enough, that's all we wanted. In those days it was quite exceptional, I would expect things to have got better.
Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you but it does. It's our van and our panel, we know. I can't be bothered looking for the rating but you're making assumptions which aren't supported.
It was a special offer, someone on this group pointed it out. I also bought an electronic min/max thermometer at the same time which does splendid duty in the greenhouse.
Look, I'm not an apologist for Maplins, I don't like the place nowadays. But these two items were exceptions which proved the rule and it was a few years ago.
It can't. Anymore than a gnat can lift an elephant up a cliff on a strand of spider silk.
No I'm not. You would need a current of about an amp to keep a caravan battery (usually 100AH - 115AH) topped up. There's no way that you could buy a 12 watt PV panel for £10, ever. And as posted the price of even a 1 watt panel (which is inadequate even to maintain a charge in a leisure battery) is twice what you paid.
I suspect that you don't have a means of determining the charge in the battery accurately. FWIW, once charged the leisure battery in my boat will hold its charge dropping to about 70% over six months if compeltely isolated. I suggest that like Drivel's scale inhibitor your PV panel isn't actually doing anything other than providing a security blanket.
You don't know the panel, you're making assumptions.
? You would need a current of about an amp to keep a
Yes.
You believe what I said about what we paid but not the other things I'm saying. You can't cherry pick - well you can, you aee doing, but it's not sensible. It was a special offer, some years ago. I asked Spouse about it at lunchtime, he said it was £10 from Maplins some years ago. It was a bargain. It works. So if you say it couldn't you're saying that both he and I are liars, which we're not. Nor are we deluded.
Drivel, is that you in there?
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