SUNY Geneseo eGarden - Solar powered lighting

Yesterday we connected six 10 watt high intensity LED lamps to battery bank one. Battery bank one (BB1) is currently being charged by two of the eight eGarden solar panels during the day. At night BB1 supplies power up to 60 watts of power to the eGarden LED lamps. The LEDs  are turned on and off with a power saving program running on a $15  Arduino Uno microcontroller. The controller system hardware was assembled by Geneseo students and programmed by them. The control program can be altered by connecting the Arduino Uno to a laptop and downloading a new program. This can be done on site, making it convenient to experiment with alternate power saving programs. The six 10-Watt LED lamps produce the equivalent amount of visible light as 360 watts of incandescent or halogen lamp light. In other words, they run on 1/6 the energy. The energy is supplied by the sun. This system is completely off the grid. 

--Dr. Steve Padalino

Lighting of the high efficiency LED flood lamps; powered by the 2 of the 8 eGarden solar panels; you can see the solar array in the foreground. 

Solar powered foot lighting around the tent