Solar charger question?
I just recently bought one, and i was wondering about something. Is it possible for a solar panel to capture energy from the light of your room(for e...
I just recently bought one, and i was wondering about something. Is it possible for a solar panel to capture energy from the light of your room(for example, a fluorescent light?) Because I always remember being in grade school, and the solar powered calculators always worked under the fluorescent tube lights. Thanks!
What about semi-cloudy days?
Yes. Just how much power you get will depend on the intensity of the light. Probably less than with sunlight.
Fluorescent lamp 60 – 300 lux at a desktop, probably. Sun 100,000 lux where I am anyway. The amount from the fluoro that actually gets on the panel is very small. Thus about 1/1000 of sunlight, which is the full rating of your panel, lets say 80W. That gives 0.08W.
Another way of looking at it, a twin lamp fitting, say 80W, efficiency 20%. If all the light from the lamp hits the panel, which has an efficiency of 10 to 20% the output is 10% of 20% of 80W = 1.6W. If you get 50% of the light to effectively hit the panel that is a good achievement.
So expect something between 0.08 and 0.8W from 80W lamps, depending how much of the light from the lamp you can get on the panel.
Yes, you will be able too, although not as much as sunlight of course – how much you get depends on the rating of the bulb.
You will be able to use a solar charger on a semi cloudy or even cloudy day – of course, the amount of charge you get isn’t as much as full sunlight but it will still work.