My Radio Street Sign Lighted by LED and Solar - Review of 100 WATT ECO-WORTHY

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My internet radio station needed a large outdoor sign in-order to reach new people and help with SEO. I built it out of treated 4" by 4" posts, 2" by 4" boards, a treated sheet of plywood and 6" screws with a star head. The sign consists of this physical infrastructure with 4' by 8' Vinyl banner signs plastered on both sides.

The sign is of good quality, having spent close to $400.00 USD. People had began to notice it and it even brought in new listeners for good rock radio, Hillsdale's rock station. Since the sign works so well during the day, I decided it was time to lite it up for night time so as to garner listeners at night as well and add to the villages night-life.

Having already been experienced with outdoor solar lighting I thought about either running electricity to the sign from the house on grid electricity or going solar with it since my existing solar system works so well, on auto pilot basically. When thinking about the cost to trench wire out to the sign I decided it would be about the same cost with less work to just go solar for my lighting.

Sign Lite by Solar System: Components

• SOLAR PANEL

  1 x 100 WATT ECO-WORTHY solar panel from eBay. This $57.00 solar panel produces 5.25 amps on sunny days and up to 24 volts despite the eBay listing only advertising 12V. The 12V implies it works good for a 12V system, like my system.

  • Model: ECOM100W
  • WATTAGE: 100 WATTS
  • Voltage: 20V +/-
  • CELL TYPE: Monocrystalline
  • Connector Type: MC
  • No. of Mounting Holes: 2
  

• CHARGE CONTROLLER

  1 x HUINE outdoor solar charge controller from eBay. I needed a charge controller that could go outdoors so I chose this charge controller off eBay. It's available in 10A, 20A, and 30A versions so I chose the 20 AMP version so as to assure enough electricity capacity.

  These charge controllers are nice not only for being water proof but they are small and offer color LED lighting to signify the battery state and solar state. As pictured below, if the battery level is above 12.0 Volts DC, a bright green LED is illuminated. Additionally a yellow light means the battery is at half state and red means it is close to being dead.

  

• BATTERY

  1 x 595 CCA LEAD ACID car battery from Wal Mart. I used the same model battery in this solar installation as in my original solar installation. I purchased this battery right at the local wal mart for $69.00.

  

  As of right now this car battery lives outside and has been fine as of writing this post. It is yet to be determined how long this arrangement will last however it is an option to fully house the battery. The low cost of the battery was a factor in deciding to take the risk of operating it outside, near the road.

• LIGHTING

  2 x 16.4 ft LED light strips from eBay's YI-LIGHTING. After using three of these lights in my initial system I knew they would be a good fit for my sign lighting as opposed to just purchasing an all in one solar light. They consume less than 3 AMPS and span plenty of distance to cover my 4' by 8' sign and have DC jacks already soldered onto the end. They do come with an AC adapter and sensor but I just set that stuff aside as the lights will simply stay on all night. You can't have enough electronics stuff.

  

• DUSK to DAWN SWITCH

  Since the HUINE charge controller is much simpler than the user programmable charge controllers used in my previous solar installations the load on the huine is "on" 24/7. I only need the sign's lights on after dark so I used photo cell light switches from Amazon. These switches are good for DC or AC and can handle up to 10 amps!

  

100 WATT ECO-WORTHY Solar Panel

I am quite impressed with the 100 watt solar panel by eco-worthy, as of this post update. It has not been in operation for as long as my harbor freight solar panels however as of now it appears better in a few ways. First of all it is much smaller than that of harbor freight and it produces more power than harbor freight's thunderbolt. The panel is a much better buy for the money, in my opinion than harbor freight's thunderbolt.

It is yet to be known weather it will last as long as harbor freight however it appears as though it will as the quality is better and the solar cells look identical. I have mounted the harbor freight and the eco-worthy slightly different however both are aligned to the south to capture the sun as it travels from east to west.

The ECO-WORTHY 100 watt panel is marketed as a "12 volt" solar panel however I think that infers it is for a 12 volt system. My voltage meter on DC showed a consistent 24 volts while the sun is out where as the thunderbolt only showed 19 volts. Both voltages are pretty acceptable in my view.