Solar Powered Light-Graffiti Projector

Step 5: Final projector

Now you only need to find a place where you can put it. You should carefully choose a place with a lot of sunlight. The advantage of the used solar garden light is that it only lights up at night when the graffiti can be seen. I've tested mine on the balcony the last days but I have to say that the sun here in winter is too weak to give the energy for a whole night of projection. Perhaps I should wait till spring until I expose my projector to the street. So watch out, perhaps you will see one of these someday in Munich.

Comments

[urtlesquirt]

Dude this rocks.

[jakk21]

what does RDN stand for?

[tleec11b]

the doods name irl is prob rodney.... now shorten it rdni or rdn1.. thats my guess

[lucius108]

its the dudes name on instructables

[shadow07]

That's a really good idea. I have to ask though. Does the solar panel have to face the sun directly for it to be efficient??

[paulezra]

they work fine as garden lights not pointed directly at the sun, i don't see why the changes would make them work any different.

[911TargaSC]

shadow07, I havent experimented with these small panels much though I do have some solar walkway lights (currently buried underneath the snow = not very effective). From what I have read about solar water heating panels, and should be true for all solar panels, is generally facing your panel south and with a little bit of tip toward the south (instead of the panel looking straight up) you are going to get just about the same results (within 10%) of getting a solar contractor to come out to your house and align it for the 100% best angle.

[paulezra]

south facing for northern hem, north facing for southern

[911TargaSC]

thanks. good catch. I guess I was thinking too locally. these here "internets" are kind of a big deal ALL OVER the world, huh? ; )

[paulezra]

yeh can't blame you for forgetting. i don't seem to be able to get the lens. so none of this information is helpful to the southern hemisphere. but thats no fault of the people here, its the damn lack of people in Australia and lack of demand for a simple convex glass lens.

[brexford]

Go to any pharmacy and look at the 'readers' bifocals glasses...would any of them do the job? Can you not shop on the ubiquitous Internet?

[RDN1]

I didn't have the chance to test it, but I think a clear sky would be sufficient. I often see these lights in the neigborhood and they are very dim in winter. I would suggest aiming for a better solar panel.

[brijeshverma]

hi

[paulezra]

can anyone help find a supplyer of the lens in australia. or a place that will ship them to australia. thanks

[911TargaSC]

This is a great project. A practical use for it could be to project your street address on to the pavement at night allowing for easier location of your hosue by the pizza guy... and we all want our pizza sooner, right? : )

[Petrus1002]

Really like this one, and very clever too! Questions though: what type of lens did you use (in milimeters, I mean) and is it convex or concave. Also, how large is the projection? What would you have to change to get a really large projection? Thanks everyone!

[911TargaSC]

Petrus, keep in mind that there are only so many lumens coming out of that LED. As you focus the image to something larger it becomes weaker. that being said, to make the image larger or smaller, experimenting with differnet lenses would be one thing, the easiest would be moving the lens closer or further away from the light source.

[The Lone Hoot]

Cool idea and nice work! :-) I wonder if the same could be done with enough combined solar cells from old/broken garden lights to power a laser pointer to project a brighter image even farther. I'm thinking against the side of a large building. ;-)

[shimniok]

You might try http://allelectronics.com/ for the lenses. I got a package of lenses from them for a small amount. They also have LEDs and various other electronics. -Michael

[shimniok]

PS: they also have solar cells + charger circuits & leds for < $5 US ...

[Robin87]

I really like the idea and I'd really like to try it myself, but could you please be more precise about where you got the lense from and which LED suits best. Thanks Robin Germany