PV Gap

Ann Said:

can I power my rubbish solar led's in the garden using a car battery?

We Answered:

You cannot pass DC through a transformer, so you cannot step down the batteries DC voltage with a transformer.
You car/motorcycle battery is 12v and if the LED was very bright, it is probably made for 5 volts or less. You can put a resister in series, but you will lose more energy in heating the resister than you will use in the LED. A better choice would be to put two or three LEDs in series, then you get value for the energy used and will not burn out the led. You can add LED's until you get the desired brightness. You would hook the positive of the first LED to the battery, then the negative to the positive of the next LED. Repeat this until the last led and connect the negative of that to the negative side of the battery.

Sergio Said:

Hardwire my solar charged LED path lights?

We Answered:

1. Allow at least 25 mA for each individual LED (count the LEDs in each lamp.
2 and 3. The voltage drop is along the length of the supply cable, so use a cable rated generously for the full output of the power supply.
4a. You may well have difficulty finding a 1.2 V supply, and so you might have to build your own.
4b. Damp-proofing is an issue, and in any case, as you are taking electricity outside, I would protect the power supply with an RCB.