The parts needed to build a solar powered light?

[Full Metal]

Hello everyone,
I'm trying to build a solar powered led (2nd part would be to add a USB port) and I'd like to know all the parts I need to get it working nicely.

Apart from the obvious things like an led, battery, on/off switch, wires and solar panel will I need some sort of controller for charging the battery as well as not overcharging it? I'd like it to have a 1W panel, a 1W led and battery which can run the light for 5 hours (so at least 5Wh right?)

I'm in secondary school and we've been taught about electricity so I thought that this would be a fun project. If it is easy enough I would like to build one which has a USB port as well so I can plug in a USB fan.

Thank-you for reading.

 

[shrtrnd]

Did you try Googleing some circuits?

 

[peter.rabbit]

Do it in stages....

Get your battery, hook up switch and LED and get it working. Then add the panel/controller. Panel/controller is wired in parallel with your LED.

Batteries are normally specified in Ah too - a 1W LED will draw approx 80mA from 12V.

I do this exact thing in my observatory - I have some 4W caravan LEDs, a 9Ah 12V SLA battery, a 10W solar panel and a charge controller.

I then added a timer circuit to kill the light after 1hr, because I was forgetting to turn it off and killed two new SLA batteries in the process....

Sounds like a good introductory project - good luck....

 

[Full Metal]

I came across a number of designs such this but will the same equipment work with my numbers?

I'd also like to know about the type of controller I would need for my project

I've noticed that a lot of the time voltages aren't same everywhere (i.e a 6V panel, 4V battery and 3V led) doesn't sending a higher voltage damage the equipment or is that what controllers are for?

 

[peter.rabbit]

My suggestion is to build it and find out.....