Simulated daylight

I'm going to have to temporarily put my chickens in a shed with now windows for a few days while I make some modifications to their coop and run. It'll be fully kitted out with everything they need, with the exception of light. Chickens lay based on their light cycle, and no light will really screw with them. So I was thinking of a way to simulate the day/night cycle.

My idea was a 250w panel, either 12v or 24v, and just some 12-24v LED lights that could illuminate the shed. Sun comes up, panel powers bulbs, they gradually come on, sun sets, the bulb dims until it stops receiving electricity. And I thought that's great.

But can it really be that simple?

Ummm.. yeah. I think it could be that simple. Use the VMP voltage for sizing the bulbs and yeah, it might just work.

I thought so, but it just seemed like it was to simple. A single 250w panel would be more than enough, and as the sun came up, they wouldn't be bright, but as the panel started producing more, more power to the bulb, brightness increases. If this actually works like I think it will, I'll be blown away. The shed has no windows and I have to keep the door close so they don't get eaten by something so they'd be all alone in the dark.

So did it work?
ie can I change my coop lights from the current system of LED's on a timer connected to 120VAC supplied by 48VDC through inverter?
but then again, my system also runs the heated water dish, auto door and auto feeder, which are all 120VAC.
Mostly just curious, did it work?

One thing I though of the other night was that LED's might not work. Some LED's will have a minimum voltage that they will require and once they hit that minimum voltage will just kick on at full bright.

If that happens, get some good old automotive incandescent light bulbs and wire them up in series/parallel to meet your VMP range, those will start glowing as soon as there's a little voltage and you won't have the hard on/off/lighting that many LED's will have.

Just a thought.

Why not just a standard timer and regular lights? No tedious trial and error experimenting for solution that you only need for a few days.

Timer and lights aren't going to get the effect he's going for which is that gentle sunrise to daylight effect.

I have raised egg layers for a long time, they never complained about the lights coming on or off too suddenly ! LOL
Was that the effect 'he wanted' or was that just what he was expecting the effect of the sunrise on the voltage would create?
This is a short term thing right?

Rednecktek said:

Timer and lights aren't going to get the effect he's going for which is that gentle sunrise to daylight effect.

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I didn't catch that. What a ridiculous amount of effort for 2 days.

Almost as ridiculous as some of the things I've done.

I guess another way would be to use a few lights and off set the timers a few minutes each, so they come on one by one, with a bit of time between, and then off again at end of day the same way, one by one. I might be missing something, but I don't think the hens actually care that much, as long as they get 12-hours of light each day. Maybe they would prefer a more gentle increase in light, to wake up, hell, I wouldn't mind that instead of my alarm clock too!

LED lights WILL NOT WORK. Period. LED lights are not dimmable, no matter what any label shows. LED dimmable lights appear dimmable because they are PWM'ed and just flickering off and on to trick our human brains into thinking they are dimmer.

Use a DC flashlight bulb and you will get the effect you are looking for. Whatever the Vmp of the panel is, will be how many bulbs to use. I'd go with 6V lantern lights in series to match whatever the panel makes. Automotive bulbs will work also, just not LED bulbs.

OzSolar said:

I didn't catch that. What a ridiculous amount of effort for 2 days.

Almost as ridiculous as some of the things I've done.

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The logic parses, if nothing else it'd be a fun project.

So - what could we use to create a gradual brightening and dimming, a controlled dimmer?
play with an Arduino and use variable voltage to increase the brightness of the LEDs, and near the end of the timed light 'on' decrease voltage again.
What's another way to achieve the effect?

You can use variable current source for LED dimming instead of PWM dimming, but you have to make interface circuit with the power supply to control it.

I'm sure there's a lot of ways to do it. I can throw out a few that "off the shelf" or close.

1- Almost all commercial LED light fixtures have built in 0-10v dimming. You still have to figure out what to use for the 0-10V control though. Something like this timer might do it. Not cheap though.

1B- I have used a 0-10v light sensor for projects that need the interior lighting to dim/brighten as the sunrise windows allow less/more light into the space. The problem for using it in this chicken coop application is you would need to reverse the logic. It will dim the lights as it gets brighter outside. I bet there's an electronics guru or two here that can tell us how to do that.

2- One way that pretty much anyone could do it is use "smart" light bulbs that can be controlled by Alexa. We do that at our house some interior and exterior lights. Some lights are programmed to turn on/off at certain times while others are told to turn on X minutes before/after sunset. Alexa knows our sunset/sunrise times already so she will take care of it until we tell her different.

3 - Google something like "dimming lights to simulate sunrise and sunset" and you'll see a variety of products that can pretty much do this. Here's an example.

FWIW: Commercial poultry producers of both fryers and layers shorten the daylight cycle to artificially compress more days into less calender days to turn out products sooner. Marijuana growers do the same.

OzSolar said:

Why not just a standard timer and regular lights? No tedious trial and error experimenting for solution that you only need for a few days.

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My coop shed doesn't have power.

I haven't done it yet. I chose dc bulbs with a 12-48v range. I'm picking up a 240w panel on monday. Weather's been crappy, waiting for it to warm up at least a little.

nasomi said:

But can it really be that simple?

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Yes.
Use the off at dusk on at daylight feature in a ~$50 Epever 10A mppt and a small capacitive load (battery!) (~$100) that will support cloudy days and all the other complexities mentioned are unnecessary to run your 12V LEDs.

Just going to second the idea of incandescent bulbs connected straight to a solar panel.
K.I.S.S.

nasomi said:

I'm going to have to temporarily put my chickens in a shed with now windows for a few days while I make some modifications to their coop and run. It'll be fully kitted out with everything they need, with the exception of light. Chickens lay based on their light cycle, and no light will really screw with them. So I was thinking of a way to simulate the day/night cycle.

My idea was a 250w panel, either 12v or 24v, and just some 12-24v LED lights that could illuminate the shed. Sun comes up, panel powers bulbs, they gradually come on, sun sets, the bulb dims until it stops receiving electricity. And I thought that's great.

But can it really be that simple?

Click to expand...

Can you not just put in a skylight?

Maybe a big sheet of Lexan?

What do you normally do when there's a big storm and you don't see sunlight for a few days?