Electrical – Storing energy from small wind generator to power led garden lights

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I want to create a small wind generator using a bike generator (se picture) to power some led garden lights during the night.

I have so far created a 1m in diamater wood propeller and a rotating house for the generator that seem to work well (the propeller rotates and the housing turns to face the wind).

My current problem is energy storage. The generator creates somewhere between 10-13 Volts on a decent day. The led lights in the garden will be either 6 or 12v (I havent bought them yet). I have two questions.

  1. What kind of battery is suitable for this type of things (continous
    slow charge and discharge, I'm thinking a car battery, but I don't know).
  2. Can anyone link to some type of battery management electronic that will keep the battery from getting fried by over/under charging?

Thank you.

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Best Answer

A deep cycle battery is what you want. A standard car battery really is not designed to charge and discharge where a deep cycle is made to do that so it will have a longer usable life.

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