As a girl scout ranger back in the early 90’s, it was up to me to solve a vexing problem. Our boathouse was located on the lake and was split up into two sections, a solid wall between them. One was the office section where we kept track of registrations and tags, life preservers and oars, and the other side was where we actually stored the boats.
The boats were stored in a section with a huge garage type door, so that when opened, you could easily see which boat to get, grab it and carry it to shore just a few feet away. The office, on the other hand, had just one small access door and once inside, it was very difficult to see anywhere except right up near the door, because of the absence of light.
The result of this was that, everything was crowded at the front of the room where the door was, leaving about 3/4s of the entire space unused. It literally became a safety hazard since there was so much stuff laying around that people were literally tripping over it.
What we needed inside of the office was a light, but that was much easier said than done. There was no power down at the shore, and to get juice into the boathouse, we would have had to call the electric company, have them trench in a cable from the main house up on the hill 500 feet away, and then set up a 100 amp breaker panel, all this costing thousands of dollars, just for one lousy light bulb.
My solution was a small solar cell panel, a 12 volt deep cycle marine battery, and a 12 volt light bulb. It worked beautifully. The solar cells faced south over the lake for maximum energy creation, the 800 ampere hour marine battery never ran dry, and the light solved all the problems of lighting up the darkest recesses of the building, which could now be used.
I got a free box of Girl Scout cookies for that one!
