"Phyllis and Jim" wrote in message
...
I wonder if you can get enough power from a photo cell without paying
an arm and a leg?

How powerful is your pump?

Jim


Kinda depends on how much arms and legs go for in your neck of the woods.
I've a Sequence pump that uses about 120 watts. A 400 watt inverter ($30)
would easily run it. Car battery, maybe $75 or so. Now here's where the body
parts come in. On ebay, 123 watt solar panels go for $660 each and I'd need
two of them, figuring that the sun only shines 1/2 the time, but the pump
runs 24/7. Maybe 3 would be better to allow for cloudy days and system
losses. Throw in a charging regulator, and we're in the 2 kilo-dollar
neighborhood. That's more than arms and legs go for around here. It doesn't
sound feasible for anything larger than say a whiskey barrel size water
feature.
Paul