In this DIY tutorial, the presenter shows how to power a small 12‑volt pond/birdbath pump using a solar panel and a 12‑volt 10 Ah lithium‑ion battery (GoldenMate). He lists the inexpensive components (pump, solar panel, waterproof connectors, extra wire) and demonstrates the wiring process, emphasizing correct polarity. After connecting the system, he measures the battery voltage (initially 14.03 V) and runs the pump to observe water flow. He then leaves the setup over a weekend to see if the battery maintains charge. Upon return, the voltage has dropped to about 2.1 V, indicating the pump stopped and the battery is slowly recharging via the panel. He discusses the battery’s advertised cycle life, protection features, and potential uses (deer feeder, kayak trolling motor). Concluding that the current battery and panel are undersized, he recommends upgrading to a larger 12 V 20 Ah battery and a higher‑output solar charger for reliable continuous operation, especially in cloudy conditions. Links to the equipment and upgrade suggestions are provided in the video description, and the presenter ends with a call to like, subscribe, and ring the notification bell.
Chapters
Do you have a birdbath or a pond in your backyard and you want to add some moving water but you don't have electricity? Well, stick around and I'll show you how to add it without adding electricity using a solar panel with a battery backup. Stay tuned. Now the million-dollar question is, we are going to be using a 12-volt pump that I bought off of Amazon, and I bought some waterproof connectors. It's not really going It's not going to be in the water, but I figured since it's going to be close to the water, I would put them on there. And then connectors, attached connectors to connect it to the battery. And this pump here runs $21 on Amazon. And then this here is a 12-volt solar panel, and it will connect to the battery as well. I bought this on Amazon as well. Here we've got the GoldenMate 12-volt 10-amp battery. This was sent to me by GoldenMate. I wanted to do a video to show A use for it. This would be my, my use for it since I'm pretty much a birder and I want some moving water here in my pond. All right, so the battery runs, let's see, $35. This runs $21. The panel was $20. The little connectors, $12, because they are waterproof. The extra wire I had to buy was $2 at my local Ace Hardware. So I had Jeff connect the connectors since he's more of an electrician than I was, or I am. And he also showed me how to use this little reader thing to tell if the battery is 100%. So we're going to test that battery right now, and the battery is at 14.03. What I'm going to do is I'm going to connect all this together. The solar panel gets connected first, and when you're connecting, always make sure you go black to black, red to red. You don't want to cross them. All right, so that there will keep the the battery charged. And this, I'm gonna have to put it in the pond before I plug it in. And I'm gonna leave this little table here over the weekend while I run this because I'm gonna come out Sunday morning and I'm gonna test the battery and see how much of a charge it has. All right, so I got my little hose over here already connected. I just gotta connect it to the pump on the out. So this is the in right here, and this is the out. You want to make sure you put it on the out. Just kind of curious to see what kind of water pressure this little itty-bitty pump has. Getting down on that pump is a little bit of a challenge. There we go. Now I'm gonna dry my hands off of my pants. Because this one's white, I know this is my, my negative, so I'm going to attach that to here. Put that one on first, and then I'm going to put my positive on. And there we have it. Pretty good water flow for that itty-bitty little pump. Now the million-dollar question is, will it stay charged? Over the weekend and the battery does what it's supposed to do. There we go. So this little battery here— I gotta refer to my notes here— it has 10 times the cycle life of your regular lead-acid batteries, lasting 4,000 to 15,000 cycles. It has no memory and it has 100% protection to ensure against overcharging, over-discharging, overcurrent, overheating, and short-circuiting. Has a wide application Array of applications. Ideal for wheelchairs, emergency lighting, RVs, marine, golf carts, ponds, and easy to charge. You can charge it with a charger that you plug into the wall, or you can charge it with the solar. And also, if you want to run a sequence of these batteries, you can connect up to 4 of them together. Let's return to this pond in 2 days. The pump is not pumping. So we're going to go ahead and check the voltage and see where we're at, and then see how long it takes for this pump to turn back on. All right, let's check this and see what we're at. We're at 2, a little over 2 volts, and it looks like it's charging as we speak. All right, so we'll come back here in about an hour and check on this pump. So We are at 2.13 volts, so it's taking quite a while to charge. My thoughts on the battery is I think it's a really great battery, and actually going to use it for is going to be a deer feeder, which actually is a bird feeder for me. I put cracked corn and bird seed in it. I'm going to put this battery in that feeder. It was just really hard to do a video to show how long the battery would last in a deer feeder because that could take A long time. But anyways, that's what my use was going to be for this battery. I was going to use it in my kayak on my trolling motor, but my trolling motor is actually a 12-volt— no, I'm sorry, it's a 24-volt battery. So my conclusion is that you need a bigger battery and you need a bigger solar charger. The battery probably needs to be probably the The 12-volt 20-amp battery, and then the solar charger. It definitely needs to charge more than 1.8 amps because this here, that pump, is drawing 1.6 amps, I believe. In the description below, I'm going to have links to the equipment that I used for this test, and then I'll have another link below For what I suggest for upgrade to actually get your backyard pump to work with the battery upgrade and a solar panel upgrade. But when you have a lot of cloudy weather, you're going to run into issues with the pump running all the time. Don't forget to like and subscribe and ring my bell. I'll talk to you later. Bye!
