Universal electrical module for harps Tartago

01 · WHERE IT TAKES POWER FROM

Everything goes in through USB, at 5 volts

The module is powered through its USB input, at 5 V. From the mains, with a USB charger; from a solar panel, if it has a USB output; or from a 12 V battery, through a 12 V-to-USB adapter of the kind used in cars. The battery does not connect straight to the module, which works at 5 V.

On a battery, the more capacity it has, the more days it lasts without recharging. That is the point of it: if you already have a socket or a battery at the apiary, this unit uses what is there instead of making you buy a set with its own panel.

02 · HOW MANY HARPS IT DRIVES

Five, and how they are chained

With its 1,500 V it powers up to five harps. They are chained with ten-metre extensions, bought separately according to the distance between supports.

If you need more than five, the higher-voltage board reaches eight or ten harps — but that one leaves the battery to you.

03 · WHEN THIS ONE AND NOT ANOTHER

The decision, in one sentence

This module is the one you buy if you already have somewhere to take the current from. If you are starting from nothing, the solar module carries its own panel: the 15 W one runs on daylight and the lithium-battery one keeps going without sun. And if you are setting the whole system up for the first time, there are two kits: the water-tray one, with harp, 15 W solar module and tray, and the dry one, with dry harp and lithium-battery module.

04 · SAFETY

Fifteen hundred volts are not decoration

The module generates high voltage. Install it with the equipment disconnected, check that the harp is well fixed and out of reach of children and animals, and do not handle the wires with the system running.

The current is of very low intensity and its job is to kill the insect that touches two wires at once, but that does not make it a toy: treat it for what it is, a small electric fence.

05 · BEFORE YOU BUY

It is the electronics alone, not the harp: