3 Best Solar Powered Lights - Buying Guide and Tips

Whether you are going to use the Outdoor lights for Gardening and security purposes or indoor, Quality is an issue that real matters for Solar lights. There are three important factors for the light itself (housing aesthetics and material aside) as we are going to check them below:-

Read: Best Outdoor Lighting Ideas for your smart home

1. Quality of the solar cell.

There is not much variance here. All solar cells used by these lights produce roughly the same power for the same surface area. The difference is in the coatings. Cheap lights use plastics or other coatings that will yellow or cloud up over time. Better cells are covered with glass (and there are different kinds of glass that are better/worse). Best bet is to look for a glass covered cell and maintain it by keeping it clean.

best-solar-powered-lights-buying-guide-tips

Cell area determines how much power is delivered to the battery. A larger cell is needed for a full charge in dimly sunlit areas or places where the daylight is of short duration (shadows). Unfortunately all the lights I have seen are built to basically get a full battery charge given a full 8 or more hours of sunlight. The full charge is designed to give 6-8 hours of light from the LED after dark. The tinkerer types can combine the parts from two lights to either provide longer run time at night or get a full charge with a shorter daylight cycle.

2. Batteries.

Nickel Cadmium batteries (NiCd or 'NiCad')

The standard lights these days all use Nickel Cadmium (NiCd or 'NiCad') batteries. NiCads are generally cheap, reliable, and will give the longest service life compared to other battery types. NiCads however will all fail after a year or two since the number of cycles they can take (charged to discharged) is limited to a few hundred given the environment they operate in.

Temperature range

NiCads also have the best temperature range and are the technology best suited for outdoor use.Most batteries can be easily replaced but watch out for 'oddball' battery sizes in the smaller lights. Also be aware that often the cost of new batteries is higher than the cost of the original light.

Avoid mixing battery types.

You cannot just replace NiCads with Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries since the charging requirements are different. Most of these cheaper lights have really simple charging circuits and will just not work with other battery types.

Keep the battery contacts clean!

The cheapest lights have poor sealing for the batteries and the contacts often get gummed up or corroded. This is a common cause of the lights losing their 'run time' or failing all together rather than dying a slow, graceful death due to the battery wearing out.

3. LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes)

Bright, power efficient LEDs are what made these lights possible. There is a careful balance between the size of the solar cell, battery, and LED. The cell must generate enough energy to charge the battery, the battery must store this energy, and the LED must use up this energy at a low enough rate to shine through the night.

Also read: Cheap Outdoor solar powered lighting for your Smart home

Better lights use better quality LEDs. A 'better quality' LED with be more power efficient, have a better light quality (this is the color rendering index or CRI), and be better focused. If you notice, the cheapest lights will have a harsh, bluish light. that seems to come from a single point. These are the cheapest LEDs to use. Better lights will have a 'warmer' glow and provide a more diffuse light pattern.

Useful Additional Hints

This Precious information from My friends is worth to share with you! Let's Go..

I have used solar powered fairy (string) LED lights over the years and I have found that they work pretty well even when they aren't very expensive - however I have lost a set to frost when left outside (electronics don't like that much it seems!) and a se to foxes chewing through the wires. In London they would work all year round (and that is not a sunny place) except for the two weeks around Christmas / the winter solstice - which always sent my solar powered Christmas tree light plans awry. My solution is to have Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere whenever possible - where it's nice and sunny and warm!

Seriously though, if you research well and treat them well they tend to be a good bet. Just think about what you are buying, what it's tolerances are, where you are using them and what you want them for. The brighter you want them the more energy they'll need - so factor that in. For the most part however you don't need a LOT of light outdoors at night for most things.