Solar powered LED flag pole light

[JedSmith]

Hello everyone. There are solar rechargeable LED lights designed to attach to the top of a flag pole. Once its dark enough, they turn on to light up your flag. I've seen numerous versions of these online. But the ones I've checked out don't have any real specs - lumen output, for example. The customer reviews say such things as 'its pretty bright' - but some people think the old Maglites are bright. A relative of mine bought a set of solar rechargeable walkway lights (maybe from Costco) and they don't put out enough light to be usable. Same with a solar rechargeable spot light that she bought.

Can you recommend, from experience, a solar rechargeable LED flag pole light to use on a 20 foot flagpole ?

Thanks

P.S. - this will be used by a friend of mine in Seattle. It rains a lot and is usually cloudy. Any comments you may offer on how that effects solar rechargeable spot lights would be appreciated.

 

[idleprocess]

I have seen these very occasionally in the sunny Dallas area and performance always seems to be a tad lacking. The light is dim and a cold, blue-tinted white. Runtime is short. Build quality is hard to determine since I've never seen one up close, but given the other factors I'm not optimistic

I believe this is due to the nature of the problem and the technology available at the price levels most are willing to pay. The basis for these lights seems to be the same as cheap solar landscaping lights - cheap/inefficient/short-lifespan solar cells, awful charging circuits, and cold-tinted LED's to maximize light production from the relatively little power that's available. The top of a flagpole being subject to more wind than the ground and also generally expected to have a clean appearance limits the panel and housing size.

A better solution would be ground-based lighting pointing up, either powered by an outdoor outlet (typically running a transformer spitting out low-voltage DC) or a quality solar system if that's required; the former is available as a turnkey product from home improvement centers for a reasonable sum while the latter would require some custom design and will be costly to implement.

 

[Timothybil]

The big problem with solar-powered lights like these is that they usually will not last all night, especially during the long winter hours. Add in one or more cloudy days in a row and it won't even turn on. Unless you have a larger solar cell bank and a MUCH larger battery, it is not going to happen. If you are going to fly a flag at night, it is supposed to be lite ALL night, not just for the first several hours. My dad had an outdoor spot mounted on the eave of his house closest to the flag pole (about 30 fr) that was wired into an outlet circuit in the basement so it was always on, with a photocell to turn it on and off when needed. The new LED spotlights coming available make this very economical to do, too.

 

[inetdog]

Technically, under the flag code, if the flag is going to be lowered at night it needs to be continuously illuminated till dawn.
If the solar lighting will not last through a winter night, you will need to put in an automatic furling mechanism to retract the flag.

 

[JedSmith]

Hi guys, thank you for your comments. My friend sent a photo of his flag with the solar rechargeable light. The light output was rather lame, as I expected. You can't see much of the flag at night. I hoped to have been pleasantly surprised . . . but wasn't. (It is interesting to see non flashlight junkies definition of 'really bright', however.)
As others mentioned, currently there doesn't seem to be banks of LED lights which put out enough illumination for this application. To produce such a light would raise its price beyond what consumers would pay.
We have halogen outdoor spot lights on our own place. They come with a timer/transformer unit providing D.C. to the halogen spotlights and work quite well.

 

[dss_777]

I agree with the hardwired low-voltage recommendation. FWIW, the 12V LED equivalents of the halogen landscape lights work quite well, and are much less expensive to run all night. They still require the transfomer and wiring...