Modding solar garden lights.

Ok, I've been helping my folks with landscaping the front lawn. :thumbsdow We're almost finished the project but now my folks want to put some stand alone solar lighting into the front lawn. I forgot where I read before but I think the lighting inside those solar lighting units are cheap old old old tech LED's in there. I was thinking of putting some SSC P4 U-bins or Cree Q5 LED's from DealExtreme but not sure if or how that can be done.

Have anyone done any garden lighting mods? My local stores are www.rona.ca (no affiliation) , www.canadiantire.ca (no affliation. If they ask for a postal code enter this random one M5W 1L5 I just picked off an envelope), www.homedepot.ca (no affliation), and http://www.lowes.ca/ (no affliation). So anything there is what I can get and hopefully it would be the same as what some modders have done with thier products.

Any links to CPF'ers that done some would help. Thanks in advance.

Oh, most of my street is using the older cool white lighting and some of the warm yellow solar lighting. Seeing as I have done my own bike light before (following this guide http://www.bikeled.org/ on the cube light) I am comfortable with a soldering iron as long as it's not really tight pin point close soldering joints. Consider me a noob at soldering . Most of the other people on the street just bought thier lights and stuck it there. Seeing as I've seen and played with LED's already I'm thinking of kicking up the brightness on those solar lights for my lawn.

One of the problems with increasing the brightness is that the capacity put into the batteries each day from the solar panel isn't huge, so with the extra current required for high brightness, it wouldn't last long. I don't know if extra voltage might be required as well. But all of that is really simply because I didn't want to just post ...



I suppose if they wanted extra brightness or runtime for a specific event (garden party, BBQ, etc) after you've changed the LED to something more efficient - and more impressive, potentially at least - they could charge the NiCd cells just beforehand, or insert high capacity NiMH cells just for the evening.

Well I'm assuming that all the solar LED units are I think 350mA but I could be wrong. I'm sure if I put a SSC P4 U-bin or Cree Q5 it would automatically increase the brightness by 40-60% fromt he previous LED in there running at whatever default current it's running at.

I've not purchased any lights yet as our aim is to finish the landscaping this Sunday and then look towards the lighting then a retaining wall or stones.

Just wanted some insight into this so I know what I'm getting into.

I'm not looking to make it as bright as my bike light.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/49184877@N00/page2/

My DIY's and testing here.

Zero_Enigma said:

Well I'm assuming that all the solar LED units are I think 350mA

Click to expand...

That's odd.

All the ones I've ever seen run at about 5mA

I've changed out the factory LED on a Malibu "Prairie" Solar Lantern once for a 360 degree LED.

http://conservingreen.com/malibuprairiestylesolarlight.aspx

The stock LED directed most of its light downward although there was a diffuser around it. I removed the diffuser and replaced it with a 360 degree LED. It appears brighter when viewed directly due to the fact that more light is directed sideways rather than downward towards the bottom of the fixture. That LED also did a nice job of casting a "circle" of light in a 2 foot diameter circle around the fixture as well.

Most use cheap 20 ma. white leds. You will get the biggest bang for your buck by changing these out to some of the high brightness 3mm or 5mm leds. This will make a huge improvement.

They also use DC to DC converters that are not very efficient and usually have a relatively short life before something dies.

Gene

Genes said:

Most use cheap 20 ma. white leds. You will get the biggest bang for your buck by changing these out to some of the high brightness 3mm or 5mm leds. This will make a huge improvement.

Click to expand...

I changed one of the six LEDs in my Stanley tripod torch and it was brighter than all 5 of the other LEDs put together - says a lot about the quality of the original LEDs used (and them all being noticeably different tints).

The question is HOW do you change it out? guides on modding this stuffwould help.

Thanks/

There are hundreds of different solar powered garden lights out there. A guide for all of them would be a monumental write-up. It's really going to come down to what style of light you buy and what you find inside the light fixure when you get them home from the store.

If the ones you buy have a four pin superflux style led then consider something like this as an upgrade.

If they have a single 5mm led than perhaps something like this would fit the bill for an upgrade.

I did an upgrade on a bunch of mine several years ago and was impressed with the brightness increase I got by swapping out the old single 5mm white led for a pair of more efficient 10mm white leds.

Do not buy the solar lights that use amber leds. They use nothing more than a pair of nicads to provide the 2.4 volts required by the amber led. They do not have the needed voltage boosting circuit for powering white leds.

In UK, several similar ones:
End of season sales, very cheap.

600mah nicd(mh) battery
6 hours RT
≈100ma drain, led(s) & circuit.
Quite bright 2008 models, 1-3-5 leds, all similar cells and RT's

Did you check this out?

http://www.instructables.com/id/Adding_Oomph_to_the_Garden_Solar_Light/

Oops, this is a killed thread.