Solar Lighting Battery Rant

[phenwick]

I purchase a fair amount of solar lighting to decorate the landscaped pool area I have. From the standard path lights to novelty statuettes, lighthouses, LED umbrellas etc (so I'm a little obsessive, aren't we all). With very little exception, I' ll get a battery that won't charge to its capacity. Usually high internal resistance, out of the box. After conditioning, break in, and cycling with the C9000, its still bad. OK, some of them I purchased on sale, and may have been setting around on the shelves for a season or two, so I pop in a Sanyo I buy in bulk, and am good to go. The price I pay for bargain shopping (IMO). I could return it, so the manufacturer has to deal with the failure, but not worth my time and effort to just replace the battery. I'll probably just get another failure.
But what about the consumers who are clueless? They buy these products, and after a season they stop working or never work as designed from the beginning. The consumer gets put off by the sub par performance and stop buying the product.
If the manufactures would put in quality batteries instead of these cheap unbranded, or off brand batteries, so the device performs as designed, consumers may make subsequent purchases because they actually like the product and the concept of rechargeable solar lighting. Sorry for the rant.

 

[SilverFox]

Hello Dave,

No problem, rant away...

I have always be interested in value, but often run across people who are only interested in initial price. When bringing a product to market, I feel that an engineers opinion should carry more weight than the book keepers, but that often does not seem to be a popular opinion.

Tom

 

[DonShock]

Count me in as one of those put off by the mass market solar items. How hard is it to size the solar panel and battery to get enough charge to last through the night. I'd rather pay a little more and actually have it work as promised. I've tried changing out the battery, but they still work like junk

 

[LED_Thrift]

...I have always be interested in value, but often run across people who are only interested in initial price. When bringing a product to market, I feel that an engineers opinion should carry more weight than the book keepers, but that often does not seem to be a popular opinion.

Tom

[emphasis mine]

You are a wise man Mr. Tom. CPF is much richer for having you around.

 

[VidPro]

what about the consumer?
well they are asleep, and the solar yard stuff is at a very dull glow, and dead before 1am.
the consumer? i figure they dont know, any more than they know if them drip points are working on thier sprinkler system.

 

[shadowjk]

Worse, here some supermarkets have batteries marked as "for solar lighting". Essentially 600mAh nimh AA. I've often wondered if those low capacity nimh are just cheap crap, or designed to be more robust than, say, the infamous high capacity Energizer nimhs, for example...

The lights came with 500mAh nicd AA, which is probably good considering the harsh conditions of months of complete discharge and subzero temperatures, and months of heat and overcharge, depending on the season...

 

[Illum]

the advertising speaks so highly of the performance...bought one, took it apart, measured it....
think of the battery is a cup. needs to to be filled with juice. with the ordinary straw as a output end the cup would be full in a few hours [charging by dedicated charger], actual solar efficiency only runs in the few hours around noon, its making power at the sight of light yes, but sure wont do you any good.

the little solar cell, and the weird regulator assembly with its array of resistors is like filling up the same cup with that of a coffee stirrer...you'll need at least twice the solar time to fill up anywhere near what regulator 500ma batter chargers will do.

I bought one rather than a set...tossed it the same week:shakehead
$45 that could've bought me so much lithium batteries

they perform the exact same as shake/dynamo lights, brightest light on the street on the first night...okay in the second night, dim as hell on the third night:shakehead. and whoever made the circuit is a @#$% for not putting in a overdischarge protection circuit in it [at least not in the model I bought]


shadowjk, the one in mine were two NIMH AA cells in series...upon disassembly on the third day its dead...cold and dead at 0V

 

[shadowjk]

I believe the ones I got with 2 nicads in series was about $15 each
Runs maybe 3 nights on just the batteries

 

[Illum]

$15?!
Why do I always get hit by the @#$% prices

I think its just me buying everything the minute they come out
say the sandisk cruzer micro 1GB I bought for some $250 years ago:green:
its now what? $20?

 

[AndyTiedye]

The batteries are low capacity because they are nicads.
Nicads are supposed to be better at taking the kind of abuse solar lights impose on batteries.

Those things work a lot better in the summer when there is more sunlight.

 

[Brlux]

While I have never bought any solar yard lights my experience with PV powered systems tells me that having a consumer place a solar panel level with the horizon wherever they wish in their yard or garden is a recipe for failure. I see them in my neighbor hood all the time placed neat objects like the house or bushes which block the sun for the majority of the day. The place where you may want light is rarely an ideal location for collecting solar energy. If I ever do buy any I will get the ones with a separate larger panel and several remotely mounted lights. That way you can position the panel in a more ideal location tilted at latitude or a little bit more to give priority to winter months. These versions may be a little less convenient but at least they are based on sound solar principles.

 

[TorchBoy]

I bought one rather than a set...tossed it the same week:shakehead
$45 that could've bought me so much lithium batteries

I believe the ones I got with 2 nicads in series was about $15 each

Around here if we shop around we can get four for $15. I've never bothered buying any, though, because they're too dim for my tastes.

 

[LumenHound]

I've had good results by replacing the single white led in some of my solar lights with pairs of 10mm 65K leds. I got a nice increase in total light output and after replacing the bogus NiCad batteries in each light with decent NiMH cells they last until 4 AM after a sunny afternoon and until 1 AM after a cloudy day. They are now bright enough to cast some good shadows in my big city light polluted night sky urban backyard patio.
Keep in mind though that my solar lights are higher quality and have 4 top mounted solar panels each.
The NiMH cells have done well for several years so far but I expect they will need replacement before the 2008 summer season is out.

As always, your milage may vary.