Solar LED yard light, how do I add more solar cells to it?

I was looking at a solar yard light I have and was wondering how to go about adding more solar cells to it. It uses one AA battery now and does not do much with the sun we are getting now adays.

Has anyone moded there solar led yard light?

Thanks.

Does this light run on solar power, AAs, or does a solar cell recharge a AA? If you're thinking of adding solar cells, that would probably increase the size of the light, which might make it unsuitable for your yard.

If it's one of the lights where the battery is removable, you might want to charge the battery on a household power charger and then put it back into the light during the short daylight hour periods of the year. You'll probably have to do this and use the solar panel to just supplement the charging as the light will be illuminated longer during darkness and you'll have less sunlight to charge the battery during the daylight hours.

ken2400 said:

I was looking at a solar yard light I have and was wondering how to go about adding more solar cells to it. It uses one AA battery now and does not do much with the sun we are getting now adays.

Has anyone moded there solar led yard light?

Thanks.

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I thought of that, but it seemed like it would defeat the purpose of a solar light, which is "zero maintenance." Perhaps a parallel battery pack could be assembled, which wouldn't add too much bulk to the light but would extend battery life. Maybe a single initial wall-charge and then letting the solar cell recharge it until it's empty, then wall-charging the whole thing back up again.

That's what I had in mind, charge up the batteries on a wall charger and then leave them in there until they're exhausted then put in another freshly charged one.

Actually, the lights that use a removable battery usually have a low capacity NiMH or NiCD battery that is either AAA or AA sized (most I've seen have been AAA). Since they usually only take one battery, it isn't that much maintainance to just swap out the batteries once in a while (a fully charged battery lasts a while in those lights.) Besides, you never know where the manufacturer's claims may have been gathered from, it could have been based upon the number of night hours in Reykjavik on the Summer Equinox.

TigerhawkT3 said:

Maybe a single initial wall-charge and then letting the solar cell recharge it until it's empty, then wall-charging the whole thing back up again.

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ken2400 said:

I was looking at a solar yard light I have and was wondering how to go about adding more solar cells to it. It uses one AA battery now and does not do much with the sun we are getting nowadays.

Click to expand...

I would suggest you look around for a solar panel that will produce a little over 1.5 volts. If you solder, you could wire in a little socket on the light and put a jack on a wire from the panel so you can plug them together. If you don't solder you could just pop out the battery and stick a wire between the battery and each contact. When the sun shines the panel makes electricity, sends it down the wire, and the battery stores it. You want to put the panel where it has a good view of the southern sky.

So is that what the orig panel most likely is? A 1.5 volt one? What about putting it in parllel with the other panel?

Thanks

Yes it does have a removeable NiCa 900 ma battery.

Ken_McE said:

I would suggest you look around for a solar panel that will produce a little over 1.5 volts. If you solder, you could wire in a little socket on the light and put a jack on a wire from the panel so you can plug them together. If you don't solder you could just pop out the battery and stick a wire between the battery and each contact. When the sun shines the panel makes electricity, sends it down the wire, and the battery stores it. You want to put the panel where it has a good view of the southern sky.

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Why don't you replace the old nicad AA battery with a brand new, freshly charged Nimh? Using a nicad in the context of a lamp that is recharged via solar cells must be ruining the battery because of memory issues.

I would wire a new solar cell in parallel, if that's something you plan on doing.

Should have noted the fact I did. I now have a 2000 NiMh sooo I have made the tank bigger and this help in the summer but I think I need more cells in the winter??

Thanks for the help so far guys.

h2xblive said:

Why don't you replace the old nicad AA battery with a brand new, freshly charged Nimh? Using a nicad in the context of a lamp that is recharged via solar cells must be ruining the battery because of memory issues.

I would wire a new solar cell in parallel, if that's something you plan on doing.

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ken2400 said:

So is that what the orig panel most likely is? A 1.5 volt one? What about putting it in parllel with the other panel?

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I'm assuming you have a 1.5 volt battery in there. If so, you'll need a little over 1.5 to top it up. There are a lot of inexpensive solar yard lights around. The manufacturers usually are pressing very hard to keep down costs. This leaves you lots of room to come along afterwards and improve the units. For example you can buy two, remove the guts from one, add them to the second and get twice as bright a light (if you use both bulbs) or use just one bulb in the new unit and get twice the runtime.

There should only be a few parts in there. I would expect:

*A solar panel (collects the energy)

*A battery (stores the energy)

*A light, hopefully LED. (Uses the energy)

*An electric eye, so it knows when to turn on.

* A housing, to hold all the parts together and keep water out of the fiddly bits.

*There might be a circuit board in there too, I don't know.

You can step in at 'most any point and improve things if you choose to. Bigger battery, (same voltage though) parallel battery, bigger panel, parallel panel, possibly upgrade the LED. There is no particular reason all the parts have to be together in the same housing. The light needs to be where you need the illumination but the panel(s) can be up a tree where they always have light and never get stepped on, the battery(s) can be in a house or outbuilding or in the ground where they don't get frozen in cold weather.