Modifying solar garden lights

摘要

Despite the price of solar photovoltaic panels falling dramatically over the last 10 years - in terms of cost per watt - small panels (eg, 2-5W) have remained relatively expensive. But there is a way of gaining a good quality solar panel at low cost - and as a bonus, you also get battery storage, a charge controller and an LED light! How? By buying a solar garden light. But note, not just any garden light. I first started looking at cheap garden lights as a source of solar power a few years ago. Since then, I have bought lots of them - but I've often been disappointed. Why? Well, first, many garden lights have ineffective battery storage - some even still use nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cd) batteries! (These batteries have bad memory effects, and their capacity is also much less than more modern nickel-metal-hydride (Ni-MH) batteries.) Other lights use non-replaceable, tiny batteries - flat packs about as big as your little fingernail.