How to make Portable Solar Garden Lights
Here’s a quick tip to get a little more out of those inexpensive stake-style solar garden lights – the kind with a small solar panel and light on top of a stake that you drive in the garden earth or driveway.
Instead of putting the stake into the ground, put it into a plant pot filled with earth or stones. Now you’ve got a portable solar light – especially useful if you tend to get the most daylight in a different place in your garden, driveway or deck from where you want the solar light at night.
Even better, you can make each solar light look more decorative by using some colored stones inside the pot instead of plain stones or earth. Decorative stone cost more, so fill the pot with garden earth and just add a layer of decorative stones to the top.
Wal-Mart Switches to LED Lights
Wal-Mart Stores is planning to fit LED lights in 650 new and renovated stores. The type of LED bulbs Wal-Mart will be using is the LRP-38 by Cree – designed to last up to 50,000 hours and consume 82% less energy than the type of lighting it’s replacing in Wal-Mart stores.
The company has stated that its goal is to double the amount of solar power it uses over the next 18 months as part of its Wal-Mart Project Impact, which aims to have refitted around 70% of its stores by 2012.
Solar Street Lights Save $221,000
Most people know that swapping old style on-grid street lighting for solar powered versions will save money. But how much?
Managers at Lockheed Martin’s Orange County campus in Orlando found out when they changed their 25 year old street lights for solar street lighting.
Quoted in the Orlando Sentinel, the campus revealed the 35 new solar street lights will cost about $342,000 over 20 years. That includes purchase price and maintenance – of course there’s no ongoing lighting expense because they’re solar powered.
Sound like a lot? Not when you hear how much traditional street lights would cost. Including new wiring and ongoing electricity bills the cost would have been around $563,000.
The good news a similar savings ratio is available those of us in a residential setting. Even if the cost of a solar street lamp is beyond your budget, lower power solar landscape lights can be an inexpensive ‘in’ to outdoor solar lighting.
Spotlight on Solar LED Lights
One of the biggest trends in solar lights these days is the use of LED lights. Yes, LED is like the lights in those early calculators – but thankfully the light from LEDs these days is a lot brighter.
LED lighting technology is still relatively new and therefore still quite expensive. No doubt the price will come down as they become more commonplace but for the now when you come to buy them you may well find solar LED lights to be twice the price of normal outdoor & garden lights.
What’s up with that? Is that a rip-off?
No. Bear in mind that led bulbs can last 15 years or longer that normal light bulbs. Better still, they typically use 60 -70% less electricity. If you have solar LED lights, of course, your electricity cost savings will go up to a pleasant 100%.
Solar Street Lights – Not For Just Streets
The use of solar street lights has really taken off recently. Many states in the US and many countries around the world now use solar powered street lights as part of their regular street lighting plans.
Sometimes a solar street light will be used to provide light where previously no road illumination had been provided – either because of cost considerations or the impracticality of putting an on-grid light in a particular place. Other times a new solar light will replace an normal light to pass on cost savings to the state or authority involved. Of course, you don’t have to be a governmental organization to enjoy the same economic benefits.
Most solar powered street lighting is sold in stand alone units – each unit being just like a normal street light except that at the very top is the solar panel used for recharging, while the actual light itself is a little further down the pole.
Installation is usually pretty straightforward. And of course, you don’t have to use them on a street – they make great deck or garden lights too. Prices depend largely on the robustness of the construction and the power output of the light and range from around $190 into the four figures range.
Solar Flashlight – Buy One, Donate One
BoGoLight is a solar flashlight with a difference. When you purchase one for yourself you can choose to give a second solar flashlight to someone in need. You can even choose the organization you’d like to donate to – whether emergency / humanitarian relief, troop support, healthcare, schools, women’s safety, environment and more.
Each flash light is made to a rugged, durable and waterproof design with a large solar panel down the side of the light for recharging. Prices from $17.99 and up.
Inexpensive Solar Shed Light
As solar lighting keeps growing in popularity, so the choices can become more bewildering. As with anything, solar shed lights come in many shapes, sizes and budgets.
For this post, let’s assume you’re on a budget. Maybe you just want to experiment in solar lighting before investing a lot of money. Fair enough.
The Sun Shed Series from Silicon Solar is about the most inexpensive solar shed light we’ve seen. The manufacturer claims an eight hour run time through an “ultra efficient LED light”. The solar panel of shed light is on a swivel making it easy to position to capture the most energy and it comes with a generous ten foot electrical cord.
Solar Tube Skylights
A relatively recent innovation, solar tube skylights prove that not every type of solar lighting needs to work by converting sunlight into electricity for use later.
As with a normal skylight, the idea is not provide light at night but to provide as much bright light in the day time as possible. With regular skylights you basically get the light that comes in through the window and can illuminate the room space immediately below it. You can’t, for example, have have the light from the skylight on the roof illuminate your kitchen.
The clever thing about solar skylights is they include a mirrored tube – so the light can be carried away from the roof down into your home. Because the tube is flexible you don’t need an absolutely straight path between your roof and the room you want to send the light to. That said, the straighter the tube part of the solar skylight is the more efficient it will be.
The part that fits into the ceiling looks just like a normal light – only no wires and no electricity. Tubular solar skylights are great way to cut down your artificial lighting costs – both power bills and the cost of light bulbs – and work and live in as much natural light as possible.
Solar LED Address Numbers
House guests will never get lost again once you’ve installed a set of solar powered address lights. As soon as the sun goes down, these Solar LED Address Numbers automatically switch on two large white LED lights. This gives a backlighting effect to the cutout numbers – allowing your house number to be clearly seen from some distance.
The LED lights will run for eight to ten hours on a full solar charge.
Handy Solar Keyhole Light
Now here’s a highly practical use for solar powered lighting – the solar keyhole light. One flick of the switch and the whole door lock and handle is illuminated. No more fumbling around in the dark stabbing hopefully at the door with your key.
The light will stay on for ten seconds before automatically switching itself off to save power. On a fully solar charged battery the solar key hole light can be used around seven hundred times – which should be enough attempts to get the key in the door for anyone.
Installation is easy, just stick it to the door with the supplied adhesive pads or screw it to the door. Comes in a choice of white, brass or chrome finish.