[hecateh]

got a bargain - or so I thought - from Woolworth yesterday.

Spear & Jackson, pack of 10, stainless steel, solar powered lights.  RRP £80, selling in Woollies for £14.00.  Got them home and fitted them together then read the instructions.  Need to be left swithed off until they've had 48 hours sunshine to fully charge them!  :roll:  :roll:  Hae we had 48 hours sunshine this year.  

The solar power recharges what look like ordinary rechargeable AA batteries.  I'm guessing it would be ok to charge them up in a battery charger for fist use and then let them work with the sun.  Is this a good idea? :?:

[Yabba]

No idea, but I'm impressed at your optimism for buying solar powered .... well, anything .... in this country.

¥

[Trillium]

You obviously have different solar type lights than we do. Ours have just the solar cells built on the top of the light 'roof', and it did take a day or two to fully charge. Now the silly things glow in the basement during winter storage    I've bought cheap singles for as little as 2 quid, and a set of 6 good ones on sale for about 13 quid. Both burn just as well, but the good ones stand up to more rough handling by clumsy dogs and lawnmowers. Almost all my neighbours now have them in their yards, front and back.

[hecateh]

You obviously have different solar type lights than we do. Ours have just the solar cells built on the top of the light 'roof', and it did take a day or two to fully charge. .

That's what I thought would be the case.  Not sure if it's a good thing or bad.  I have charged them up on my battery charger - well some of them, it only takes 2 at a time, and it seems to have worked.  At least with these the batteries can be replaced when they wear out - but don't know for how long your sort would carry on recharging before they couldn't hold the charge.  I know it happens with phones and toothbrushes so I assume it would be the same with solar cells.  

I also wondered if the 48 hours sun actually just meant 2 x 24hour cycles rather than say 6 x 6 hours sunlight.

£14.00 for 10 'expensive' lights still seems like a good bargain though.

[Trillium]

Not sure how long my cheapies will hold out but I assume the plastic casing will breakdown from UV exposure before the cells will. The 'good' ones are metal casing and I expect them to last at least 15 yrs if not longer provided no one breaks the solar cells. We bring them in for winter so they're not stepped on, etc. Ours did need the continued light exposure to charge up. I can't even imagine there being a mini battery inside them. Just stick them outside and wait until they light up at night.

[Larkshall]

It is quite alright to charge the AA cells in a battery charger, the batteries supplied are usually 600Mah if you want them to stay on longer you could replace them with higher capacity batteries but it would depend on if the solar cells are capable of charging that capacity in a day.

[hecateh]

Thanks Lsrkshall

Is it common to have AA or similar batteries or is the energy usually stored in an integral battery?  I assume there has to be some sort of battery to store the energy absorbed during the sunlight.

[Larkshall]

I think most of the solar lights have AA Nimh batteries in them.

I used to use a water company stop valve concrete post to line up to reverse into my gateway until some careless sod knocked it over and stole it, so I bought two solar lights to line up when reversing at night.