solar lights decorative

solar lights decorative

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Home Outdoor Lighting | Home Lighting Decor

Whether you have an overly dark area in your yard that is far from an electric socket, or just want to enjoy the pleasure of nighttime outdoor lighting that is generated in an environmentally friendly manner without any electric draw, solar outdoor lighting is a wonderful solution.

Solar lights are a completely self contained unit that features a PhotoVoltaic panel to gather energy from the sun, a battery system to store that energy, and a lamp unit that gives off the light. There are various other components integrated into most solar outdoor lighting systems such as photo cells which trigger the lamp to turn on at dusk, and off at dawn.

The variety of solar lights is almost endless. You can choose from garden lights, wall lights, pathway lights, patio and deck lights, even underwater lights for your pool or spa. It is unfortunate but the majority of the solar lights on the market today are of very poor manufacturing quality and the price reflects that. Check out the sources of quality lights by reading specification sheets and reviewing independent test results either online or in consumer magazines.

The lamp units in solar lights are usually LED, or Light Emitting Diodes. Each LED produces the brightness equivalent to a 2 watt incandescent bulb, or 1/20th that of a 40 watt bulb. The better solar lights have more LEDs and thus are brighter.

A high quality solar light can gather sufficient sunlight even in a high latitude winter to stay on for twelve hours at a time. Some of the cheaper units are of such low quality that they barely stay on for a couple of hours even in midsummer. Even a high quality solar light would be hard pressed to provide much light in a location like Juneau, Alaska which is not only over 58 degrees latitude but also cloudy 70% of the time.

The battery system is typically conventional AA rechargeables, and it is advised that good quality batteries such as Duracell or Energizer are used in the systems. Some systems use more exotic and advanced NiMH (nickel-metal hydride) batteries which can handle constant recharging better than the older, more traditional NiCAD (nickel cadmium) units.

For some specialized uses such as pathways, solar light units are avaliable with a motion sensor component so they only turn on when someone is passing by. The advantage of this system is that it can have many more LEDs than a light which is intended to stay on all night long, and therefore are much brighter. Most "all night" solar lights are generally so dim that they really are only suitable for marking areas and decorative uses.

As long as you have reasonable expectations from your solar lights and don't expect to be able to read a book by the light of a twin LED unit, they can be effective and charming additions to any outdoor decor. Add to that the satisfaction of enjoying light directly from the sun in the middle of the night, and solar outdoor lights are a great addition to any outdoor home environment.

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SolPals MoonBeams Solar Nightlights - User Instructions