Solar lights that work?

[neversay]

Just thinking ahead to try and add a little brightness to the coming miserable lockdown dark nights by lighting up the garden. We have some powered garden lights but solar ones always seem unreliable whether from the pound shop or more upmarket vendors.

Looking at the ones on Amazon and using the excellent fakespot tool (https://www.fakespot.com/) shows that most of the reviews are fake.

Does anyone know if reliable solar garden lights actually exist in the UK?

[Dod101]

I have some and in my experience they will more or less work for a year or two but not much more than that. Obviously of course they need sun and that tends to be in short supply in the middle of winter. I would be inclined to use mains power if you can.

Dod

[didds]

Possibly not what you are after but we have found that strings of light activated (ie get dark they come on) fairy lights and the ilk are effective for these purposes and run off a AAA battery or two. Which you could of course use rechargables for. Ironically the poundland ones seem to work better/have a longer lifespan than the more expensive models!

didds

[AleisterCrowley]

I have bought a few from Amazon, Sainsbury's etc and they have been rubbish. Some never worked, some highly unreliable, all scrap within a year

[dspp]

Just thinking ahead to try and add a little brightness to the coming miserable lockdown dark nights by lighting up the garden. We have some powered garden lights but solar ones always seem unreliable whether from the pound shop or more upmarket vendors.

Looking at the ones on Amazon and using the excellent fakespot tool (https://www.fakespot.com/) shows that most of the reviews are fake.

Does anyone know if reliable solar garden lights actually exist in the UK?

I am sure several villages in China are locked in mortal combat over who will reign supreme in this particular niche market. They mostly use the scrap offcuts of the big PV module lines, and the lowest quality battery (cells) that are rejected by everybody else.

I use them for sign-lighting and to stop visitors reversing into the big white-painted rocks that we use to stop folk parking all over the borders. They are also quite good as anchor lights on unattended boats. I find that it does not make any significant difference which brand/etc you use - just shop on Amazon and but the simplest ones. The most important thing is to make sure the cells face south at about 45 degree inclination, and to ensure that the units are not sitting in a puddle of water. It is water ingress and deep discharges that tend to shorten their lifetimes. I generally get about 4-years between replacements if I take these precautions.

regards, dspp

[neversay]

Thanks all. So it's not just me that has no luck with these things.

I'll rig up some cabling and proper festoon lights instead.