Solar Garden Lights: Component and Functionality Guide

With the advances in the solar industry, it’s very easy and affordable to use solar garden lights to light your landscaping. Solar garden lights use LED (light emitting diode) bulbs that produce a clear and bright light. You won’t be able to tell the difference between solar garden lights and traditional electric lights. And the great thing about them is that you’ll receive a big discount on your lighting bill since they power themselves. You don’t have to use your house electricity to power them, so you don’t have to worry about increasing your monthly electrical bill to while you light your landscaping.

Solar garden light components

Before we get started, let’s cover the basic components of most solar garden light fixtures:
• A plastic case
• A solar cell attached on top
• A single AA Nicad battery
• A controller board
• A LED light bulb
• A photoresistor that acts as a sensor to detect darkness

All of these components are housed within the fixture itself.

Producing the Light

In most solar garden light fixtures, there will be four solar cells wired in series. This will produce about 1.8 volts and a maximum of 100 milliamps after being in full, bright sunshine.

The solar cells are wired through a diode directly to the battery. The battery is a standard AA Nicad battery. It produces about 1.2 volts and stores a maximum of 700 milliamp-hours. The battery fully charges during the day, except during heavy overcast days.

Since there is no more sun at night, the solar cells stop producing power. The photoresistor acts as a sensor and turns on the LED light when the sun has fully set.

The controller board has a three-circuit transistor that allows it to accept power from the solar cell and battery, as well as input form the photoresistor. It turns on the LED light when the photoresistor indicates darkness outside.

The LED light bulb uses about 45 milliamps with the fully charged battery producing about 1.23 volts. It produces about half the light of a candle. This may sound small, but it is more than enough for lighting your landscape. With a fully charged battery, the LED light can operate at full capacity for about 12 hours straight.

External Resources:
Solar Garden Lights Definitions
Solar Garden Lights Guide