Category Solar Basics

The first hard frost of the season does strange things to solar lights. The path lights that ran from dusk…

Solar panels do not last forever, and they do not fail all at once. They fade. Every year, a small…

The first solar light I ever bought had one mode. It turned on at dusk and ran until the battery…

Open up a solar garden light and the panel on top is almost certainly one of three things: a square…

A solar light is a tiny power plant. A panel collects energy, a battery stores it, and an LED spends…

An LED is not a light bulb. A light bulb is a resistor that glows when current passes through it,…

Solar panel efficiency is one of the most quoted and least understood numbers in the solar lighting world. You see…

A solar light that turns on at dusk and off at dawn seems like simple magic, but inside that automatic…

The most dangerous component in a solar light is the battery, and the component most likely to be missing in…

The small solar panel bolted to the top of a garden light does not see light the same way your…

Pop the back off a dead garden light and you will find a small green circuit board holding a handful…

If you own more than two solar lights, you will eventually hold a dead battery in your hand and wonder…

That little plastic remote that comes with a solar floodlight looks simple, but the invisible signal it shoots across your…

A solar security light that snaps on the instant you step onto the driveway feels almost magical. The magic is…

Open any solar light listing and you will see a number thrown at you, sometimes two. “1000 lumens super bright.”…