Category Solar Basics

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.”…

I have been taking apart solar lights for the better part of a decade, mostly because they break and I…

A flickering solar light is one of the more annoying failures in a yard, because it is not fully broken.…

A solar light is a tiny power plant, and like any power plant it has good days and bad days.…

Every solar outdoor light on the market today uses silicon photovoltaic cells. Monocrystalline silicon in premium fixtures, polycrystalline in mid-range,…

People assume solar lights love heat because they love sun, and the two get conflated. The truth is more awkward.…

Standard solar lights operate on a simple binary: the sun charges the battery during the day, the battery powers the…

Most people never see the circuit board inside a solar light, and the manufacturers would prefer it stay that way.…

If you have ever stood in a yard at night and noticed that some solar lights cast a warm amber…

The solar lighting industry borrowed bifacial panel technology from the utility-scale solar market, where dual-sided panels have been generating 5…