OUTDOOR SOLAR LIGHTS

I would like to make some simple solar-powered light fixtures for my front porch. Anyone have experience with this?

Well, you’re going to need a battery. This is probably a professional installation if you need to ask. There are a lot of things that can come up.

You’ll need several of them. Have you ever seen the ones on top of school zone lights? You’ll need one bigger to supply lights.

You could probably use LED lights to avoid the DC-AC conversion.

Also, if you want main power as backup power, you’ll need some isolation circuits. Then you need an AC-DC converter for your batteries.

You can see how this is starting to pile up. This isn’t including the work involved in creating fixtures and modifying them appropriately for your house.
Definitely need a battery because what’s the point of a solar powered light that only works during the day… NiMH are the most common, I suppose you could use Lead acid batteries. You’ll need a smart charging circuit too…

I currently reside in Florida, so I figured to take advantage of all the sunshine and decided to buy some solar lights and solar decorations to make the front yard look wonderful at night without having to use electricity . I found some good sites online, particularly www.officialsolarproducts.com but I am still searching for some great solar products for a bargain price. If anybody knows a good place to get some solar lights and solar decorations, please let me know.

I purchased mine at a local LOWE’S hardware store last year at the end of the season. I also saw them at Walmart and Home Depot.

They have the blue tint which I prefer. They were only plastic but I paid less than $50 for 10 of them. You can purchase metal, copper, aluminum etc. which will be more expensive….and you can probably pay much much more for plastic also. I decided that since you do have to replace the batteries or bulbs eventually I would get inexpensive ones, and just replace the entire lantern in a year or two.

It is made of plastic type material and is supplied by solar light. Some people use it in flower arranging and to put near graves.

Walmart has dozens of them.