Solar lights
Spike lights, step lights and wall lights, floodlights, street lights and portable camping lanterns that charge over USB, all in one place. Battery capacity times voltage gives watt hours, and because an LED puts out around one hundred lumens per watt, the tens of thousands of lumens advertised would last minutes on such a battery. The diode lasts tens of thousands of hours, the battery one to three seasons, so it is worth checking whether it can be changed. In December the panel gathers in Central Europe eight to twenty-two per cent of what it gathers in June, and charging below zero damages the battery permanently.
Solar lights
A solar light makes its own electricity, so there is no cable to run to it and nothing to plug in. The category covers spike lights and step lights, wall lights, floodlights, street lights and portable camping lanterns that charge over USB. Some models have a motion sensor, some a remote control, and for some the IP rating is stated. Battery capacities run from 600 to 12 500 milliamp hours.
On solar lights, the figure in lumens is the least reliable number on the box. Battery capacity in milliamp hours times voltage gives watt hours, a present-day LED puts out roughly one hundred to one hundred and fifty lumens per watt, and from that you work out how long the light can run at the stated output. A lithium battery of 12 500 milliamp hours stores around forty-six watt hours, so twenty thousand lumens would last minutes on such a battery, not a night. Read high numbers as advertising, then, and not as a figure you can compare by.
How long the light lasts through the night is decided by the battery, not by the size of the panel or the number of diodes. The diode lasts tens of thousands of hours, but the battery in a solar light one to three seasons, so it is the battery that runs out first. On lights with a replaceable battery the repair comes down to the price of the battery, on resin-sealed lights the whole lamp is thrown away. Before buying it is worth finding out, then, whether the battery can be changed.
A solar light performs worst in exactly the season when it is needed most. In December the panel gathers in Central Europe only eight to twenty-two per cent of what it gathers in June, so lighting time in winter shrinks to a fraction. The short day, the low sun and cloud cover add up, so even a clean panel has little to draw on in winter. Snow on the panel stops charging altogether until somebody clears it off.
Frost lowers capacity only temporarily, but charging below zero damages the battery permanently, and a solar light spends the winter charging in exactly that frost. On lithium batteries five charges below freezing are enough for capacity to drop irreversibly by fifteen to twenty-five per cent. Over winter it is worth putting the cheaper lights away, then, and the camping and work lights in this category charge over USB anyway.
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