solar lawn lighting

Oct 14, 2008 07:13 pm
solar lawn lighting

I've been thinking about taking my solar yard lights inside after dark and using them for evening lighting. They are the kind that use LED bulbs.  Is there a product available that I can take all the AA batteries from my lawn lights and use indoors after dark? 
 
Oct 26, 2008 12:06 pm
Re: solar lawn lighting

I think I know what you are asking but, I am not 100% sure that I know what you are asking so, I will take my "best shot" at giving you an answer.

Wow! I must have started writing 10 times and deleted it 10 times because all I could come up with is more questions of my own. Questions like; are you on or off grid? What is the nominal voltage of your solar yard lights? Do you want to wire them all in permanently to one power source? Are the solar cells built in or separate from the light? Are they all identical to one another?

Anything is possible but, without some base of reference it would be difficult at best for me to help you come up with a safe and viable lighting system. I assume that you are attempting to reuse existing lights without purchasing anything more than necessary to utilize them indoors. This would involve some sort of voltage supply equal to the nominal voltage of each light if they are all identical to one another.
http://www.powerstream.com/dc2.htm
Look over this site and read the ratings carefully. Be sure the voltage range is not spread to far apart from what your lights need but keep in mind that the more lights there are on one string and, the longer the wire, the more of a voltage drop. Also the amperage. You will have to know how many amps are to be drawn from the power supply. Of course I don't know what the input voltage would be to the converter so... All in all, you may just have to experiment but, please practice safety. We wouldn't want to read about you burning yourself up now would we?
 
184 Posts
Oct 26, 2008 09:24 pm
Re: solar lawn lighting

Converting outdoor solar lights for indoor use may be more trouble than it's worth.  Why not just buy a small solar panel, a charge controller, and a battery.  You can run a bunch of LED lights with a setup like that.
 
1 Posts
Oct 26, 2008 10:58 pm
Re: solar lawn lighting

I have one of the lawn lighting sets that have 3 little floodlight type fixtures and the solar cell and battery is separate. All of the lights have 20' cords on them, so I set the solar panel outside, and ran the lights into my basement where my batteries and solar stuff is. Works good. The photocell that turns them on and off is outside on the solar panel. I put inline switches in the cord to 2 of the fixtures, so mostly I just leave one light on all the time. The batteries outside in the solar panel will run 1 light all night. I think this is in line with what you were asking, and if is, yes, it's certainly possible to put the romote lights inside.
 

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