Hi all,
In our backyard we have three different types/vintages of solar-powered yard lights. They all take one AA rechargeable battery each and it is time to start replacing them.
Four lights take 3.2 v AA 600mAh;
Ten take 1.2 v AA 150mAh; and
One takes 1.2 v AA 350mAh.
IANA electrician or electrical engineer or anything of that ilk, so I would like to know how critical the voltage and mAh distinctions are. I don’t really anticipating waltzing into Home Depot, or Rona etc and finding a vast selection of all three kinds.
Any advice in the next hour or so would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
You have to keep the same voltage as those are not interchangeable. The milli amp-hour is how long the battery will last and those are interchangeable.
It should also be mentioned that the mAh ratings of off-brand batteries are often exaggerated. If you’re shopping on Amazon and see a battery with an extremely low price and/or an extremely high mAh rating, there’s an excellent chance the capacity is bogus. Sometimes the claimed capacity is more than double the actual.
I just looked up “18650 battery 5000mah” and found some that were badged as “Amazon’s Choice”, even though 18650 batteries normally top out around 3600mah
If I were to use the wrong voltage what would the consequences be? If I used only 1.2 v batteries in the 3.2 v lights, would that simply be no light? And in the reverse would there be a rapid burnout of the light? I assume the lights in our fixtures are LEDs of some sort. In general they are all variations of the sort of thing at the link: https://www.rona.ca/en/solar-pathway-light-led-pack-of-6-black-84565148
Thanks
The 3.2 V one sounds like Li-ion in a AA size, not the same as a regular rechargeable. If you do the lights may be dim, may not last as long due to different charging characteristics, or open random nearby gateways to the nether.
The 1.2 v ones are all standard, perhaps NiCd or Nimh, and are very low, you could replace them with any 1.2 v battery.