My back yard is really, really dark at night. Imagine that…
Anyways, I went and grabbed some solar lamps that use LEDs figuring they’d be the brightest.
Not quite. Were I to mount the things five feet off the ground (my original plan) it wouldn’t even illuminate the ground. For that matter, one two feet up would barely illuminate the ground.
I’ve done some looking around and there is basically nothing I can find that gives the wattage of the various lights out there.
Hmmm… most of the solar powered outdoor lighting I’ve seen is pretty much as you describe; useful perhaps to mark the boundary of a path, but not for illuminating areas. Trouble is that the little inch-square solar panel is only maybe 10% efficient; the rechargeable battery is only, say 80% efficient and the LED is only, I dunno… 40% efficient; assuming these numbers are correct (and they’re probably optimistic), then you could expect your little light to produce, in 8 hours of darkness, about 3% of the light output that fell as sunlight on that little inch-square during the 8 hours of best daylight when it was charging
The problem isn’t LEDs, you can get very bright LED lamps, it’s the amount of power generated by a small solar cells. If you want to illuminate the area and not just provide guide lights you’ll need to pony up for much bigger solar cells and batteries to hold the charge overnight.
I helped a friend install some low voltage landscape lights that produced amazing results.
I thought it was a goofy idea to be honest when we got started but that night I was really impressed with the effect the lighting had. I was impressed enough that I decided to light my house next but…that was 6 months ago and I have not done it yet. :smack:
He did get a step up from the home center kits and they were not all that hard to install fwiw.
What you do is get the proper wire for the lights. It’s really tough and will withstand what you do next.
Lay out the run of wire you want to install.
Take a “sharpshooter” and step or plunge it into the ground about 6"-8".
Rock the sharpshooter back and forth to wedge the earth out a bit.
Do the above several times until you get about a couple of feet of “trench”.
Using the sharpshooter slightly off center to the wire but straight enough to push you shove the wire into the slot you just created.
You can cover a lot of distance like this before you know it and the ground closes back up if you just step on it. Ask your electrician buddy about the codes in your area to be sure.
No, It’s a shovel that has a long narrow blade approx. 15" X 4" about 4’ in total length with a loop handle deal on the end rather then a regular shovel pole type handle.
More like $15 I’m a contractor, I own several. My post wasn’t meant to be a dig towards you guys in any way, more like a jaw-drop amazement that anyone would pay over $300 for a shovel.
I Guess I should have said "are they crazy?
Also a better way to bed low voltage lines under grass would be to use a lawn edger. Top the groove w/potting soil. Ultra fast and manueverable. A non-powered unit can be used in tight or heavily planted areas.
In defense of solar powered landscape lights, I use them to define the path from my driveway to front door. You can’t play baseball under them, but they also do not give the “jailbreak in progress” look.
