Quick solar lighting

When I needed a light inside our new garden shed, a ready-made mini solar lighting system made it easy, explains Lance Turner.

A while back I installed a 1.5 x 3 metre garden shed, on a spare concrete slab, to house all the garden tools and other stuff that needed to be kept out of the rain (but I didn’t want it clogging up the garage).

Sometimes, we need to access the shed at night, and that was always a case of grabbing a lantern or resorting to my keyring torch, so a light was needed in the shed. As there was no power there, it had to be a solar unit.

I would normally put together a small solar system from various components, but also being time poor, I thought I would see what was available off the shelf. Looking around, there wasn’t much available in Australia that was worth buying, at least not for under a couple hundred dollars—well outside the budget for this light. So, I hopped onto AliExpress and quickly found a suitable light for under $30 (tinyurl.com/yku8kawu).

My main priorities for this light, apart from price, were that it had a passive infrared detector, that it was good quality and that it was also repairable. The unit I found not only comes apart easily and uses a standard 18650 battery, it was also well made and used a USB-C plug on the solar panel, so it can not only charge from any USB-C 5V source, but there are many small USB-C solar panels available should the included unit fail at some point.

Anyway, once it arrived, I opened it up and took some photos. The quality was indeed quite good, with a fibreglass controller PCB, 1500mAh battery and even silicone sheathed wiring. There was even a remote control!
Installation was easy—you just screw the solar panel mount to a north-facing wall and clip in the solar panel. The light uses an identical mount which I screwed to the ridge rail of the shed, and the 3-metre solar panel cable was more than long enough.

The light immediately started charging (red charging light was on) and the unit was fully charged just after lunchtime (charge LED changes from red to green). By late twilight, the charge light went out completely.

On initially pressing the mode button the light came on and then immediately went off. It did this on all three modes, and I thought a design flaw was causing its own light to trigger itself off. The actual issue was that there was still enough voltage from the solar panel to unsettle the control circuit. A few minutes later, once it had gotten a bit darker, and it all worked as it should. It lights the shed very well, much brighter than needed.

The light has three modes: 100% brightness when it detects you and then turns off 20 seconds after you leave; 100% brightness when it detects you and then drops to 10% brightness 20 seconds after you leave; and 30% brightness all the time. The light also has some other modes for use as a camping light, as it also includes a 3 watt narrow beam torch and a hanging hook. You can even buy the light as a dual unit kit for an extra $13.