The original version of this lovely garden light came in June 2019 and was a a staple part of our garden edge lighting here in Spain for around a year, until some nasty piece of work stole it. I have yet to find out who it was who took the light while we were stuck in the UK with Covid restrictions – but I’ll keep looking.
Anyway, I was so impressed with the original from 2019 that I bought a replacement – which turned up minus its insides. I wrote off to Banggood who promptly sent off another – and I have to say I think the manufacturer has improved on the original design because as well as colour, this solar lamp now does a really nice, brighter white display (not in any way to be confused with Poundland specials).
These lamps are inexpensive for what you get – a decent sized solar panel, good casing, 7 decent, powerful RGBW LEDs and simple control. There is one button which cycles through the available colours – hold it down until you get there, then press again to fix. Simples.
I note the price to Spain is around 15 Euros and free shipping, it will be similar to other European countries. USA pricing is more or less the same and they can ship from the USA as well.
Minor niggle: the colour choices are basic, so any intensity of RED, GREEN, BLUE, YELLOW, CYAN, MAGENTA or WHITE but no PINK etc. RED and WHITE together would have done that nicely.
I have my own photos and the stock ones are pretty as you’ll see… and accurate… the clear front on this lamp is not glass which originally made me wonder how long they’d survive Spanish hot summer sun (which may or may not be a problem depending on where you live) but after a year the original lamp was still perfect. Height is 37cm (14.57”) from the top of the solar cell to the bottom of the spike. Length of the solar cell plus lamp is 20cm (7.87”)
The unit has a 5v 1.5w solar panel, a 16850 Lithium battery and 7 RGBW LEDS (the WHITE is a nice, cool white and the colours are bright. Power is 1.55W, working hours are claimed to be 8 hours and material is ABS. That working time claim is way too vague to be useful but I’ve never seen the lamp give up at night.
Angle of illumination is freely adjustable but of course you’ll want to keep the solar panel facing the sun. These are clearly not PoundStretcher specials and up to now the waterproofing has held (but then the lamp is not in the very wet Northeast of England). I’m automatically suspicious of anything that isn’t all glass and stainless steel but so far so good.
No brand name that I could make out. Here are direct Banggood links:
-and
I’m always wondering what’s inside these kind of cheapo solar lamps and what’s the real quality.
For instance I got my hands on pair of PIR solar lamps with a 18650 battery inside ( https://imgur.com/a/FnR6yCz ), that I got for quite nothing (1€ each, bought in a shop that sells undelivered/unclaimed parcels from the post office). After a couple of days under the sun they didn’t work.
So my first instinct was to dismantle them. First surprise (but not really a surprise), that waterproof stuff is not waterproof at all. Second surprise was to see that the soldering on the PCB was wrong, so the solar panel cannot charge the 18650 battery. Third surprise, it uses an unprotected (probably recycled) 18650 battery and no protection circuit on the PCB/board (no overcharge, no undercharge, no-nothing). So in its conception that lamp would function until the battery is empty (like under 1V). And once the battery is empty, then consider it as dead (because of undercharge).
Hopefully I was able to resolder connections properly on the PCB, so the solar panel can charge the battery, and I replaced the defunct batteries with protected 18650 batteries, and with a glue gun I attempted to waterproof it.
They work well now, but at start they were just designed as electronic+battery instant waste (and that’s what they would be for people without a soldering iron, spare protected 18650 batteries in the drawer, and no dismantling habit).
Well, this one wasn’t that cheap – certainly I’ve had my share of duff solar lights – especially from Poundstretcher in the UK – I think wherever they were made it must never rain or they were selling factory rejects – I’ve been down that whole soldering/repairing/glueing route many times. This model on the other hand – the first one was great until some wipe stole it. The second one has now worked flawlessly in my garden here in Spain since I wrote the blog about it – and is bright.
I usually see moisture get in through either the edge of the solar panel after years of sun and the expand/contract is different between glass panel and plastic but the most frequent incursion is from the wire to the light and through the switch(even rubber booted).
This design looks like it could be good with the lights/panel/mount all a fixed part but the switch will probably do it in eventually. Water will run off the top and because they didn’t put a lip around the switch it’ll run to the switch and then drip off it. That’ll lead to incursion because of expansion/contracting of air inside the unit so it’ll wick moisture in eventually.
But it could be years unless more butt heads find other peoples stuff worth stealing..