No matter where I am, it always seems to be about the same time of year that I suddenly get the urge to play with garden solar lights… and I keep discovering new varieties to keep my interest up.
This weekend I was at home in Northumberland when a package from Banggood arrived with these beauties in it.
The dandelions are blue and much better than the norm with a nice soft furry feel to them. The power torch – well, you will have see the normal flicker version of these before – a full RGB version of these was new to me – the left photo shows the solar torch which is constantly colour-changing.
The dandelion lamps are also shown still in a cluster (I wanted to get them charged) whereas the centre and right photos show the quite impressive solar motion light which, as you can see in the CENTRE photo, is BRIGHT when fully on – the unit settles to a dim white when no-one is near – hence conserving charge while still giving some illumination. All three of these units last all night with even half a day of sunshine (as against Poundland specials which are often good for a couple of hours a night then usually die forever after 3 months or so).
In the left photo, ignore the string of red lights, I’ve had those for years (220v powered).
If you want more info or you’re interested in getting hold of these, please use the links above. Assuming these stand the test of time, these will end up in Spain later in the summer – though they did quite well over the weekend considering the half-hearted UK Northeast sunshine.
Hi Peter,
I can understand that it can be damp in the North East, but our place is within 50 yards of the Bristol Channel and bears the brunt of the Westerly winds, even Stainless Steel doesn’t stand a chance here. I am learning that not all Stainless Steel is the same, some grades are more stainless than others!
If it’s well made, plastic can last longer with us.
I’ll keep trying the more expensive lamps and hopefully I’ll find some that will last.
I originally suspected it might be the batteries letting them down, so I bought ones with replaceable batteries, but changing batteries didn’t work. I’m guessing the electronics have failed.
Paul
Good point about stainless steel. I’ve seen so-called stainless stel rust over time – but at our local river in the Northeast, a partially submerged stainless device looked new after 10 years….mind you it cost more than a solar light 🙂 Quite often the moisture gets into the electronics.
Hi there,
I love Solar Garden lights, but I have NEVER found any that work longer than one season.
If you find any I would love to hear about them.
Paul
I hear you Paul – I too have had many different sets and the majority over the years have been good for just one or two years – especially the cheap ones. Here, of course I’m talking mainly about the UK, specifically the Northeast which has the most attrocious damp problems due to year-round persisten rain. In southern Spain they last a lot longer but again the cheap £1 specials are the first to go. In both cases I have a few which do last longer. I’ve just thrown away one of my four Maplin stainless steel jobs which have lasted MANY years but then they were £6 each on offer at the time. I’m definitely heading to the more expensive models these days – no plastic if possible. Most of the tools for waterproofing – like WD-40 – make only a marginal difference too.
On a related subject – we all talk about reliable LEDs over old filament lamps – and they ARE more reliable – BUT we usually need so many of them that the overall reliability isn’t TOO much better than the “old days” – an example – traffic lights which typically use lots of RED, YELLOW and GREEN LEDs. How many do we see with the odd bust LED… lots, I’d suggest.
I’ve had several multi-white-LED solar security lights where one of more of the white LEDs have given up after a year or so – usually from corrosion.