Solar Batteries for Solar Lights

Unfortunately the batteries that our solar garden lights, solar street lights, solar led lights, solar flag pole lights and solar spot lights use don’t last as long as the sun that recharges them.  That is OK.  The first thing you want to do is open up the solar light unit and check to see what size battery your lights use.  The second thing you want to do is count how many batteries are in each solar light.  The third thing you want to do is count how many of the same types of solar lights you have.  Calculate, number of batteries per light X number of lights =  total number of batteries to replace all + number of spare solar light batteries you want on hand.

Using a regular battery will not work in a solar light.  A outdoor solar light usually consists of a solar cell, a solar light bulb, an array of rechargeable batteries and a photo cell.  During the day the photo cell is used to detect the presence of sunlight and when detected it prevents the batteries from supplying electricity to the solar light.  This allows the solar panel to recharge the outdoor solar light batteries and not expend their energy.  Once the photo cell has stopped detecting sunlight the electrical circuit from the photo cell triggers the flow of power from the batteries to the light bulb.  This allows the lights to shine during the most needed times, which is at night.  So, you can see that the batteries will be constantly charging and recharging, which isn’t suitable for normal disposable batteries.

Buying the batteries in bulk will save you some money.  Since the batteries are rechargeable you don’t have to worry about a shelf life, that is once placed in the device you intend to use them they will receive a full charge.  The batteries last roughly 1,000 cycles, or in the purpose of solar spot lights, solar garden lights, solar outdoor light, flag pole lights or solar street lights they should last roughly 2-3 years.  Once cycle would be charging during the day and discharging at night.  You will probably want to replace the rechargeable NiCD AA batteries in the morning, which will allow them to be fully charged throughout the day and ready for use when the sun goes down.

One other item to take note of when purchasing solar batteries for solar lights is the term mAh. This stands for milli-amp hours. The higher the number then the longer the batteries will last after being recharged. For instance, if two batteries have a rating of 1000 mAh called battery A and 800 mAh called battery B and your solar light uses 100 milliamps then battery A, with a full charge, will power the solar light for 10 hours where battery B, with a full charge, will only power the solar light for 8 hours. So pay attention to the rated mAh when purchasing the batteries. Some of the cheaper solar light batteries will only be rated for 700 mAh, where the slightly more expensive solar light batteries will be rated at 1000 mAh, which is a 30% increase in longevity.