Long Term Solar Lighting Test

I'm big into solar based lighting and LEDs in general. I've had a lot of various solar lights over the years and have gravitated towards the style with a solar panel and separate lights. Most fail after 2 years or less and even then they had to be fiddled with to keep working.

I also use part of the lighting kits indoors for nighttime lighting at the tiny home. However, most of these LED lights are rather dim for using as an actual light to do anything constructive. And they lose power after a few hours.

I'm doing a long term test for a company called Richarm that sells a solar lighting kit that consists of an actual solar panel, two 42 LED lights, a remote control and USB charge cables. The batteries for these are contained inside the lights not the panel assembly. The remote allows for on/off, 2-4-6 hour timer, dimming function and automatic on/off. The USB charge cables are great for cloudy days. The light housings are metal and glass instead of the usual plastic. Each light head has a charge indicator as well. The cables allow for 32 foot separation of the lights. And they're bright, very bright.

Currently, I'm using two of the lights as dismounted lights. These I use for night time lighting, as a trouble light for working on the car and emergency lighting during power failures.

These are the first lights that have stayed on all night when fully charged, which for me is astounding.

After my short term test and my review, the customer rep has sent me a third set of the lights, gratis, for the testing. This set I'm going to use a USB solar charger and a 45 watt solar panel for charging them which I am hopeful will work well.

I'm curious about your findings. What are you considering "long term", and when will/did you begin your test?

Carla Burke wrote:I'm curious about your findings. What are you considering "long term", and when will/did you begin your test?

I suppose I started when I got the first set because of the apparent quality of the product. As far as how I define long term, that will be 8 months of leaving 2 sets in situ over the winter where they'll be exposed to weather in northern Michigan. Since the battery packs are sealed inside the metal and glass housing rather than in a plastic battery compartment, my opinion is that they should be in working condition at the end of the 8 months. Battery contact corrosion is always the issue. If they've solved this issue, I'll be impressed.

My main concern / issue is that due to our location, directly on the 45th parallel (44.9978 & 44.999) and our tree cover, the amount of sunlight doesn't fully charge the lights this time of year due to the shorter days, putting the batteries under stress. Once the leaves are down, that issue will be moot.

The issue of my opinion about the solar panel being slightly undersized is what started my discussion with the seller that led to my formalizing the decision to do a real test and putting one set on a Harbor Freight solar panel to see how quickly that will charge the lights in the weaker winter sun. As I told the seller,  I'm willing to spend the money to see if the higher output panel will mitigate the charging issue I experience.

I have been having a lengthy conversation with the manufacturer, Richarm. Two of the four lights don't stay lit as long as the other two. More about that later in this post. These are still the best solar lights I've ever had. There's no plastic housings or mounting assemblies - it's all metal all the time.

Another issue I see is that the solar panel that comes with them is very good but may be undersized for certain environments. What I am going to do is take two of my crappy old Harbor Freight 15 watt panels and use a USB only solar charger and see if I can use that to get the lights to fully charge in a shorter time.

During my emailathon with James at Richarm, they sent me some supplies to help with the testing and the project as a whole. They made two 15 foot USB charge cables for me and they're also sending me two replacement lights for the two that don't stay lit as long as they should.

I'll be taking apart the two lights that have what are apparently bad batteries and replacing them. This will show me how well the units are made. Yeah, I'm sure they're Chinese made but the build quality really is quite good.