I have MANY years experience of solar garden lights from the cheapest rubbish to quite expensive… what happened? Well, price – greedy importers out to make a quick buck is what happened – along with the public’s need to get something for nothing.The result is that the manufacturer builds to a price only.Back in 2008 we bought a pair of solar lights from the now defunct MAPLIC ELECTRONICS who were at the time having a sale – stainless+glass solar lights for a mere £6 (UK pounds sterling) each.
I bought a pair and put them in the garden.Maybe 4 years later I brought them to our (then part time holiday) home in Spain.So, zero maintenance.
Of course as some of you will know, there’s stainless steel and then there is stainless steel.There are supports peaking out of the Tyne river (UK Northeast at the quayside) in perfect health after many, many years.That’s not the stuff they use in garden lights.
But in this case, see photo above left – the body of this Maplin light is definitely salvageable stainless – sadly they used chromed steel supports for whatever reason and the supports are now rusting in 2025..I could likely clean them up.The glass is dirty but almost flawless despite many years in Southern Spain’s blistering summer heat.
Inside, the lamp cover (designed to spread the light more evenly) is yellowing a bit but the electronics (inc 2-level brilliance switch – not on-off) are perfect.The LED they used as well as being several times brighter than common solar light LEDs, is perfect – 1w units I think.I have two of these lamps and sadly in one of them, the battery is finally defunct after 17 years (plus however long they were in the store before being sold off cheaply).
Note the photos of the battery… type 14500 3.2v 250ma Li-ion – way better than your average tiny NICAD found in other lamps – and likely no need for voltage doubling circuitry because of the battery voltage.I’d planned to replace these batteries as modern 14500s are higher capacity – they also cost about half of what I paid for the lamp, but one of the lamps had LOTS of minor issues – the other – well, see for yourself, almost fully restored after 17 years and the one battery is likely good for at least another 2-4 years at least.Meanwhile, what of my more modern, lower cost lamps? Well, we have a number of small lamps which cost about 2 Euros – single LED, black plastic – I won’t even go into detail with these – the electronics always fail after a year or two due to corrosion, the solar panels are usually glued badly into a slight recess in the top and after a while the water gets in and corrodes the circuit boards.
That, the battery contacts or the on-off switch.I’ve even taken to removing the rather pointless on-off switch in recent units but it seems impossible to prevent corrosion.Even lights that look further upmarket are rarely good for more than a year or two – see the model on the right – looks good – bought a few months ago, panel in the top and a set of yellow flicker lights – the lights generally last especially as they are in the shade and can be given a quick coat of laquer..
but the electronics – today almost all solar lamps run on a single 1.2v NICAD battery and the circuitry doubles up the voltage as well as handling the solar panel, using no output to indicate night (and hence lights on) or output hence charge the battery.Not unusually, this model just this week failed in that if the battery is charged, the lights come on – but do not go off even in bright sunlight – hence are dead within 24 hours.I’m convinced the circuit boards are all made by the same shoddy company..
just a little more effort and they’d last for years.Surely such a guarantee would be worth the extra cost to the manufacturer and to the end consumer? Of course, we all know that batteries and exotic metals should be recycled separately, but I wonder if anyone would care to take a guess at how many people remove the batteries before ditching these units every couple of years.My guess would be “very few”.
Because there is so much space inside the above right unit I plan to re-task it rather than bin the thing.To the left, we acquired a couple of “owl” solar lights from folk moving away – the same old design – one white LED for each eye, no imagination, acrylic paint that can’t handle outdoor use, solar panel dropped in and badly glued into a recess so the rain can sit there and eventually drop down to the circuitry….how much effort would it have taken the manufacturer to put the panel at a slight angle and arrange that any water drips down a gully avoiding circuitry…