solar leds

florjon · Post by **florjon** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 4:26 pm

hi all.
I bought a couple of those cheap outdoor solar leds.
Theres a battery inside good for about 8 hrs to power 2 leds.
I had this idea to use them as a base to power my models, just by a solar cell.
No more power cords or batteries :-) (apart from the recharcheable battery)

Now the thing is that the leds will only turn on when its dark.
But i want them to turn on just by a switch, day or night.

So i have the solar cell, 2 leds connected to it, and an off/on switch. All part of the module.
There is no extra sensor or anything to see if its dark.
Could it be build in the cell?
If i place my hand on it then the light will come on, so it seems like it.
Anyone have an idea to disable that?
Ofcourse i opened it up, but theres only the small circuit with 2 wires and what seems a resistor.

Paulbo · Post by **Paulbo** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 5:16 pm

There is no "switch" per se - when the solar panel stops generating electricity the battery runs power the other other direction. There's likely a diode to keep juice from running back through the solar panel (just as there's likely one to keep juice from running backwards through the LED while the battery's charging).

It's kind of opposite of the mindlessly simple blinking mechanism on traffic barriers - when it's light out, the light detector keeps the lamp off, but then lets it turn on when it gets dark ... except that that then tells the detector that it's light out, so it turns off the light ... and then it's dark again, so turn the light back on ... lather, rinse, repeat.

florjon · Post by **florjon** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 7:54 pm

Thanks paul,
So how can i manually control 'lights on' instead of letting darkness control it?

Paulbo · Post by **Paulbo** » Sat Mar 09, 2013 10:27 pm

There you've stumped me. I will leave that to members smarter than I.