As I recall, the August 2014 issue of Garden Railways magazine had an article by Eric Schade on adapting inexpensive solar lights for lighting buildings on our layouts
http://grw.trains.com/issues/2014/august-2014
Jerry
For what it is worth, I had similar things on the Triple O after reading the GR issue mentioned above. They lasted 6-18 months. I goofed by making it hard to remove the old lights, which is OK since $1 lights simply do not exist out here, anyway, causing me to wonder about the wisdom of this approach, anyway, for my circumstances.
I did try disassembling one and running wires from the panel to the light, but my ham-fisted soldering skills were not up to the task. The internal wiring is very thin and way to delicate for me to monkey with!
Aloha,
Eric
“….The batteries are easily replaceable, but at what cost? Home Depot sells a 4-pack of AAA NiMH batteries for $8…”
I tend to upgrade (predominantly on 1:1 applications) to batt’s that have close to 2000mah that i have acquired for less than $3cdn (with a coupon even better and quite often energizersTM), meaning last longer thru the night and calendar-wise (usually beyond a couple yrs).
doug c
I’ve had good success with Harbor Freight’s rechargeable batteries,
AA, 2200 mA:
https://www.harborfreight.com/pack-of-4-high-capacity-nimh-rechargeable-aa-batteries-97866.html
AAA, 900 mA:
https://www.harborfreight.com/pack-of-4-high-capacity-nimh-rechargeable-aaa-batteries-97861.html
They do lots of the cheaper sort of solar path lights, often with the AA rechargeable battery inside. I’ve got a bunch.
They also do larger solar panels; I got one, and a regulator & timer, in December and need to hook it up to my building models eventually.
Doug Cannon said:
i usually wait till CanadianTire has a 1x1.2AAA configured LED straight format for sale (50%off), and then buy at least 10+ of them. Mostly for 1:1 projects. With an eye on g-gauge bldgs
http://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/stainless-steel-fusion-solar-stake-lights-0528009p.html#srp
For best solar power acquisition they need the solar panel slightly tilted towards the sun. I laugh at the people that install the flat head style up here, expecting great charges and to last the evening. And then there are occassionals that have them pointing away from the sun ?) Explain this and just replace the battery inside when they seem to die off to occ. person in a store and generally it is “…really, oh ?”
No basic understanding of the concept “solar” !
doug c
Okay, so what doesn’t Canadian Tire sell? We frequent Canada a lot with my son playing hockey and it seems like the answer to the question “where can I get X (X being anything you need)?” is Canadian Tire. I can get chicken wire, a hockey stick, a gallon of milk, and set of tires all in one stop.
Sounds like our Tractor Supply … looks like the new Sears style operation.
And…you can even get Crappy Tire Money…(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
So Canadian Tire has a smiling Scotsman on their counterfeit money.
Colour me confused.
I’ve done several and have had no problems
you can add an LED to the circuit for like a porch light in addition to the inside light, makes it a little dimmer but not really noticeable but adds 25% run time
Beautiful work, Bill!
Thanks, now if I ever get my blinking light for my city water tower figured out I’ll have something