Since we've actually had useful Sunshine recently I thought I'd take a look at solar light and this one came from one and Beyond I think it was in the UK it's a pound shop but it's called one Beyond because uh, some of the items are more expensive pound and this was more expensive than pounds. This is not all being very easy and I think it was only about two pounds though, which is not bad given it seems to be scaled up from the standard lights it has. For instance, instead of the normal amorphous solar panel, it's got an actual lead-in separate uh, probably fiberglass backed. uh, four section.

um, I would guess, but it is polycrystalline, which means it's got multi crystals as a personal monocrystalline which is consistent and there's a slightly higher output, but this is fine. This is our common and cheap lights and there's a little switch in the back which is in the on position. That's not good. That means the battery is going to be super flat, right? Say what? that means We just have to get straight inside at them.

I Put this stuff out the way. It looks as though it's been styled upon the sort of password detecting fence porch lights, but it is not a it is not passive infrared, it is strictly just a dusk switching light. But it does seem to be that little bit more up the market. so let's assess it for water shedding ability and the size of the cell inside.

Hopefully a double A probably one of those suspicious capacity Double A's it is a double E. that's nice and the uh, the battery terminals just hang out. That's excellent. So maybe it's not too bad.

Maybe that's why it was in the on position. Maybe it actually tested it in dead field and then they just basically said oh it, no work. we send it out anyway. That's lovely.

That's that's very good. Uh What if I turn it on now and cover the solar panel. oh now it's lighting. Yeah right? Okay, so the circuit board.

oh I don't think I need to take a photo this time because I get the feeling the circuit board is using the most basic Arrangement possible. which is the little classic. is it? YX chip and doctor? Hopefully I Feel a beefy? there's inductor. There's the little four pin chip and there's an on off switch.

the one that will corrode. Okay, so let's take a look at the construction of this. Oh, look at the back of the solar panel. It's all melted.

Where are they there? Basically widened out by just melting the plastic. Can you see that? I'll try out light it from the other side. Yeah, it's all rather messy, but that's just what they've done. That must stink in that area of the factory.

Uh, the little circuit board. is it glued on? or is it just basically held on with it? does appear to be stuck on in some way and it's got the little reflector here with just standard surface mount LEDs and the back of it does have drainage slots at the bottom here, so if water does get in, theoretically, they'll ooze their way out. Again, it's not too bad. But as with all these things, you know, the things I normally recommend are bypassing the little power switch with a blob of solder across the two contacts and then uh, smothering the rest with lacquer or grease or grease and the battery contacts I'd recommend covering in grease as well.

Uh, just basically because otherwise if water gets in, these will corrode around the end. This one claims to be 600 milliamp hour. Do we trust that? Do we believe that? Anyway, I Shall draw the schematic of this down and then we can explore it one moment. please.

the battery is on charge. Let's go straight to the schematic. So I'll Zoom this and we can take a look at regulars to the channel. We'll recognize this straight away.

It's a very standard solar light circuit the YX 805, F or just YX 805 and it's a four pin chip and you have the connection to the nickel metal hydride cell. It's usually broken with a switch. here. you can actually put a diode pointing from the solar panel to the top of the battery so that even if the switch is off, it can still charge it.

But the solar panel is its own input and it's used for two things. It's used to charge a battery via an internal diode, but also to detect when dusk has fallen because it puts out low voltage and it uses that as a sensor. The positive Supply goes to an inductor and by choosing the inductor, you can change the current. They've chosen a rather ungenerous well.

if it's quite a high value of inductor, the higher it is the lower occurrence. So in this case they put 120 micro Henry and it's going to be 10 milliamps shared between the six LEDs which isn't a huge amount I mean it's probably going to give out decent light. The one advantage of this is that even in Fairly overcast weather like in the UK which is a weather most of the time you might get a decent run time out of it. But if you're in a super hot sunny climate where the cell get charged up well every day, you could put in 47 micro Henry to double the current through the LEDs or 22 micro Henry to make it 10 milliamps per LED.

So basically multiplying it by six times for maximum intensity. Theoretically, that would give you 10 hours runtime ish. Would it? Actually, no, it wouldn't It be less than that because of the conversion efficiency and so maybe better stick in the set of 47 Mega Henry Like Likewise, if you're in a very dark country, you could change up to 330 micro Henry and it will actually reduce the battery current draw even more reduce the light output. But if it's super dark, that's fine.

It will cast out some light. So the principle of operation is that when it detects dusk, it starts pulsing the inductor. and because this end is positive when this end is pulled up. Negative: Because it switches it to the zero volt reel via internal transistor, it builds up magnetic field and then when it turns off again, this end goes negative and this end goes positive.

Now it's worth mentioning that technically speaking, the LED is straight across the nickel metal hydride cell all the time. and uh, that has two effects if the nickel metal hydride cell. If you get the switch off quite often, you'll find that the solar panel can actually try and pass current through not make the LED glow. but normally if the cell's working and not go on high impedance, it will not be able to.

It'll be putting out 1.5 volts tops at full charge and it will not be able to like the LED unless the LED goes leaky. That sometimes happens and they're just basically they have a parasitic current draw all day long which is annoying. but because the inductor Switched Off and this end has gone positive now and this ends negative, adds on top of the battery and it boosts the voltage up to the point it can push current through the cluster of six LEDs and make them light. It usually also has a voltage level threshold detector in it so it attacks from the nickel metal hydride cell is running low around about one volt and it usually cuts off.

It's a very clever Ultra Mega mass produced chip just because solar lights are everywhere. And as I say, the best things you could do to this uh light are the take it apart, completely smear Vaseline or silicon grease over everything. Bypass that switch, get some Breeze in the battery contacts and uh, hopefully it will give good life um, as opposed to just as they're supplied and they're sort of like water wicking way that you know that just often these little units get corroded, but you can apply that protection and get a bit more life out of them. Likewise, if you have a particularly favorite light, you can usually just swap the the Nick metal hydride cell in them.

So really, for the cost, it's not too bad. I Mean it did have a technical flaw and it's It's not super generous output, but it's still a functional light. and uh, for the cost, it's absolutely fine. It's very acceptable indeed.