how to choose outdoor solar lights ? You need to avoid 7 traps！
I.The parameters of solar lights have serious false labeling
Most solar lighting sellers will falsely label parameters, especially for solar street lights and solar projection lights. The power labeled on the solar lights is often 100 watts, 200 watts, or even 500 watts, while the actual brightness cannot even reach one tenth. The fundamental reason for this chaos is that there is currently no unified national/industry standard for solar lighting outdoor fixtures; Secondly, there is no simple and direct tool for measuring power, and even manufacturers roughly know the power of the lighting fixtures based on the parameters of the power controller; The third issue is that everyone is falsely labeling, and consumers only know that the higher the power, the brighter the product. If the power is not falsely labeled, the product cannot be sold, so it can only be falsely labeled.
Forget about solar-powered lighting fixtures—even street lamps powered by electricity face challenges in achieving true 300-watt or 500-watt output. So, when platforms like Amazon, Wal-Mart offer solar-powered lighting fixtures claiming to be 500 watts or 600 watts, take a glance but don’t take it seriously! Currently, even engineering-grade solar street lights struggle to reach such power levels. The power of solar lamps is constrained by the battery capacity, which in turn is limited by the photovoltaic panel. To create a landscape solar lights with an actual brightness of 100 watts, assuming it lights up for 8 hours, it would require at least a 3.7V ternary lithium battery of 220AH and a 6V photovoltaic panel of 260 watts. This setup would be both expensive and technically challenging to implement.
II. Photovoltaic panels and batteries often do not match.
Some manufacturers label their solar lights with 15A batteries, but they come with 6V15W photovoltaic panels, which I find very frustrating. A 6V15W photovoltaic panel can generate a peak of 2.5AH of electricity per hour, and the average sunshine duration in China is 4.5H. This configuration assumes that a 2.5AH photovoltaic panel can fully charge a 15A battery in 4.5 hours?
Someone may say, apart from 4.5 hours, not considering any other time? After all, besides the peak of 4.5 hours, electricity can also be generated at other times! Yes, that statement is correct. Firstly, the efficiency of electricity production is very low except during peak hours; Secondly, the peak production capacity conversion here is calculated based on 100% conversion. It is already good that the photovoltaic power generation can achieve 80% conversion when charging the battery. This is also why your 10000mA power bank cannot charge your 2000mA iPhone 5 times. As for the lack of detailed calculations here, it is because we are not engineers in this field and do not need to calculate very finely.
III. Using monocrystalline silicon photovoltaic panels does not necessarily mean it is better than polycrystalline silicon.
Many businesses advertise that their solar lighting fixtures and photovoltaic panels are made of monocrystalline silicon, which has high conversion efficiency and is much better than polycrystalline silicon. I am speechless about this. From the perspective of solar lighting fixtures, the quality of a photovoltaic panel should be measured by whether it can fully charge the battery of the fixture. If the photovoltaic panels are all 6V15W and produce 2.5A of electricity per hour, how is your monocrystalline silicon better than mine? If it’s just to deceive and sell at a high price, then I’m sorry.
The debate between single crystal silicon and polycrystalline silicon has always existed. In laboratory tests, the efficiency of single crystal silicon is indeed slightly higher than that of polycrystalline silicon, but in installation and application, the difference between them is not significant. Applied to solar lighting fixtures, whether single crystal or polycrystalline, as long as high-quality photovoltaic panels can be used, it is already good.
IV. Photovoltaic panels must be installed in a location that can receive the maximum amount of sunlight.
Many customers buy solar lamps because they are easy to install, do not require cables, and do not consider whether their environment is suitable for installing solar lamps. Can the light work well in the location where you installed it with less than 3 hours of sunlight? Can you blame the light for always not being fully charged when the wiring between your photovoltaic panel and the light fixture is more than 20 meters? The optimal wiring distance between photovoltaic panels and lighting fixtures is 5 meters, and the longer the distance, the lower the conversion efficiency.
The photovoltaic panels of solar energy must be installed in the place where sunlight can shine to the maximum extent.
V. Is the battery of outside solar light fixture brand new?
The place where I am is the capital of lighting fixtures, with all kinds of lighting accessories available. The batteries sold by the battery suppliers I know are all dismantled batteries for new energy vehicles, whether they are ternary lithium or lithium iron phosphate batteries.
The reason for this is that:
Firstly, the brand new batteries are expensive and few manufacturers can use them;
Secondly, the brand new batteries have been supplied to major customers such as new energy vehicles, and even if they have money, they cannot be bought.
Is the disassembled battery durable? The answer is that disassembled batteries are also very durable. The lights we sold ourselves three years ago are still being used by our customers. There is a comprehensive testing method for dismantling batteries, and as long as strict screening is carried out, high-quality batteries can be obtained. What is being tested here is not the quality of the battery itself, but human nature.
VI. The difference between ternary lithium batteries and lithium iron phosphate batteries.
The batteries we use are mostly ternary lithium batteries, and the ones we recommend to customers are also ternary lithium batteries. The reason for not using iron lithium batteries is that they use inert materials, making it difficult to detect their quality; Secondly, its low-temperature performance is much worse than that of ternary lithium.
The viewpoint here is that in the south, if the winter temperature is not lower than zero degrees, it is recommended to buy solar lamps with iron lithium batteries. If the temperature is lower than zero degrees, it is not recommended to buy solar lamps with iron lithium batteries.
VII. The more beads there are, the higher the brightness?
More and more manufacturers are keen on making as many beads as possible for lighting fixtures, because customers will think that the lighting fixtures have sufficient materials and good quality when they see so many beads, since the beads are not valuable.
But it is not the beads that maintain the brightness of landscape solar lights, but the battery. The battery can provide the lamp with as much power as it can, and the lamp can operate at as much brightness as it can. Simply increasing the number of LED beads does not increase brightness, but rather increases resistance and energy consumption.
how to choose solar lights? welcome leave your comments!