Solar Lighting
I’ve been looking at several solar lighting products to potentially light my driveway, my walkway, and areas.
The first thing you notice is that prices are all over the map — for products that have very similar specifications.
You will find that some of the products have plastic housing, and some have aluminum (or even stainless steel) — but interestingly enough, that doesn’t seem to track their prices. In fact one of the least expensive models for driveway/walkway lighting I’ve found is in a stainless steel case (now you do have to buy a six pack, but that’s actually about the right number even for short driveways).
For area lighting there’s a huge different in styles; and these are much harder to compare. The biggest disappointment thus far with the area lights is the amount of light (Lumens) that they produce — they’re so low, in fact, that they seem like they’d be fairly useless without a backup light (run from AC). In fact since I can run AC to all the locations I want area lights I’m considering just putting in motion/photo sensors and using outdoor LED lamps (that will use electricity, but it’s fairly energy efficient, and produces much more light). One thing’s for sure, if you like the light your HID (like the sodium lamps I have) gives off, you’re not going to be happy with what you can get from a solar lighting system (or even an LED lamp).
I’ll do a little more “testing” and provide some brands (and where I found them) that you might want to consider; but keep in mind that everyone will have a slightly different set of requirements and there’s likely not going to be one model that’s right for every need.
If you want to buy something right away; make sure that you shop several different vendors before you decide — it’ll surprise you how much essentially the same item varies in price; and the “discount” stores don’t always have the best price!
Related posts:
- LED Lighting You think those CF (Compact Florescent) bulbs you’ve been buying are green??? Well — think again! CFs do use considerable less energy than a comparable...
- The Anti-Green – Architectural Lighting It’s estimated that US electrical plants burn six million tons of coal daily to power unnecessary outdoor lighting — this estimate doesn’t include the wasted...
- Solar Panels I just did a little exercise in trying to figure out if solar panels would be cost effective for me. Using my latitude and longitude;...
- BigLots! — Caveat – If you’re a savvy consumer you can save a great deal of money at BigLots! (of course, that’s true of any surplus store, dollar store,...
- Flat Panels So you decided to get that large flat panel high definition LCD TV for yourself… That’s so last year. The new display technology is based...
- Panasonic HDC-SD10 High Definition Camcorder I purchased a Panasonic HDC-SD10K High Definition Camcorder from B&H Photo Video a little over a week ago for $299.00 delivered. The K suffix means...
- Panasonic HDC-SD10 High Definition Camcorder – Post Note It was sunny (but cold) on Saturday, so I did get a chance to get outside and shot some bright daylight footage. The color was...
- A new host… I’ve mentioned before that I was considering moving my web sites to another hosting company, not that there’s anything really wrong with my previous hosting...
- Earth’s Biggest Selection That’s, of course, Amazon.com‘s catch phrase… I’m always quick to say what I think about a company or service; and I’m sure you’ve noticed that...
- Going On A Trip? Gas Buddy has a new feature… a trip calculator for gasoline — it’ll attempt to find the best gas prices along the way for you...
