Solar Christmas Lights for Bright and Low-Cost Christmas Holidays

By John Monsholi

Solar Christmas lights are one of the most low cost Christmas decorations, helping the homeowners to save anywhere from around 100 W per each string of their lights. Another benefit of solar Christmas lights is that they turn on and off on their own, with the aid of a special photo cell making your Christmas even more magical.

Solar Christmas lights do not require an electrical outlet, they do not incur any energy costs, and they get charged in the daytime and turn on automatically in the evening. These lights eliminate the need for dangerous extension cords. These lights are a great and easy way to decorate trees around the house. Since there is no need for sockets, you can decorate any tree, no matter how far away it is from your house.

Solar Christmas lights come with little solar panels, which easily stick into the ground, as well as, they can be placed on a branch. Solar panels include solar cells (usually 4 cells), a rechargeable battery and a light sensor. Solar cells convert the sunlight into electricity, and on a sunny day the sun will give enough energy to completely recharge the battery.

When looking for solar Christmas lights, it is better to opt for the lights equipped with special polycrystalline solar cells, which allow the lights to emit bright light for hours even after being charged for merely a few hours on a rainy, snowy or an overcast day.

How to calculate how long the lights will shine after the sun goes down? It is actually quite easy. Solar Christmas lights will usually stay on for about one hour at night, after being charged for about one hour in the daytime. Therefore, if the area where you live gets about eight hours of sun per day, you will also get about eight hours of shining lights in the evening.

Solar Christmas lights come in different shapes, such as round, teardrop and oval shapes. The lights also come in different colors, such as the yellow, red, green and blue. You can also find a specific type of light, which you would prefer to see on Christmas, starting with a soft light and up to a very bright light.

Many gardeners keep their solar Christmas lights in their gardens even after the Christmas holidays are over. For example, if you have an arch in your garden, you can decorate it with these lights, adding to your garden's ambiance. You can also make use of these lights for birthdays, anniversaries, porch lighting, and pathway lighting.

It is better to opt for solar Christmas lights with a replaceable and rechargeable AA size battery. Such battery will allow you to recharge and to replace the battery yourself in order to continue to get illumination on overcast days. It is better not to opt for lights with lithium batteries, since you will not be able to replace such batteries yourself. Regular AA size batteries can be recharged with a battery charger if they were not fully charged by the sunlight.

You can have as many strings of solar Christmas lights as you want on the trees, and you will never have to worry about running the cords across your yard, never have to worry about turning the lights on and off, and most important, you will never have to worry about paying hundreds of dollars for electricity!

It might be a good idea to watch your yard for at least two or three days before placing your solar lights. The most important thing to note is that the area, where you want to place your solar Christmas lights, does not get a shadow cast. Another important thing to remember is that solar Christmas lights operate best when their solar panel is in direct sun throughout the day. - 30228

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