Solar lighting is a bit of a modern marvel. Sure, we don't often think about the manufacturing process of solar light, or how light is installed, or what fuels the light fixture to begin with. Those topics often take less priority when we're trying to meet up with friends at night to catch the latest blockbuster movie or television show. But if you think about it, there's a little bit of magic that happens inside of the components of a solar-powered outdoor light. What we don't realize is that the mundane is actually quite fantastic, and it's hidden in the inner workings of the solar light as a whole. Here's how the most important components of a solar light come together to reproduce the light given to us from the Earth's largest bulb in the sky.
If you are looking for more details, kindly visit BEBEST.
The manufacturing process with solar lighting (the method that Greenshine uses) starts with silicon. A vast majority of photovoltaic materials are manufactured from silicon because it's an incredibly abundant resource, making up about 25% of the Earth's crust by weight. A silicon "seed" is dipped into a large vat of melted silicon and slowly rotated to draw out the purest silicon substance, which eventually hardens into an ingot. From this long cylinder of hardened, pure silicon, extremely thin slices are cut from the ingot and then prepped to have solar cells installed on them. This particular process is extremely slow and somewhat wasteful of silicon since the ingot is often trimmed down--but it produces the most efficient panels on the market. This is what's called the Czochralski method.
Ingots are trimmed down in such a way to reduce as much silicon waste as possible, but also to shape the wafers so they fit properly onto a solar array small enough to be supported by a solar light pole. Thankfully, the wasted silicon can be re-used into other panels. Typically the excess is added back into the solar cell manufacturing process for poly-crystalline solar cells--a less-efficient solar technology, one that isn't used for our solar lights. Greenshine utilizes only the most efficient materials on the market for solar powered outdoor lighting today. Does it take longer to produce mono-crystalline wafers? Yes. Does it produce more silicon waste? Yes, but that silicon is used in other solar panel products. Is it time-consuming, expensive, and tedious? Yes, but we wouldn't have it any other way. That's what sets Greenshine apart from the competition.
LED light fixtures aren't "one kind fits all." When it comes to solar powered outdoor lighting, we focus on a lighting brand that delivers in three aspects: light quality, longevity, and energy efficiency. Cree LED lights hit those three aspects with flying colors, so to speak. Here's the breakdown for each aspect and why these lights are perfect for pairing with a solar panel.
An average color temperature per light fixture we target is K, commonly referred to as neutral white. It's important to have accurate color reproduction, especially in public. The ability of a public light to accurately reflect an object's true color is referred to as color rendition, and other light technologies don't really score well when discussing that topic. LED produces the best color rendition for subjects illuminated under the fixture. Need convincing?
For comparison, the image listed here is of two vehicles sitting under a high-pressure sodium (HPS) light. Believe it or not, the vehicle on the left is red, even though they both appear to be black. That's what bad color rendition results in; colors that aren't reproduced accurately. And, honestly, ugly lighting. When searching for your car in a sea of potentially hundreds of others (we've forgotten where we parked too, sometimes), it's nice to perceive the color of your car as it's meant to be.
[caption id="attachment_" align="aligncenter" width="300"]
Believe it or not, the car on the left is red.[/caption]
LED light fixtures are designed specifically to last. Since LED lights operate with what's known as solid-state lighting, a lot less heat generates from the light source (as opposed to sodium-vapor methods). If you need a demonstration, check out Cree's video on how a chocolate bunny melts under incandescent light. Of course, we're dealing with much larger fixtures when it comes to outdoor lighting, but it's nice to know that LEDs are built for longevity because they produce significantly less heat than other lighting technologies. LEDs can potentially last over 100,000 hours. That's over 11 years. Some cars don't last that long.
Signed into law in , the Energy Independence and Security Act established an efficiency standard for lighting, stating that bulbs and fixtures on the market needed to utilize 25% less energy. Thankfully, LED lights at this time were well on their way to being affordable and viable for use in public areas under this standard. LED lights today are approximately 80% more efficient than most other lighting technologies! Since they're much more efficient, less energy is required to produce the same amount of light, costing less. It's a literal win with LEDs and energy efficiency, which is why we pair them with our solar powered outdoor lights.
The bottom line, we've done the research to determine the best LED lights on the market for use in our solar lights. The trifecta of success--efficient, color accurate, and long-lasting--is perfect for use in solar lighting fixtures wherever lighting is needed in parking lots, parks, streets, pathways, or other places.
Greenshine New Energy has been in the solar lighting business since , and every year we've seen improvements to light efficiency, solar technology, and significant price drops for both--panel installation prices have dropped over 50% in the past decade! Our crack team of engineers can design a solar outdoor lighting system to fit your lighting needs and budget. We've saved companies hundreds of thousands of dollars via lighting solutions that save on energy usage, trenching, and wiring. Contact us for a professional consultation and see how we can save you green by using green energy.
If you have a yard and have ever thought about lighting it at night, then you have probably heard about solar yard lights. They are still pretty expensive, but their advantage is that you don't have to run any wiring for them. As long as a location gets direct sunlight, you can put a light there in about 15 seconds.
These lights are extremely interesting because they are almost like mini-satellites. They generate and store their own power during the day and then release it at night. This is just like a satellite that stores solar energy while it is on the sunny side of the planet and then uses that energy when it's on the dark side. In this article, you will learn exactly how it happens!
Advertisement
A solar light consists of the following components:
If you pop off the cover, you will find that all of the working components are mounted as a single unit. On the back side you see this:
Next, we'll take a closer look at some of these components.
Advertisement
For more up down outdoor solar lights manufacturinginformation, please contact us. We will provide professional answers.
You can see the battery, LED and controller board. If you cover the light sensor, the LED turns on, like this:
Here are close-ups of the LED and the controller board:
Advertisement
On the other side of this module is a four-cell solar array, measuring 2 inches by 2 inches (5 cm x 5 cm), and the photoresistor:
Here is a closer view of the photoresistor:
See How do the streetlights turn on automatically at night? for more information on how photoresistors work.
Now let's see how the whole setup works to light your yard at night.
Advertisement
If you have read the article How Solar Cells Work, you have a basic understanding of solar-cell technology. A solar yard light uses standard solar cells in a very straightforward application.
A single solar cell produces a maximum of 0.45 volts and a varying amount of current depending on the size of the cell and the amount of light striking the surface. In a typical yard light, therefore, you need four cells wired in series (see How Batteries Work for a discussion on series wiring). In this yard light, the four cells will produce 1.8 volts and a maximum of about 100 milliamps in full, bright sunlight.
Advertisement
The solar cells are wired directly to the battery through a diode (which prevents the battery's current from flowing back through the solar cell at night). The battery is a completely standard AA Nicad battery. A battery like this produces about 1.2 volts and can store a maximum of approximately 700 milliamp-hours. During the day, the battery charges, reaching maximum charge except on shorter winter days or days when there is heavy overcast.
At night, the solar cells stop producing power. The photoresistor turns on the LED. How do the streetlights turn on automatically at night? shows you a very simple circuit using a transistor and a relay to control a light using a photoresistor. In the case of this light, the relay is replaced by two other transistors.
The controller board accepts power from the solar cell and battery, as well as input from the photoresistor. It has a three-transistor circuit that turns on the LED when the photoresistor indicates darkness.
The LED draws about 45 milliamps with the battery producing about 1.23 volts (0.055 watts). It produces about half of the light that a candle would. The Nicad battery, when fully charged, can operate the LED for about 15 hours.
Half of a candle's light is not very much, and if you have ever purchased one of these yard lights you know that it really is not enough to provide illumination. You use them more for marking a trail -- they are bright enough to see, but not really bright enough to illuminate the ground to any great degree.
The reason why these lights are so expensive right now is because of the solar cells and, to a lesser degree, the Nicad battery. Solar cells remain expensive because they are manufactured from silicon crystals in cleanroom conditions. They are much less expensive than they were 10 or 20 years ago, but still fairly pricey. As a result, solar yard lights cost $10 to $20 per light.
The yard light shown here uses a single LED. More expensive lights may offer a combination of an LED and a small halogen flashlight bulb. The LED is on all the time, and the light bulb turns on for a minute or two when a motion sensor detects movement.
For more information on solar yard lights and related topics, check out the links on the next page.
Advertisement
If you want to learn more, please visit our website OEM smallest size of solar panel.