Hanging Solar Sensor Lights

[Vic Smith]

Thought I'd pass this on after reading Trader's post about his wired lights. A few months ago I installed 4 of these lights:

Didn't really think it through, because I've got 18" eaves that would block the solar collectors from the sunlight. I had to hang them on the gutters. Too late to return them, and I didn't want to throw away 80 bucks. After looking around in vain for some kind of connector that would attach them to the gutter, I came up with this idea. I cut 4 8" pieces of 3" PVC pipe, then cut a lengthwise slit in each one. Used an angle grinder with a cuttoff disk. My son went on the ladder and somehow spread the pipe and got it past the formed gutter lip. He was cussing. I noted the position of the slit - about

7:30 o'clock when looking from the left. Then I screwed the base of the lights on the pipes at 3 o'clock using the wall plugs that came with them. I tried cutting some wedges to spread the pipes but gave that up, and used 3" C-clamps to pry them open instead. He didn't have any problems putting them on. You can slide the pipes until you hit a gutter hanger, making for some adjustability. They don't look elegant, but they work.

[Ralph Mowery]

Do they put out very much light ?

A while back I bought some that looked like a regular 60 watt light bulb and after a good solar charge for a day or two they do not put out very much light. Just like a good night ligt instead of enough light to see very much.

I am having a carport type garage built and it is about 100 feet away from the house. I had not planned on runing any electricity to it. Thought those lights may be enough to see inside it at night,but almost would need a flashlight to see if they are on or not.

[Vic Smith]

Plenty for walking and not tripping on something. There's some photos in the reviews.

The lights above would do it if they were made for inside. They cast light about 30'.

[micky]

Is another problem that the built-in battery will wear out and there is no provision for replacing it.

If lights are on all night and charge every day, that's a lot of wear on the battery. If he lights are only one when there is motion, not so much.

[gfretwell]

No table saw huh? Why not cut two slits and take out a big enough chunk that it drops over the gutter lip? If it moves too much shoot a screen cage screw down through a hole in top and into the lip.

I make lots of stuff out of PVC. The White PVC will last longer than the light, in spite of the legend but I do use gray if it is supposed to last.

[trader_4]

I had thought of 4" PVC to make my light fixture interposer, but the obvious problem is mounting it. I guess maybe I could rig up something with long screws going into either the metal box or the plywood soffit. But first I want to rule out off the shelf simple solutions.

[Vic Smith]

No. Could have made the cuts with my 10" compound mitre saw, but I wanted a thin kerf. It was surprisingly easy to use the angle grinder on the line I drew on the pipe. Lightly clamped the pieces in the vise.

Thought of that, but wanted to avoid holes in the gutter, though it wouldn't have mattered on the formed lip. Took me a while to figure out the C-clamp trick of spreading. But on second thought the PVC might not have moved with a wider slit anyway, given the thickness of the pipe and that the lights aren't too heavy. It was cold outside and I didn't feel like experimenting.

Yeah, it's nice stuff. I had 7' of the 3" left over from "squirrel proofing" the bird feeder. But they can easily climb 3", so I had to add a wide plastic tray at the top. Hot glued it to PVC.

[gfretwell]

Squirrels are tough to keep away from food. They learn pretty fast. There is a youtube of a guy who gave up fighting them and decided to just see what they could do. He created a very complex obstacle course with trap doors and even a catapult that sent them sailing but they still figured it out.

[bruce bowser]

As I look online, I see that wind powered L.E.D. lights start at only $2.96 USD and solar start at $12.95 USD.