Solar Christmas Lights – Brightening Your Holidays with No Energy Costs
Solar Christmas lights are a very popular and cost effective Christmas decoration. Such lights will save you up to 100 watts per each string. Another advantage of solar Christmas lights is that you will never have to turn them on or off. The lights will start to shine on their own in the evening, making for a magical Christmas.
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.
The principle of solar Christmas lights is a little solar panel with solar cells, capable of collecting solar energy and transferring it into regular electricity. Tiny solar panels can be placed anywhere, such as on the ground or on a tree branch. Four solar cells will allow the unit to completely recharge on a bright and sunny day.
Solar Christmas lights are also available with special built-in polycrystalline cells, which better absorb the sunlight, allowing the lights to shine bright even after a snowy, rainy or an overcast day.
It is actually quite simple to calculate how much sun you need for your lights to stay on throughout the whole evening and the night. Each hour of sunshine will allow the lights to shine for an hour in the evening.
Solar Christmas lights come in different colors and shapes. The most usual colors include red, yellow, green and blue, while the most common shapes include oval, round and teardrop shapes. The type of the light emitted can also be chosen to your preference, starting from a bright light, and to dim soft light.
Once Christmas is over, it doesn’t mean that you have to take your solar Christmas lights down. You can keep them in your garden, in order to; for example, decorate arches in your garden with this pleasant type of light. The lights can also be used for various other holidays, such as anniversaries and birthdays, as well as for lighting of pathways, porches, etc.
When choosing your solar Christmas lights, it is better to look for the lights with a rechargeable and replaceable AA battery. This type of a battery will allow you to enjoy your Christmas lights, even if they did not recharge on rainy or snowy days. All you would need to do is to charge batteries with a regular charger. Lithium batteries are not a good choice, since most likely you won’t be able to replace them, yourself.
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!
Before placing your solar Christmas lights, take note of your yard for 2-3 days. Does the area, where you want your Christmas lights placed, have a shadow cast? To get the most out of your solar Christmas lights, make sure that the solar cells panel is in direct sunlight.
About the author: John Monsholi is passionate about solar Christmas lights and solar holiday light ideas.
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