HI All,

I started on this small project without thinking it all the way through

My wife loves solar lights. The worse looking the better and has strung them up all over the place throughout the garden.

The issue with these lights is they are really cheap and don't last long so I after a while I have managed to collect a good number of not working strings of lights.

So I put a solar panel with regulator on the roof and hooked it all up no issues, went to connect the light and went to myself hang on what voltage can these handle.

With a tiny bit of research found out they are made for a single cell setup so about .45volts. ( this bit is probably wrong)

My issue is I would need a 12v to 0.45v Maybe even 1 volt would probably not blow them up.

Other issue is they are all over the place to I am conscious of voltage drop across the wires so for everything to work I would more than likely have to put whatever I use to step down the voltage as close as possible to the lights. I guess I could also wire a resistor in series with where each one is going to connect which would probably be better as I could get this resistor really close to the actual light so could probably run thinner cables at 12v to them.

Any ideas as to the best way to go about this?

Thanks in advance

I did a little research. And it sounds like the voltage varies quite a bit. 1.5v to 3V. You might have to test each one to see what voltage they run one. There are step down regulator that goes from 12V to 1.5V.

https://www.powerbee.co.uk/blog/how-do-s...ghts-work/

A lot of dragging back old memories for this one.

I went to Jaycar and hassled out a couple of the guys there and they gave me some good ideas. There is nothing really out there that does what I want so I am going to make it.

He also mentioned I should look at Araduino stuff to control it all as well which was interesting. I reckon I will just have a few manual switches around the place for the time being though. Although its got sensors and stuff and you can make it come on just when you are there so you don't waste power etc etc. Yeah another hole to jump down

So much for running a 12v line down the edge if the veranda and just plugging in stuff

Got a few bits and pieces to start playing with so I'll see what happens.