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solar light review

GiGaBiTe, I admit that solar lights and moonshine do sound somehow related.
Still, referring to Amazon as a black market sounds somewhat awkward.
Now we feel Haunted Living with the feeling that perhaps the LED strings were sold by the oriental Al Capone of LED lights.

ABS plastic? 750F? I don't know about that... :confused:
I had noticed that this plastic fades colors and breaks down with only the help of the great outdoors and time

These LED lights are hardly the piece de resistance.
I must have used the wrong words, perhaps I should have said,
Dead Haloween lights impedance.

However you look at it, these lights grow o-LED fast.
 
Instead of complaining about the poor quality of a consumer item, why not just spring for a commercial solar light with a LiPo battery and high-efficiency solar panel? They're making headway in municipal markets because they cost less to install and operate.
 
Sorry Chuck(G), I admit, this has been mostly been about products that no longer work and how they failed.
At the moment, I have no success stories to follow up with. :(

It would be nice to hear something positive.

Chuck(G), perhaps you could be the light at the end of the tunnel.
Will you do a tear down and review when your solar light fails?
 
watlers_world said:
Still, referring to Amazon as a black market sounds somewhat awkward.
Click to expand...

What's awkward about it? Amazon is a completely unregulated marketplace. Counterfeit and bait & switch items are rampant, as well as dangerous products that have no business in the consumer space. Amazon doesn't care at all as long as they get their cut of the profits. Ebay and Aliexpress is largely the same, here be dragons. If you're completely oblivious to dangerous items, like most of the public is, there's a very good chance you'll end up buying something dangerous and suffering the consequences because of it.

Unlike brick and mortar stores which are required by consumer protection laws to certify products as safe for consumer use, a large portion of Amazon is stuff shipped directly from China to your door. None of it is tested, which is why we have people with exploding laptop batteries, battery powered skateboards, scooters and bikes that catch on fire and burn houses down, as well as hazardous UV "disinfecting" devices that cause people to go blind from leaving them plugged in.
 
watlers_world said:
GiGaBiTe, I admit that solar lights and moonshine do sound somehow related.
Still, referring to Amazon as a black market sounds somewhat awkward.
Now we feel Haunted Living with the feeling that perhaps the LED strings were sold by the oriental Al Capone of LED lights.

ABS plastic? 750F? I don't know about that... :confused:
I had noticed that this plastic fades colors and breaks down with only the help of the great outdoors and time

These LED lights are hardly the piece de resistance.
I must have used the wrong words, perhaps I should have said,
Dead Haloween lights impedance.

However you look at it, these lights grow o-LED fast.
Click to expand...
GiGaBiTe is correct. If they are made of ABS, their thermal decomposition temp in indeed 750° F, and the constituent chemicals of this process are indeed carcinogenic.

GiGaBiTe said:
What's awkward about it? Amazon is a completely unregulated marketplace. Counterfeit and bait & switch items are rampant, as well as dangerous products that have no business in the consumer space. Amazon doesn't care at all as long as they get their cut of the profits. Ebay and Aliexpress is largely the same, here be dragons.
Click to expand...
I completely agree, and there is plenty of research to prove all of these situations.

GiGaBiTe said:
Unlike brick and mortar stores which are required by consumer protection laws to certify products as safe for consumer use, a large portion of Amazon is stuff shipped directly from China to your door. None of it is tested, which is why we have people with exploding laptop batteries, battery powered skateboards, scooters and bikes that catch on fire and burn houses down, as well as hazardous UV "disinfecting" devices that cause people to go blind from leaving them plugged in.
Click to expand...
The only bit I disagree about is the "brick and mortar stores" bit. If it's a dollar store, buyer still beware, they are well known for being places where counterfeit items are common, which can be extremely dangerous. Any sizable B&M store chain, even Walmart, etc... I would have faith in the integrity of their supply chains, for the most part. Any store/chain can be hit by e.coli, salmonella, etc... and it has nothing to do with that store/chain.

If one is going to buy something from a dollar store, especially anything you are going to put in or on your person, ensure that the item in question is a size, quantity, etc... that is actually made by that company. Also check the small print on the product for anything that looks off, such as a misspelling or a reference to a company or division in a company that doesn't exist. I suggest using a phone app that can scan the UPC. Typically, the UPC codes, when referenced against a national database, if they are counterfeit, will either show up as a different product, or as completely invalid.
 
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Bottom line: almost all consumer electronics/electrics are made in the Far East; with perhaps the exception of Japan and Korea, it's all very inconsistent in quality and almost always involves parts made from PVC or ABS.

The consumer market is brutal--a few cents cheaper in production is a significant advantage when spread over millions of units. Product design appears to be under- or just-barely-adquate engineering. The market is divided between the inferior or barely-adequate product and the boutique (e.g. is a plastic Dyson vacuum really worth the whopping cost?)
 
Chuck(G) said:
Bottom line: almost all consumer electronics/electrics are made in the Far East; with perhaps the exception of Japan and Korea, it's all very inconsistent in quality and almost always involves parts made from PVC or ABS.

The consumer market is brutal--a few cents cheaper in production is a significant advantage when spread over millions of units. Product design appears to be under- or just-barely-adquate engineering. The market is divided between the inferior or barely-adequate product and the boutique (e.g. is a plastic Dyson vacuum really worth the whopping cost?)
Click to expand...
Sounds about right to me.
 
ABS breaks down over time in normal Ohio weather.
And I fear that if you heat ABS even to much lower temperatures, it will start to produce carcinogenic gasses.
But please don't make yourself sick trying to prove me wrong. :(
 
watlers_world said:
ABS breaks down over time in normal Ohio weather.
And I fear that if you heat ABS even to much lower temperatures, it will start to produce carcinogenic gasses.
But please don't make yourself sick trying to prove me wrong. :(
Click to expand...
I would expect you are correct. Given the process used to make ABS, one is bound to get side products that are not ABS and most likely have very different thermal decomposition temperatures.
 
Well, ABS isn't a simple substance--it's a polymer consisting of three things: acrylonitrile, butadiene and styrene. Proportions of each can vary wildly, depending on manufacture and application. The first gives strength and impact resistance; the second provides flexibility and the third provides the glossy finish. Tinker with the proportions and you can get very different products. The situation is somewhat akin to "brass", which describes a variety of substances, whose only common component is copper. (e.g. so-called "German Silver" is really a brass and contains no silver).

So there isn't simple "ABS". I suspect that the stuff used for sewer pipes is considerably tougher than the stuff used in imported solar fixtures.

Contributed for whatever it's worth...
 
Chuck(G) said:
So there isn't simple "ABS". I suspect that the stuff used for sewer pipes is considerably tougher than the stuff used in imported solar fixtures.
Click to expand...

Modern sewer pipe is usually PVC (polyvinyl chloride), not ABS. ABS is a mixture of three different plastics in different proportions to get different characteristics.
 
Maybe in your neck of the woods, but here, for sizes under 4", it's black ABS. The foamed ABS is particularly nice to work with as it weighs very little. Exempli gratia

ABS is a mixture of three different plastics in different proportions to get different characteristics.
Click to expand...

Obviously, you didn't read my whole post, starting with the first sentence.

"Well, ABS isn't a simple substance--it's a polymer consisting of three things: acrylonitrile, butadiene and styrene."

:)
 
Chuck(G) said:
My wall-mounted LED yard lights are all metal (probably pot metal) cased as well. One type puts the LED arrays behind glass, not plastic. These aren't solar, but AC line operated. Bright suckers.
Click to expand...

Man I really miss that AC low voltage fad which died out in the Early 2000's. Intermatic and Noma had a ton of great yard lighting that could really took a beating but it was so much brighter than the solar stuff.
 
I still use the stuff in critical areas, along steps and walkways. When I replaced the incandescent fixtures with LED ones (still 12VAC), things got significantly brighter. I use G6.35 bi-pin lamps in those. The downside is that you have to run cable. Mine are powered by a scavenged 240V/24VAC control transformer run on 120V located in a weatherproof box on the base of a post lamp.
 
Although photodegradable solar lights may be Eco-friendly they are hardly economical.
To be fair, the plastic held up much better than the electrical part of the solar lights.
Lucky for us, the second circuit board was in somewhat better shape.

Some people magnify very small problems until they look much larger than they really are.
So... Shall we make a mountain out of a molehill before we bury the hatchet?
 

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watlers_world said:
Although photodegradable solar lights may be Eco-friendly they are hardly economical.
Click to expand...

Garden variety solar lights are about the farthest from eco friendly you can get. They're manufactured by the millions and thrown away by the millions because they're cheap garbage that doesn't last. They contain hazardous materials like cadmium and lead, making them even worse than the plastic waste they contribute to.

In the hands of the average consumer, cheap solar lights last about a year before they have some failure and are thrown out.

I have a whole drawer full of failed solar lights I keep around for parts to keep other solar lights going.

Chuck(G) said:
It doesn't appear that the PCB has a conformal coating. That's a huge no-no in devices designed to operate outdoors in weather.
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I've never seen a consumer grade solar light with conformal coating of any kind. About the only water resisting features I see are rubber gaskets, which rot from the heat and sun and oxidize from the air until they basically disintegrate.
 
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