Using Solar Power For Low Voltage Garden Lights
Posted On Sunday, April 8, 2012 at at 5:19 AM by naz
Low voltage garden lights can brighten your garden setting, allowing you to enjoy your garden at night without stomping down your growing plants. You can do weeding and even pick vegetables at night. If you are into magic and herbs, some cultivation is best performed at night, under the full moon. While the moon does provide some light, you can still stumble around.There are some problems with hooking up lights in your garden. One of these is that some gardens are a fair distance away from the house, so you have to run long electrical cords out the them. The best solution to this is with solar powered low voltage garden lights. There are a number of advantages to solar power. These light don't rely on external power sources except for solar panels. Solar panels take the energy from the sun, convert it into low voltage electricity, and store this energy in batteries until the sun goes down. These kinds of lights are activated by a sensor that can be adjusted to turn on at dusk or when night completely falls. As the dawn approaches, they automatically turn off until needed again.Another advantage of using solar for low voltage garden lights is that there is no need for any kind of converter to reduce high electrical output to low voltage. This reduces the chances of a fire, or blowing out the bulbs in a power surge. Because they are self contained, even if your garden is in a remote part of your yard, you will still have lights. The same holds true for power outages as well. Even if the power goes out because of a blackout, or a storm, your garden is still illuminated.You can find a lot of low voltage garden lights available. Some of these can be lamp posts, string and stake lights, as well as a number of other unique ideas, such as rock lights. During the day, these look like ordinary rocks, but with their small built-in solar panels, they light up with a soft glow when the sun goes down. There are some basic things you need to know about these light systems, so you can pick the right ones for your needs.One of the most basic things you should be on the look out when it comes to low voltage garden lights is the bulbs. Regular incandescent bulbs are a thing of the past, and you should by pass these for LED light bulbs instead. These are ideal for low voltage applications for a number of reasons. They are much smaller than regular bulbs, but are up to ten times as bright. LED lights use much less electricity than other bulbs, reducing your energy costs. Using LED bulbs in conjunction with solar power makes the time that your lights are on at night much longer, up to twelve hours, depending on the application. Even as bright as they are, the bulbs don't get hot, and are cool to the touch.Make sure that any low voltage garden lights that you buy are UL listed, and are weatherproof. This ensures that your lighting system won't short out in the event of a storm, making you have to buy a whole new set of lights.