I picked up a couple on FreeCycle, but the light is not particularly bright. However, Dad got me a Red Cross solar/crank/battery one with an LED light, a red flashing emergency light, cell phone charger, radio and NOAA weather. I charged it via the solar, and have been playing with it like a little kid. The FreeCycle ones are okay for the grandkids when we go camping. Make them WORK for their illumination, I say !!!
Wondering about Lighting
- Thread starter FarmerChick
- Start date
Blackbird
Goat Whisperer
We have 10+, just as gifts over the years. We have some that work well that are over 5 years old.
We leave them out during the winter.
One specific brand is better than the others we've noticed. I'll have to see what they are called and post back.
We use ours by rigging them up on the corners of the animal pens, and on some of the buildings. When you drive by our place at night you can see rows of lights along the woods. Lol.
They also help keep some animals away - never noticed any bug problems with ours, but then again - our by the bird pens. No bugs there anyway.
We leave them out during the winter.
One specific brand is better than the others we've noticed. I'll have to see what they are called and post back.
We use ours by rigging them up on the corners of the animal pens, and on some of the buildings. When you drive by our place at night you can see rows of lights along the woods. Lol.
They also help keep some animals away - never noticed any bug problems with ours, but then again - our by the bird pens. No bugs there anyway.
freemotion
Food Guru
Years ago I was a guest in an off-grid home and they used twelve volt car batteries to run their lights. They got the lights from a junkyard, out of a bus! To recharge the battery, they would switch it with the one in their car every so often, when they needed to take a longish drive. I thought it was pretty cool.
When I was a teenager a friend's father set up an electric fencer on a car battery and did the same thing....charged it up by putting it in his car now and then.
Can that be done with modern car batteries? Or have those changed, too, along with everything else from my childhood?
When I was a teenager a friend's father set up an electric fencer on a car battery and did the same thing....charged it up by putting it in his car now and then.
Can that be done with modern car batteries? Or have those changed, too, along with everything else from my childhood?
dacjohns
Our Frustrated Curmudgeon
I don't see why not. You might even check out the solar lighting area of the forum. One solar panel might be enough to supply a bunch of lights.freemotion said:Years ago I was a guest in an off-grid home and they used twelve volt car batteries to run their lights. They got the lights from a junkyard, out of a bus! To recharge the battery, they would switch it with the one in their car every so often, when they needed to take a longish drive. I thought it was pretty cool.
When I was a teenager a friend's father set up an electric fencer on a car battery and did the same thing....charged it up by putting it in his car now and then.
Can that be done with modern car batteries? Or have those changed, too, along with everything else from my childhood?
Watch those wind up flashlights!!! Or the shaker flashlights.FarmerChick said:
They will mess up computer monitors because they are made with a magnet and copper wire.
My monitor is by the phone. I thought that keeping a windup flashlight by the phone in case of one of our numerous electric outages would be a good idea. Next day I was out buying a new monitor, 20x the amount of the stupid wind up flash light.
Same goes for some wind up radios. They should have warnings on the packaging.
ducks4you
Almost Self-Reliant
I have ten of these lights strategically placed on walks in front of building doors and at the bottom of gateposts on the "people" side of the horse fencing. My needs for them are specific, since I feed my animals often after dark. (My barn has it's own circuit box, so I can turn on the lights when I get there.) Next to the house and garage, they keep me from tripping in the dark on steps. The uber-cheap ones will give you light for about 4 hours when they've had full sun, less if it's cloudy. I've noticed that the hardware stores are starting to sell units that are photosynthetic (sp?), that is, they store power during the day, then come on when it's dark, and turn themselves off when the sun rises. These might be powerful enough for you when your electricity goes off.I KNOW that I'm saving money on electricity, and I won't be installing outside lights that burn all night when I don't need them. (I have 2 inside dogs after all, that will bark at noises in the middle of the night!) When I first bought a 6-pack of solar lights, summer, 2008, I asked the clerk about how long the batteries in them would last. He said about one year, so I bought replacement batteries. I had 2 that had to be replaced in 6 months, but the rest of the batteries are going on 2 years now. Considering that a pack of 4 replacement batteries was about $5, I'm pleased with the savings and lack of hastle carrying and keeping batteries in a flashlight.
Farmfresh
City Biddy
Glad to hear you say that. Living in the city I have developed a real problem with light pollution. It is NEVER dark at my house. The best we get is pink sky at night. A result of thousands of pink street lights and other lights that just never go off.ducks4you said:
When my sister first moved out to her acreage we camped for several days. The stars were spread out in the heavens and the world was beautifully dark. When they started building their house her SO began installing the lights... pole lights, exterior house lights, garage lights. Most were on all of the time or at very minimum on a motion sensor. I simply don't understand the need to light up the world. Install the big electric lights if you feel you need them - but put them on a switch. This way they can be off unless you need them.
I think your solar solution is most elegant.
I have really enjoy reading this, there are lots of great ideas out there on this topic.FarmerChick said:
Quite honestly any use you can come up with for those lights is MUCH better than putting them anywhere near a driveway!
We live on a deadend road in the boonies and get very little traffic, but the lights became "necessary" for some reason and 18 were put up along both sides of a horseshoe shaped driveway. They looked nice and worked well.
Over time one would get run over, and eventually nearly everybody that visits on a regular basis has hit one. It soon became a contest to see who could correctly guess who the next victim was.
I found another set of six in the basement the other day, and I think I'll just keep that as my own little secret.
