Driveway lighting

[hwp]

Has anyone had any experience with solar powered driveway lights in nothern climates? I know there is a wide range of quality - I am thinking about the higher end units as an alternative to the hard-wired 120V variety complete with timers and motion sensors. The installed cost seems to be about the same - about $500 per bollard and I think I will need 20 bollards. What happens on cloudy days? - no light? How sensitive are they to cold weather? Any comments would be appreciated.

 

[InlineDieselFan]

My brother put in some solar powered lights (in the Seattle Washington state area). He bought the ones from Costco. They are not high end by any means, they give off enough light so that you can see while walking down the long driveway and give referance points as I back in/out of his long driveway. All in all I would not buy the ones that he has. There may be some that are better, I would tend to put in hardwired ones.

think this way you could justify a trencher or back hoe.

steve

 

[ronjhall]

hwp
I have a set of solar lights in an ornamental lighthouse that I built. I use a Brinkman 4 LED light solar set with one solar panel that is 4” X 6”. During the winter months on cloudy days the lights will always come on. There will still be some light when I get up to go to work at 4:00 am. My wife tells me that some mornings there is no light at 7:00 am. The lights will not be bright in the morning. Part of the problems is that 2 AA batteries do not hold enough charge to make bright light all night.
One of the items on my project list is to come up with a solar panel, lights and bigger battery to power my lighthouse and lights around my water garden all night even in winter.
Here are a couple of threads on solar lights.
Click Here
Click Here

 

[hwp]

Thanks for the input. The solar units I have been looking at are from Solar Illuminations - they have a 10 A hr battery to power 12 LEDs. They claim the battery will store enough power to keep the lights on for 18+ hours but I don't know under what conditions. I am afraid that the combination of cold temperatures and limited daylight in the winter months may significantly reduce the utility of these units - and at $500 a pop I don't want to make a bad selection. Their website is:
http://solarilluminations.com/acatalog/The__Superior__Collection_of_Bollard_Column_Lights.html

 

[dummy]

I've tried a couple of different brands and the batteries don't hold up for long. At first, they stay illuminated most of the night, but it doesn't seem to take long for the batteries to drain completely and require replacement. Not super expensive, just kind of a pain. Another thing is that an LED only emits low light (~36 leds/30watts) so depending on how many are on the lamp, it won't be very bright at all. I would like to replace mine with all post lanterns which can be spaced farther apart.

 

[dummy]

Since you like to build things, this site LED's Has just about everything you would need to construct your own design.

 

[hwp]

Thanks for the info. It seems that solar is not practical for this situation so I'll stick with 120V with pipe posts for bollards. RAB has a product called "SmartPost" which is a moton sensor on a collar that fits over the top of the pipe and then the light fixture sits on top of the collar. The only problem is that the rated capacity is 500 watts. Does anyone know of a similar product rated for 1000 watts? I expect to instal 20 bollards and if each light fixture has a 50 watt lamp, I will need sensors that can handle 1000 watts.

BTW it took me a while to figure out how to wire the lights so that they could be triggered by either a timer or any one of the 20 motion sensors. It really isn't difficult since all the switches can be installed in parallel. But in my case, they have to be fed by two circuits, one from the timer and one for the motion sensors. This is because I cannot get a wire back to in front of the timer. So I have to make sure that both circuits are coming off the same side of the main so that there is no voltage between them - otherwise I would end up with 220V - not good for 120V bulbs.

 

[hwp]

Has anyone had any experience with products from Solar Illuminations? They claim that their units will work for 7 to 11 nights all night without any sun whatsoever. They also imply that it takes minimal sunlght to recharge the batteries. If these claims are true, it would certianly be worth considering going solar.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

A friend put in some nice drive lights. Looked great until a "Mr Helper" neighbor decided to plow his drive unannounced.

And, What a nice surprise it was.

Just a thought.

Guess that's why they flag fire hydrants

Tom

 

[bebster]

If you have a wattage limitation, you might try some of those bulbs that are the size of regular incandescent bulbs, but are really flourescents. They seem to consume less watts for the same brightness.

 

[hwp]

I am the driveway plow person so I should know that the bollards are there. I intend to use 3 inch schedule 40 steel pipe for the bollards so if something does hit them, they will take quite a jolt without inflicting any damage. Also the bollards will be eight feet long, four feet below grade set in two feet of concrete and four feet above grade so they will be quite visible even when there is a lot of snow on the ground.

Wattage isn't really a problem other than for the motion detectors. RAB make a post mounted motion detector suitable for use on bollards but they are only rated at 500 watts each. I plan to have 20 bollards with a 40 watt bulb in each fixture, which gives load of 800 watts if I have them all activated from the same switches. To get around this I could split the system into two or more zones, but that wasn't my plan. The wiring plan gets more complex with mutiple zones. A two zone system would require at least two more wires for half the run and therefore a larger conduit. However the incremental cost would be quite minimal.

The reason for considering solar units is that there is no need to dig trenches,run hard wires or pay for electricity. If the solar units for Solar Illumintaitons do the job they claim, then all I would have to do is dig the requisite number of post holes, set the posts in concrete and put the bollards on top of the posts. Job done! The lights will come on at dusk and stay on until dawn every night with no cost for electricity. I calculate that a 120 volt hard wired system would cost an average of about $1.00 per night to operate! Solar Illuminations say their units can go from 7 to 11 days with no sunlight whatsoever and that the batteries will completely recharge with one day's sunlight. They say the units are good for 100,000 hours or about 25 years. The solar units are expensive, but the installed costs is not much different than hard wired fixtures - maybe even a little cheaper.

So, I would like to know if anyone has had an experience with these units before commiting a lot of money to uncertain technology.

 

[NoTrespassing]

Howard, sounds like a lot of money to me. I guess I'm just a cheapskate. We put up some malibu hanging solar lights and I thought those were expensive! We're in central Illinois and ours will be going on their 3rd winter without a hitch. I haven't changed a battery or taken them down at all. Believe it or not they have never blown off their hooks either like I thought they might. We have them on every other fencepost along our driveway. They stay on till around 3am in the middle of winter and till daylight in the summer. Heres a picture of them at 8:30 this evening, after about 4hrs of darkness. They only give off enough light to mark the fenceline.

Kevin