Cheap Solar Led Hack

[olive citrus]

Upgrade

I didn't take a picture of one if these in my node but it works really well

I'm near Allentown and all the low-es near me have them still

I think it's no longer spring/summer so they're putting them back in the warehouse

[shell void]

They have gone up in price

[brave portal]

I was fortunate to find the light listed on Clearance at the Lowes in Macon, GA. The lights were in the storage area on the top of the racks. They were covered in a lot of dust. I bought 6 of the 31 that were listed in inventory.
I spent a good bit of time checking inventories of various stores that were along a route I was taking to south GA. Lowes doesn't price match Internet prices, so you can't get your local store to match it.

[tired rain]

dang ! $5 is a great deal.

[shell void]

They might be clearing stock to start selling a different version

[vast compass]

Or eliminating the liability associated with us modifying them and sticking them on roofs. 🤣

[small goblet]

That's what I'm worried about. My local Lowes even took down the display unit -- you don't do that when you're just out of stock. Outdoor lighting is sold year round as well, so them going on clearance just because summer is over doesn't make sense either. Guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

[lament lodge]

The .6w model is low/out of stock but there’s a 1W unit. My local Lowe’s has stacks of them.

[versed saffron]

Got a notification saying low battery on my usually unproblematic solar LED node, thought maybe it succumbed to moisture or corrosion. Turns out the mount failed and the solar panel pointed down, lol. Pleasantly surprised to see absolutely zero signs of weathering after multiple heavy storms! Especially with the lawn mower damage on the shell

It was outside for around 3 months, I think?

[olive citrus]

Mine was outside for a whole year lemme get a pic

Basically no damage btw

I don't currently have it.

[dim raft]

has anyone attempted this with solar lights from aliexpress? (europe) i just ordered the 35w and 10 solar panels with type c's for less than 10eur each

[lament lodge]

It’s all dependent on what’s inside. AliExpress has a million different solar lights so you’ll just have to get them and open them up.

[olive citrus]

The panel has to be able to fully charge the internal battery even on cloudy days for it to be effective

[exotic island]

How are you guys fitting bigger cells in a harbor breeze solar stake? My 3000 mah 18650 cells don’t have the bump so they don’t fit. Any ideas?

[gilded violet]

I thought one of the main justifications for this DIY "hack", was to sidestep the challenges of safely and cost-effectively purchasing lithium-ion batteries. 🤷

[exotic island]

True

[exotic island]

I mean in Oregon I think I need a bigger cell lol

[olive citrus]

Insert something conductive on the negative side

Or bend the metal plates

I am using the stock cells and haven't lost any battery yet

It charges up all the way even in cold cloudy weather

[olive citrus]

I like the mountable waterproof enclosure that I only have to drill 1 hole in and seal

[dull drum]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D3K9FC7Z

[vast compass]

But what battery does it come with?

Be cool to wire the PIR to the node for a Detection Sensor too.

[dull drum]

18650

[lament lodge]

Has anyone done a test to determine the Voc and the Vmp of the original Harbor Breeze solar panel? It's winter here in the US so I missed my chance to measure one back in June/July.

[olive citrus]

Can you clarify on those acronyms?

[lament lodge]

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=solar+panel+vmp+voc&t=iphone&ia=web

And actually what I’m concerned about is the Voc. That determines what charging circuits can handle the panel.

[olive citrus]

I've been powering my solar node off of a single 18650 battery. It has lasted all winter. Last time I was there, the sun had gone down, it was -3c according to the temperature sensor I put up there, and the battery was at 96%

All summer it was fine too

I tested a battery from one of them and it hadn't degraded more than 5%

The battery lasts a week at least.

[lament lodge]

That’s nice. I actually don’t have any concerns about temps and battery for my Harbor Breeze use case.

I tried adding a small battery charging circuit and removed the original one. But its charging performance seemed to be lower. Possibly because my chip was only charging in a narrow range of 4.4-6V and the panel Voc may be, say, 5V and actually operate at something like 4.4 V.

But if I throw in a chip that max V is like 5V and the Voc is 6+ volts, I can burn out the charger.

[tired rain]

@lament lodgeif I remember correctly the Voc is near 6v

But I can test tomorrow in the sun

[lament lodge]

Thank you.

[tired rain]

confirmed 6v oc

@lament lodge

[random bear]

oh this is cool! I've gotto check this out

oh yeah i've already seen this

[lament lodge]

Thank you.

[tired rain]

Got mentioned on Benn Jordan's channel ! https://youtu.be/W_F4rEaRduk?t=393

[olive citrus]

Me niether

Currently at 4.07v, and it has been dark for 5 hours

That device is on a 40-something foot pole.

[lament lodge]

My MT outdoor solar node (client base as it’s my best placed node) went offline overnight as it hit freezing. Hoping it’s a coincidence. My MC repeater had its poorly secured solar fall down. My deck is iced up and I can’t fix either one without risking falling on my butt. At least the MC node isn’t charging a frozen battery 🤣

The MT node still is beaconing BLE but I can’t connect to it. Dead to LoRa. I’ll fix it when it’s safe to walk on my deck.

[fathom belfry]

It’s been over a year since I built one of these. My last go around was the original harbor breeze unit, and I followed notes here to short some resistors on the pcb, and tie into the light circuit. This also allowed the external power button to work. So, what is the “state of the art” with the new harbor breeze 60 lumen unit? I’m considering a seeed studio unit, so leaving the charging to the hb would simplify things.

[fathom belfry]

New board doesn’t have the same charge chip

[olive citrus]

New board doesn't have a charge chip. You better have a BMS on the cell!

[tired rain]

So did anybody set it up so that the light could be turned on/off remotely via mesh message ?

[fathom belfry]

Dang, I guess I’ll stick with a rak unit to manage solar and battery. How best to tie the harbor breeze spdt slider switch into the rak? On the battery positive?

[tired rain]

@fathom belfryyeah it should be pretty easy. I think i figured it out on that new small board but that a while ago.

here is it #1198011215025283124 message

[olive citrus]

While I could do that, I would have to drill a different hole in the box

You'd have to connect wires to where the daylight sensing resistor is, and use that as a switch

The hardware and software functionality is there.

Maybe that's my next project.

[tired rain]

hmm, so a very low current logic signal could trick the daylight sensor? that would be sick

[tired rain]

@olive citrus

[olive citrus]

Just connect them together, there are pins for that

[fathom belfry]

Magnet mount I’m working on. Needs another iteration, but the concept is there.

Is it worth making this capable of handling an n antenna mount? The magnets wouldn’t handle a a large fiberglass antenna, just small stuff like an alfa

[olive citrus]

I want to mount my node to an antenna

Like clamp it on

I have modified someone's build and hotglued it but idk how long it'll last

I will likely add a ziptie just in case

80% infill

It flexes without breaking

[vast compass]

I ended up with my latest version being for an N bulkhead. Been running a ~7” Alfa, no probs, for months.

Gonna attach a ~30” antenna here soon. We’ll see what happens.

[covert goblet]

anyone knows if the 1w version will work as well as the old one? they only have this one now Harbor Breeze 60 -Lumens 1 -Watt Black Warm White Solar LED Spot light https://www.lowes.com/pd/Harbor-Breeze-1-Watt-Black/5015598033#no_universal_links

[vast compass]

Good idea. I’m now going to mount my bracket to the 30” antenna, and then use something like this for the antenna to mast connection.

[olive citrus]

yeah probably

I swapped the battery for a battery cell and it'll last like a week without solar probably

[tired rain]

which pine are the daylight sensor pins?

[olive citrus]

the resistor that gets removed

[fathom belfry]

I just picked one up as well, and the board no longer has the bms chip. So you will probably want to manage the solar/battery charging some other way. Either with a board like the rak, or an external solar/bms board. The panel is also slightly smaller, but I haven’t tried measuring output to compare.

[dusk lagoon]

With a T114, I've had good luck just wiring the panel directly to the solar input on the T114 and not using the Harbor Breeze board at all. I did figure out where to tap their board to keep the power switch working though. Regarding larger battery... I have a hard time getting enough daylight for that panel to charge a 3000 mah battery to full. It keeps up, of course, but it seems like that 1500mah battery it comes with was chosen correctly for that size panel.

[silent ibex]

hah, keep this thread updated. i JUST found this project after ordering a T114 and custom panel

[vast compass]

Lastly, a regular SMA bulkhead is gonna rust outside. You’ll probably be hard pressed to find an N-type that will rust.

From the OG Cheap Solar LED Hack, i think.

[tired rain]

yep. that was the first wx i deployed. Now I pot all that in epoxy. But all internal or N-Type with perfect seal would of course be much better.

[fathom belfry]

Has anyone tried to build one of these in a blink camera solar panel? Decent mount, and it claims 4w 2000mah and has room inside for 4 18650s, which is overkill, but leaves room for electronics. https://www.amazon.com/VUEBEE-Outdoor-High-Efficiency-Waterproof-Adjustable/dp/B0FLJL4Q6T

I asked over in the solar channel, but I think it’s lost in the scroll.

[tired rain]

@fathom belfry i have not but that's a good price. if you get one show us the tear down

[fathom belfry]

The price on that panel jumped to $18 overnight, but I found a $20 2 pack, and another for $12. I ordered both to play with. Fingers crossed for decent charging circuits.

[tired rain]

OF course right when I want to try to make the LED light controllable via mesh message I've thrown away all of the light enclosures and leds.

[onyx crag]

I haven't deployed mine yet, but I believe I have this new Harbor Breeze. I connected directly from the battery to the rak jst2 battery input and didn't touch how their solar is set up.

It should still work right? Just not the most ideal charging?

[tired rain]

it'll work perfectly like that.

[silent ibex]

this panel seems to be working (ignore first third, it was inside) - latitude 37.7ºN

[fathom belfry]

What size battery are you using with it? What are you using for charge control?

[silent ibex]

3500 mAh 18650. using the built in controller to the heltec T114 for now.

[tired rain]

New solar gadget. Pretty expensive compared to the $10 originals but with an easily contollable multicolor light https://www.lowes.com/pd/Harbor-Breeze-Harbor-Breeze-120-Lumen-Black-Color-Changing-Solar-LED-Flood-Light/5016087229

Connect the button pad to the serial RX(15) or TX(16) pin of the Rak board and you can control the light color by cycling through all 6 colors. Setup the external notifcation module to output to pin 15, uncheck led active high, and its good to. Batteries are lifepo4. Connected the rak node directly to battery pins.

[vast compass]

You direct messaging the node, using the Alert message?

[tired rain]

No it's external notification on bell in the main channel

A friend of mine wants to put this up on a hill so he can remotely control it from a distance. Probably just set primary channel private.

[vast compass]

I want to control it too. Mqtt?

[tired rain]

no downlinking here 😉

[fathom belfry]

Blink camera panels arrived today. I picked units that looked like they had screws on the back so they could be opened, but they ended up being breather holes. These panels are glued in. A spudger tool made quick work of the glue and I’m in! Lots of room inside, and plugs on the panel and battery.

IP5306 is battery charging management. The LR7550 is a voltage regulator. Dunno what the 14 pin chip is or does, but the panel does have a led the does some blinken based on what is going on with the panel.

Glued to the back of the panel is a rectangle of plastic that snaps into a groove on the enclosure half of the panel. So it snaps back together, but I wouldn’t consider it water tight.

Dunno how this board would handle brown outs, but I think I’ll tie into the regulated 5v rather than directly to the battery.

This was the 2 for $20 panel. The vuebee linked above doesn’t look as promising. Smaller enclosure, and the board looks like it has less going on. I had to step away, but I’ll dig into it more this weekend.

[tired rain]

the node is going step down the 5v back to 3.3v though so it might be a waste to use the 5v

[fathom belfry]

Yeah, not efficient. I still wonder how the bms and regulator will “come up” after a dead battery.

Oh, the battery and panel connectors are larger than jst-2. I was pretty excited for a second there.

[fathom belfry]

The vuebee panel has the same size panel, but a large frame around it. It has less room inside maybe fit a seeed. The board is smaller, and has smaller components. Chip numbers are 5608AJ39 and FJIH CD38. The first is bms, can’t find info on the second. Board also has a usb c port on the back that is not accessible, maybe for initial battery charging?

[fathom belfry]

Magnetic solar node with blink panel, Seeed XIAO, tenmory antenna, and threaded in the bottom for a painters pole.

Side by side comparison with the harbor breeze.

[tired rain]

looks good

[serene goblet]

Hmmm, I know its been discussed, but what is the standard for INA3221 wiring again ? 1 is battery, 2 is solar, 3 is device ?

[nocturne nacelle]

I am doing this tomorrow, thanks.

[tired rain]

@nocturne nacelleremember to set Position -> GPS -> NOT_PRESENT so that the serial pin 15 is not initialized as a uart.

[nocturne nacelle]

I have a background in circuit bending. meshtastic is new to me, making stuff isnt though. I cracked open my light and its guts look a bit diff from yours, but i think the circuit board in mine is just condensed down. anyone reading this and trying it yourself, my board version is HW-6060zb-5 2024.5.8. I am using the RAKwireless WisBlock Meshtastic Starter Kit US915 Base RAK19007 + Core RAK4631. The 19007 base has a TX1 hole in the board. In the image you posted you have soldered directly to the 6th pin (visually, counting from the left) on the 4630.

Im assuming that its all same same and i can just follow your instructions.

if anything goes sideways i will report.

[tired rain]

ok cool. Yeah i soldered directly to the RAK module because I had to break the baseboard in half for an earlier project.

But you can just solder to the RX (15) or TX(16) on the 19007

[nocturne nacelle]

Nothing together yet, just pictures for posterity

[tired rain]

yeah looks a little different.

the lifepo4 batteris area always at a lower voltage than most meshtastic units so it's gonna think the battery is super low if you check the voltage reported on from the Node.

[nocturne nacelle]

I am in Texas, locally this was the color changing, solar light available at Lowe's, I also purchased The harbor breeze solar spot light #1234868, messing with the lights seemed more fun so I'm doing this first. I checked the battery voltage and they're at about 3.3.

[tired rain]

I've tested the node running overnight on these cells and the node was still going in the morning so I think they will do ok. BUt probably not if the light is ON all night.

does the battery compartment have it's own door ?

and mine came with a rubber gasket too. Maybe it's a newer version with more water proofing.

[nocturne nacelle]

I think it's less waterproof than I'd like, but I can make a rubber gasket and add some silicone.

This is the battery compartment from the outside and where I soldered the wire that will go to a leg on the switch.

The batteries that came with it. Dec 23 03?! Wow

[tired rain]

oh dang, yeah that's an old one.

[nocturne nacelle]

Well, my multimeter says that everything is doing what it's supposed to do. I think the "button press" is too long. I need the duration of the output to be less than a second and one second is as low as it goes in my android app. I tried adjusting it through the chrome UI and it won't let me select less than a second their either.

The light itself wants a quick button press. Sending an alert bell to the node was able to make the light lag in response to an actual button press. As if the node was holding down the button.

So I will have to figure out how to make a circuit to shorten the output artificially, or alternatively write some custom firmware to get more precision in the duration of the output on PO 16

[tired rain]

@nocturne nacelle also know that sending the bell on current android doesn't actually send the ascii bell. test with message alert to avoid that.

[nocturne nacelle]

As soon as I get back into the shop tonight I'll mess with that, straight away.

[tired rain]

I wonder if the logic is reversed for the button on your unit. Is the open button shorting to ground or to + rail ?

[nocturne nacelle]

The switch is normally open and when you close it, it shorts to ground.

I think a small capacitor and a resistor from the rak base board with the positive leg of the cap on the switch might fix it or it might advance the colors rapidly. It's on my short list of ideas.

[tired rain]

I also ran into the issue where if even if there is a littel bit of light hitting the solar panel the light will not turn on .

[nocturne nacelle]

@tired rain it works!!!!! I turned on the LED for regular message notifications and now it works. That bit of "bell not sending with Android" knowledge was the missing key.

I think the coolest part of this project is being able to turn it off remotely so you don't drain the battery.

[tired rain]

yes i was pulling my hair out for a while there.

if you install meshtastic from Fdroid it's slightly older andn the bell works again if you wanted to use it.

[nocturne nacelle]

Thank you so much for sharing this information and holding everybody's hand while they go through it

[tired rain]

A friend of mine want to put it up on a 1000ft peak and be able to command it at night. should be fun.

[nocturne nacelle]

I saw where you said that there was no downlink

Hehehehe

[tired rain]

I had is stop responding for unknown reasons while on the workbench. Tweaking with frequencies and channels and stuff so if it stops working you might want to wipe it clean start over to get to a known working state.

Yeah, via RF only !

I do think it would be kinda cool to install a momentary version on a node and make it the light flash a couple times any time a traffic comes through kinda of like a light house alerting to rf activity. hehe.

With the OG cheap led enclosure this would work by wiring the serial pin to the daylight sensor resistor and have it flash a few times. The light would never stay on, just flash

[nocturne nacelle]

Yes that would be pretty cool especially if you could put it in some kind of spooky flavored housing

[nocturne nacelle]

Here's what it looks like before I will close it up. You can see the power pigtail directly on the battery and the white wire is connecting tx1 to the only button leg not connected to ground.

[olive citrus]

You'll never run out of battery lol

It lasts almost a week with no light, and can charge under a full moon.

I have extra stuff in mine so you might want to extend the timeframe a little bit

My question to you is this: Once you turn off the device, how are you going to turn it back on?

[nocturne nacelle]

The rak stays on no matter the lights on/off status. Part of the joy of turning off the light remotely is preserving battery for the overnight operation of the rak.

Although I haven't really been keeping up with powering down the light, the node seems to have plenty of power to make it through the whole night.

[olive citrus]

Oh the led

Nice idea!

You should put a big resistor in there and maybe set the led on a timer or something

The light is too bright imo because it can drain the battery overnight

[tired rain]

The lifpo4 batteries will get too low if the light is on all night for more than 2 nights.

[nocturne nacelle]

When you were saying that the internal power sensors would detect that the batteries were low basically all the time, I found that to be true.

[tired rain]

i made a custom firmware for the multicolor one https://discord.com/channels/867578229534359593/1474917630849847527

My node did shutdown after 3 nights of the led being on all night long so don't want to do that.

[nocturne nacelle]

Maybe,like bro suggested, a resistor dimming the light would be helpful. Like 10k or something.

[tired rain]

Is the one you have just the one color ?

[nocturne nacelle]

No, you're right. Each led has its own resistor. I remember now. Maybe you could have just the first led be dim.

And that could be your low power, all night light.

It's the one that looks most traditionally like a yard light

It has that warm incandescent look to it

[tired rain]

My custom build turns off after 10 minutes so not to worry. it's got to keep track of which color it's on too so it knows how many pulses to send to turn off 😉

you can send it numbers or the first letter of the color and it will jump to that color too .

[nocturne nacelle]

I don't even know what question to ask to begin to understand how to write firmware, but I know how to flash it.

[tired rain]

I can build for you and send you the bin file if you want to try it out.

It's hard coded to 6 different light modes though. white, red, green, blue, yellow, violet , OFF

technically 7 modes if you include the off state.

[serene goblet]

Anyone happen to have a mount for a painters pole for this ?

[honest basalt]

Ive heard people say that these solar panels sometimes stop working if they are covered up even a little bit.

Could this work or is it too much covered up?
Thanks.

[serene goblet]

I have a bar covering part of mine through out the day, granted it's about 6 inches away, so it's just a shade, but your setup, should be ok..

[honest basalt]

Its just going outside of my house so its not the end of the world if not. Just wanted to make sure it wasn't a definite no go.

Thanks!

[serene goblet]

Welp, I did something with my solar node this weekend......

It fell over right after taking the first video, so i pushed it up against the house..

Might have to swap my elbow antenna for a N-Type Antenna..

[tired rain]

I just glue the antenna right into position so that it can't swivel down or un bend.

shoe goo / goop is my go to favorite glue for sealing and fixing things in place.

[serene goblet]

Oh, I didnt even think about that.. But the mount I'm using is N-Type, so might as well switch to my Alfa..

Or a 5dB..

[analog vault]

Can shoe goo be used for sealing holes in the casing too so everything is waterproof?

[tired rain]

yes it makes a great sealant as well. Although, in my experience, the solar enclosure has been completely waterproof as long as the foam gasket is in place. sealing with shoe goo would make it pretty hard to open up but it is removeable so yeah.

[analog vault]

I was thinking just for the hole for antenna. Thanks!

[tired rain]

yeah I seal all access ports with it.

[vast compass]

When i did something similar, I stuck mine through the umbrella hole of a table too. Bucket of rocks in the bottom and heavy table 76cm up.

[serene goblet]

I used concrete planter boarders.. It's what I had on hand..

[lament lodge]

That can be true when individual cells on the panel are in series. but you can simply test this, we can’t tell you if yours is going to work. Put a multimeter on it!

[honest basalt]

Yeah I guess I should probably buy and learn how to use one of this eventually.

[lament lodge]

If you are hacking around on modifying lawn lights, they are sort of a must. You can lean on trusting the existing wiring but being able to verify things helps. Especially once you branch out a bit. They are pretty inexpensive and you don’t need industrial grade accuracy. You want to be able to test voltage, continuity, and polarity.

Get polarity wrong in a project and you can burn out a node or worse yet, smoke a battery.

[vast compass]

Fo sho. Even a cheap Hobo Freight or Dollar Store multimeter would suffice.

[olive citrus]

I forgot to take new pictures of my build

I replaced the antenna and the internal battery

[vast compass]

👍
Waiting for a new mount for the newer solar panels. Same old configuration, let Harbor Breeze manage the battery, vent, and white paint. This particular node is for the WS85. 💨🍃

[vast compass]

I think my 3d printer dude ghosted me.
So here is an effort to make mounting these more off the shelf, sans antenna. Probably a 1/4-20 socket head cap screw through the loop clamp, a “corner brace” to offset, m4x0.7x25, and m4 washer through the panel. Bingo bango.

[tired rain]

I didn't know they made white ones.

[vast compass]

Kustom

[vast compass]

@forest vine
Some ideas here, but ASA is great outside.

[olive citrus]

Petg on a pole for a year is doing fine