6 Types of Solar Street Lights You Should Stay Away From

Low-performance solar street lights

Specific performance

Lack of brightness: the actual luminous flux of this kind of street light is often lower than the national standard, for example, the labeled “100W equivalent brightness” product may only be about 3000lm. For example, the actual luminous flux of a product labeled as “100W equivalent brightness” may only be about 3000lm, which is far lower than that of a high-quality product with the same power of more than 5000lm. When lit at night, the light spot on the ground is dim, and potholes and obstacles on the road surface are hard to see, causing inconvenience to pedestrians and vehicles.

Limited lighting range: High-quality solar street lights rely on reasonable light distribution design, can achieve 15-20 meters of effective lighting, and spot uniformity. However, the lighting range of low-performance products is usually less than 10 meters, with fuzzy edges of light spots, bright in the middle and dark around, forming “local bright spots”, and obvious lighting faults between neighboring street lights, which can't form a continuous lighting band.

Impacts

Lighting Effectiveness and Safety Hazards: On community roads or parking lots, insufficient brightness and lighting faults can increase safety risks. Pedestrians may trip and fall at night because they can't see the roadway, and vehicles may collide when turning due to blind spots. If these street lights are used in commercial plazas, they can also affect the nighttime business atmosphere and make customers feel unsafe.

Energy utilization and return on investment: low performance street lamps with low energy conversion efficiency, consume the same solar energy, but the output is not enough lighting effect, equivalent to a waste of collected energy. From the investment point of view, although the price of these products is low, but with 1-2 years to change, the total cost is higher than the one-time purchase of high-quality products, the return on investment has fallen dramatically.

High maintenance cost of street lights

FAQ

Short battery life: poor quality solar street lights are mostly used in the water lead-acid batteries, did not go through the depth of charge and discharge test, the actual cycle life of only 300-500 times, less than half of the high-quality products. Normal use, 1 year or so, there will be capacity decay, the original street lamp can light 10 hours, may be 3-4 hours on the extinction, every year to change the battery to spend hundreds of dollars.

LED light source attenuation: the LED light source of these products with poor-quality chips, did not do a good job of heat dissipation package, light decay speed is particularly fast. High-quality LED light source with 5000 hours after the light decay rate is usually less than 10%, but poor-quality products with 2000 hours of light decay rate of more than 30%, the street lamp will slowly become dark, 2-3 years will have to change the whole light source module, maintenance costs have increased greatly.

Controller failure rate is high: the controller is the “brain” of the solar street light, but the controller of low-quality products with cheap electronic components, no overcharge, over discharge, lightning protection design. Thunderstorms or voltage fluctuations, it is easy to short-circuit, dead, resulting in street lamps can not be normal charging and discharging, each time the maintenance not only to pay the labor cost, but also because of the lack of spare parts to delay the use.

Ways to reduce maintenance costs

To choose the market reputation, long warranty period of the street lamp brand, such as giving priority to the commitment to “battery warranty 3 years, LED light source warranty 5 years, controller warranty 2 years” of the product, these brands have more confidence in the quality of their own products, the later problems can also be free of charge in a timely manner to repair or replace. In addition, you can also look at the brand's after-sales service network distribution, to ensure that the failure can quickly respond to reduce downtime.

Improperly configured street lights

Typical configuration defects

Battery capacity is too small: some manufacturers to reduce costs, will be equipped with insufficient capacity of the battery. For example, in the rainy south, if the street lights have to work 8 hours a night, at least 120Ah battery to cope with 3 days of continuous rain, but the poor quality products may only be equipped with 80Ah battery, encountered 2 consecutive days of cloudy days will be dead, the street lights at night directly does not light.

Insufficient solar panel power: solar panel power and battery capacity mismatch is a common problem, such as with 120Ah battery street lamps, under normal light at least 100W of solar panels need to be fully charged, but inferior products may only be equipped with 60W solar panels, even if the sunny days are not enough to fill the electricity, the battery is in a state of long-term undercharging, the life of the battery will be further shortened.

No intelligent energy-saving mode: these products do not have PIR human body sensing or light-controlled energy-saving features, regardless of whether there are pedestrians and vehicles, have been full-power lighting. Low-demand hours such as 3-5 a.m., or high power consumption, rainy days power consumption faster, can not reasonably allocate energy, “power outage” problem will be more serious.

Suggestions for reasonable configuration

Before purchasing, it is necessary to understand the local climate, such as the rainy areas in the south, choose the products with battery capacity 20% higher than the theoretical demand, to ensure that they can cope with continuous rain; at the same time, calculate the matching ratio between the solar panel power and the battery capacity, and generally match the 100Ah battery with the 100-120W solar panel. In addition, give priority to the selection of intelligent energy-saving products, such as full-power lighting when someone passes by, no one automatically down to 30% power, improve energy utilization.

Poor weather resistance of street lights

Performance indicators points of concern

Waterproof grade: solar street lights, controllers, batteries and other core components if the waterproof is not good, rainy days is easy to enter the water short-circuit. High-quality products have to reach the waterproof grade IP65 and above, “6” represents complete dustproof, “5” represents can withstand any direction of low-pressure water spray. However, products with poor weather resistance may only be IP54, in the event of heavy rainfall, rainwater can easily seep into the shell, damaging the internal components.

Wind resistance level: the maximum wind force is different in different areas, such as the coast often encounter typhoons, inland may have strong gusts. High-quality solar street light poles and stents will be tested for wind resistance, can withstand more than 12 levels of wind, but low-quality products less than 2mm thick poles, stents made of thin iron, encountering 8 levels of gusts may be bending, tipping, with potential safety hazards.

Surface treatment: street lamps in the outdoors for a long time, there must be anti-corrosion and rust resistance. High-quality products will be hot-dip galvanized + spray processing, coating thickness ≥ 60μm, can resist moisture, high-temperature environment erosion; but the poor weather resistance of the product is only a simple spray paint, with 1 year or so will fall off the paint, rust, not only affects the appearance, but also reduces the strength of the lamp post.

Product selection suggestions

When choosing and purchasing, let the manufacturer provide waterproof grade, wind resistance grade test report, don't buy products that are not clearly labeled with these parameters. At the same time, check the surface of the lamp post, high-quality products, coating uniformity and smooth, no bubbles, scratches; you can gently knock on the lamp post, listen to the sound to determine the thickness, the sound is usually dull thickness is not enough, be careful to choose.

Parameter false labeling street light

False labeling examples and hazards

Common false labeling behavior has exaggerated system power, battery capacity, such as a labeled “500W all-in-one solar street light”, the publicity said that “every night bright 12 hours, 7 days of continuous cloudy and rainy”. But the actual math to know, 12 hours per night to consume 6000Wh power, to cope with 7 days of rain, the battery capacity of at least 42000Wh (about 3500Ah), which in the integrated design is simply impossible to achieve, the actual use of the time may only light 3-4 hours, seriously misleading purchasers.

This kind of false labeling products not only can't meet the lighting demand, but also make purchasers miss the high-quality products, if used in roads, parking lots and other key scenarios, it may also cause safety accidents because of insufficient lighting, and the cost of later replacement is extremely high.

Identification methods

Comparison of system configuration: get the product parameters, the first configuration of their own math is not reasonable. For example, according to “working hours per night × power = daily power consumption”, combined with the local sunshine hours, to determine whether the solar panel power and battery capacity match. If the parameters are obviously contradictory, such as small power solar panels with high-capacity batteries, the probability is false.

Check the test report: let the manufacturer to provide a third-party testing organization's report, focusing on the luminous flux, battery capacity, solar panel power and other core parameters of the test results. Formal test report will have a clear detection method, data and conclusions, if the manufacturer refuses to provide “commercial confidentiality” as the reason, or the report content is vague, you have to be more vigilant.

Heat dissipation and power supply

Poor heat dissipation design

LED street light source will heat up when working, if the heat dissipation is not timely, it will lead to the chip temperature rise, accelerate the light decay and shorten the life. High-quality solar street light will use aluminum alloy cooling shell, with cooling fins, and some will also design air ducts to ensure that the heat is quickly emitted, and the chip operating temperature is controlled below 60℃.

But the poor quality products cooling design is very simple, some directly with plastic shell, some use aluminum alloy but no cooling fins, chip operating temperature may exceed 80 ℃. Long-term high temperature, LED light source light decay speed will accelerate, originally can use 5 years of light source, may be 2 years to change; at the same time, high temperature will also affect the stability of the controller, battery, increase the overall probability of failure. Purchase can touch the street light cooling components, quality products cooling shell thickness uniformity, fins arranged closely; you can also look at the manufacturers to provide thermal test report to confirm the chip operating temperature is within the safe range.

Poor quality of power supply

The power supply is the “power hub” of the solar street light, responsible for converting solar energy into electricity and stabilizing the output. High-quality power supply will use isolated design, with over-voltage, over-current, lightning, anti-reverse connection protection, can adapt to a wide voltage range of 100-240V, to ensure stable power supply even when the voltage fluctuations.

The power supply of inferior products is mostly non-isolated design, with poor quality components and without the necessary protection functions. If a lightning strike in thunderstorms, the power supply is easily penetrated, resulting in the paralysis of the entire street light system; daily use, if the voltage fluctuations, the power supply may output unstable voltage, burned LED light source or controller.

In addition, low-quality power supply conversion efficiency is low, usually only 70% -80%, while high-quality power supply can reach more than 90%, low conversion efficiency will be wasted part of the solar energy, reducing the street lamp range, encounter rainy days more likely to be insufficient power.

Selection of solar street lights is not “look at the price, listen to the propaganda” so simple, from the performance to the configuration, from the weather resistance to the quality of the core components, each link needs to be carefully screened. I hope that the eight categories of poor-quality product features sorted out in this article can become a “guide to avoid the pit” when purchasing, to help you avoid the low-priced traps, choose a truly durable, efficient solar street lights, so that every investment can be converted into long-term lighting value and energy-saving benefits.