Thread: How to convert those ugly solar garden lights?

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OK, I want to make my first MM reaper for my yard and I'd like it to be carrying a lantern. I have at least 6 of those solar garden lights, the kind with the little solar panel that charges a battery that powers the light at night.

How can I use these lights, (I know they will be sacrificed in doing this, but the Halloween yard display damands sacrifice), so that the lantern is solar?

Here's what I would do.

First I would tear the solar lights apart.
I would then disconnect the led from the circuit that powers it and the solar panel from the circuit. Label which wire goes to which.

Then I would find a suitable lantern. and affix it to my reapers frame in the approximate final location.. Then I would take some wire and run it from that location to down the arm frame, across the shoulder, then down the center support to the base.. This will give you a rough idea how much wire you will need to reach your lantern. Add a couple extra feet, as you can always cut off what you don't need but can't add more.

Next I would wire up my leds to my newly run wire and then connect it to the circuit. Then test your leds with the circuit once you add the additional wire between them . Make sure the wire isn't thicker than the wire that it was originally connected with. Additional wire adds additional resistance and can make the leds not work if the wire is too thick or too long. If you're leds won't work at the desired length, check your connections, and finally try a thinner gauge wire.

Once you have the leds working, you will need to figure out how they will be mounted in the lantern. Hot glue is amazingly useful if you take the time to build it up in layers. Just make sure your wiring and led's are good before gluing anything.


I would then screw a watertight tupperwear container to the base (probably near an edge for easy access if I ever needed to change the batteries) with a notch near the top to allow wires to enter. Hot glue around screws before you tighten them down, or use silicone to help keep moisture out.

I would then solder about 5 ft of wire to the solar panel connections on the circuit, wrap the circuits in saran wrap to prevent them from shorting by touching each other and throw them all in the tupperwear container.

Then take the solar panels and glue them to a board, add a terminal block to allow you to safely remove the panels when not in use and wire your solar lead wires to the terminal block. You're done.


Are there other ways to do this? Sure, Are there more professional ways to do it, most likely.
This is quick and dirty, and does the job without over complicating things.


Basically all you're doing here is increasing the length of the wire between the leds and the circuit and the solar panels and the circuit.

Hopefully this confusing wall of text helps