Hi guys,

We're slowly adjusting to our new house, only been about two years since we moved in and we are at the stage where we are getting stuff done outside the house.

So, we have a path down to the house from the street that gets little light on it from the street and in the wet can be quite hazardous. I'm looking for a lighting setup that would fit the following bil:

1. Timed switch at top and bottom of path, think switches found in apartment block stairwell, depress once and it stays on for a period of time then switches off the light. Gives time to get up or down the path while still lit.

2. LED lights, for low power usage, 12v is preferred.

3. Solar recharge battery for powering the lights, no sense hooking into the 240v system and paying more on the power bill when 12v independent will do the job.

Where I am stuck is:

4. What wattage of LED will be ideal, and how many for a 20m path?

5. What size panel, battery storage and inverter (if required), for at worst 4 trips up and down the path on one night with say a 3 minute time limit for each one way trip, so 24 minutes of usage on a busy night?

6. What would the wiring diagram look like?

If there's anything else obvious that I am missing please let me know.

Cheers,

Geoff

Have you thought about the solar garden lights?

I never really thought they were that bright, until I went to the next door neighbours house one dark night. Not the sort of light you could perform surgery by, but enough to light your way to the front door.

We have just replaced the ones we had around the pool (were here when we moved in) with cheap ones from Kmart, $20 for 10 of them, and seeing how much light they put out we then placed them around the edge of our lawn area, but we used the smaller ones which were a pack of 10 for $10, the smaller, cheaper ones actually seem to put out more light than the bigger ones.

We have ours about 2m apart, which is fine for what we want them for, but I guess if you needed more light then putting them closer together might work.

Super easy to install, pull out the tag to connect the battery, push the spike into the ground and wait for dark.

I was surprised at the range which is now available in the solar garden lights, they have spot lights, and even fairy lights now, so your not stuch with just the plain looking lanterns.