Making Poundland's pinkest solar light even pinker

Poundland is a prominent UK dollar store. This light is one of a range of very colourful solar garden lights that are kinda begging to be retrofitted with the matching colour of LED.

It's fairly straightforward to swap an LED in these lights. While doing the hack I also recommend waterproofing the PCB with grease or lacquer to make it last longer, and if possible, also seal over or around the solar panel to avoid water wicking down the sides and causing its early failure through corrosion. It's also a good idea to bridge the switch contacts with a blob of solder, as the switches are a common failure point.

After a full days sunlight the light was still pretty dim looking, which is typical for UK solar lights due to our low levels of sunlight. They use a tiny NiMH cell and a high value inductor to get decent run time at low intensity from our meagre amount of daily sunlight.

These lights are a cheap source of a PCB to fix other favourite lights that have suffered water damage.



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