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So i just moved into a home that was built in 2002. I have two lights on each side of the garage in order to light up the driveway. I have put in nice new energy efficient bulbs and sometimes they turn on at night and sometimes they do not. WTF? I have literally walked around the house and turned on every switch at the same time to no avail. The lights in the backyard have switches and I know how to use those, I just flick them on and off, but the exterior garage lights are smarter than me. There has to be a timer somewhere as I see no solar panels. Where might one find this timer besides the obvious places like switches and outlets?



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Using Solar Yard Lights to Charge Electronics?

Hey, I need an opinion of whether this will be possible or not. We have a bunch of individual solar sidewalk lights outside out house. a few of them smapped loose, but the electronics work perfectly still, so I figured I would try to do the following:

Each solar panel in the lights puts out around 4.3v on a good bright day, and then I have a few other ones that put out around 3.5v on a bright day.

So I realized… my laptop charger uses 18vDC to charge… So my electronics-stupid brain though "Well that means I can just hook a bunch of these together to get around 18 volts, hook up the 2 wire plug and there we go!"

Now I am assuming I am missing something, likely a shortage of amps, or something like that… but what would I have to do to hook these small panels together and make it work? (if possible)

Also, even more out of likelyhood, I have a 10vDC-15vDC to 120vAC 60Hz converter for my car lighter port, that gives me two regular AC outlets. What are the chances of me hooking that to my small solar panels?

how many of these tiny panels would I actually need to power my 18vDC laptop? or say, my 5vDC PSP?



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