Table of Contents
The Tools
You’ll need:
- Solar path light (from Lowe’s)
- Thin flat-head screwdriver
- Pliers
- Utility knife
- Small Philips screwdriver
- Tin snips (or a couple of pliers with cutters)
- A safe surface that you don’t mind scratching (like a cutting board!)
- Scissors (not pictured)
- Small piece of paper (not pictured)
- Scotch tape or masking tape (not pictured)
- Pen or pencil (not pictured)
Step 0 – Find the path light and bottle
I can’t help you much here. I can tell you that I found the path lights at Lowe’s in the outdoor lighting aisle on a display in the aisle and not actually on the shelf. They’re very similar to the ones used in the sun jars except that this year’s model has a smaller solar panel and seemingly better battery life. Also, you are on your own for the bottle. I’m no expert on bottle cutting, but you can check the links in the opening paragraph to do it yourself or acquire one by other means. For the record, it’s not easy cutting a liquor bottle. They are usually not perfectly round and have seams in the glass that makes the glass crack all over. Fortunately I was able to use the bottle despite all the extra cracks in it. There are also some bottles that have a wide enough neck to allow you to drop the battery and board into the bottle. You’ll then probably want to drill a hole in the glass and run wires through so that you can leave the solar panel outside the bottle (maybe glued onto the back). This may also improve solar reception.
Step 1 – Initial disassembly
Remove the light assembly from the the stake and remove the battery.
Step 2 – Remove some screws
Remove the screws from the bottom around the battery housing.
Step 3 – Remove the solar panel
Use the flat-head screwdriver to gently pry the solar panel from the top of the assembly. You’ll have to be somewhat forceful at first to get under the panel. Once you get a decent edge up, slowly work your way around the panel. Take careful steps to make sure you don’t slip and stab yourself with the screwdriver (I did it once, it hurts).
Step 4 – Remove some more screws
There are 3 small screws under the black adhesive that will need to be removed. They can be wholly or partially concealed under the adhesive, so you may need to scrape around to find them. You don’t have to scrape the adhesive off to remove the screws. Once you find them, just start unscrewing!
Step 5 – Cutting away the housing
Use the tin snips or a couple sets of pliers to cut, rip, rend, bend, and shred away the housing to free the electronics. This is made much easier with the tin snips, but I’ve also done it with two sets of pliers to cut and then bend and rip the housing away. Not easy, but not terribly difficult. If you use the plier method, take special care that you don’t accidentally cut yourself on any sharp edges! Also, don’t cut any of the plastic that’s part of the battery housing … yet.
Here’s what should be left after all that cutting.
Step 6 – Trim the battery housing
You can pay a visit to your local Radio Shack or similar electronics store and buy your own battery housing, or you can trim what was provided. It’s easiest to use tin snips to cut away as much of the housing as possible. However, I also used the utility knife on a cutting board to cut at it. Even if you use the tin snips, you’ll probably also need to use the utility knife to trim the edges and reduce the housing to as small as possible.
Step 7 – Clean up
At the end of all this, you should have a small pile of garbage. Throw it away and/or recycle whatever you can. You can put away all those tools now.
Step 8 – (Optional) Extra hacking
The boards have holes for additional LEDs. They do require some simple soldering, but feel free to add whatever you like.
It may require a little electronics know-how (knowledge of voltage and resistance) to find the right combination of LEDs to achieve any special effects and colors that you would like, but it is safe and fairly straightforward to add more white or some other color LEDs. The extra blue LED in the picture isn’t soldered in place but just sort of clipped on to show you that there are other color options!
Step 9 – Test installation
Now try putting the assembly into your bottle. I found it easier to manage by using twist ties to hold the battery housing and the board together. Try not to block the LED(s) with the solar panel. Make a mental note of the ideal placement.
Step 10 – Frosting
First, trace an outline of the solar panel onto the small piece of paper and cut out the circle. Add tape to the piece of paper and do your best to tape it in place of where the solar panel was in your test installation. This will help prevent part of the glass from being frosted and affecting your solar reception. Once the paper is in place, frost to taste. I found that frosting once, letting it dry, and then frosting a second time really helped cover everything well. I used a small fan to help speed up the drying process so you can finish it off a little faster. I think I spent maybe 20 minutes from initial frosting to final installation, so it really doesn’t take long to do.
Step 11 – Enjoy!
Once the frosting is dry, remove the paper and install the pieces again as you did in step 9. You should be ready to go! Ideal placement is on a window sill that gets a lot of sunlight. Unfortunately for me, the window sill that I wanted to keep this on doesn’t get much direct sunlight, so it only holds a weak charge and not for very long. By the time the sun has set, the battery is already drained.
Image Gallery
Awesome! You need to put this up on instructables.com!