DIY solar garden light project. Surface mount remix.

Video Description

A custom solar lighting module using salvaged solar panels and lithium cells. An update to the earlier version that used a simple NPN transistor. This version uses a A2SHB MOSFET commonly used in Chinese products. It's an amazing component so I got some and decided to try one in this project. It's surface mount, so I made everything else surface mount too. I should have named the MOSFET pins Gate, Source and DRAIN not emitter. I was thinking in electron movement terms. The lithium cell should be a protected type and the solar panel should put out around 6V at a maximum of around 250mA to protect the diode from excess current. I've got some schottky diodes on order to upgrade that. One of the nicest things about this design is that it allows easy choosing of the LED current, so if you want it for an outdoor visual effect all night in winter you can choose a lower current (just one 100 ohm resistor). As the battery voltage drops the light intensity and current drops too, so the lights will usually run all night on a very low amount of charge. If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:- http://www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm This also keeps the channel independent of YouTube's advertising algorithms allowing it to be a bit more dangerous and naughty.