Inexpensive solar panels.

[audioguru]

Most of the parts in my Sony TV are Japanese. One or more failed.

 

[colin55]

My normal servicing was over 3 repairs per TV per year for Australian, English and German sets.
I made a fortune in servicing.
Then the Japanese sets came in.
I bought and rented over 150 17inch General sets.
Not one repair in 5 years. The writing was on the wall. Servicing was finished.
That’s why I got into Talking Electronics Magazine.
The same with Chinese sets today.
The first time they fail is when you throw them out.
Each year we have a rubbish collection.
All the TV’s get thrown out on the front lawn for pick-up.
Maybe one TV per 200 - 500 houses.
That’s how reliable they are.
You said you got 8 years trouble free. That’s better than any US, German, Australian or English TV !!!! You are just proving my point.

 

[be80be]

Repairs of most any thing it going up in the US it cheaper to fix now then to throw a way and buy new. But you don't see a lot of TV it more like amps and LCD screens

 

[3v0]

Sounds like a good idea. We already have Berlin and Cuba to name a few.

The Japanese are so clever.

Why don't the American name one of their cities JAPAN, so they can say their cars are: "Made in JAPAN."
.

 

[Hero999]

Just a follow up.

I've had the solar panels fitted for over a year now.

The batteries don't get overcharged nor do they ever run flat, even at the height of summer or in the depths of winter.

Snow and rain hasn't seemed to have damaged the panels but the odd bit of bird muck probably reduces the efficiency although it normally washes off in the rain before it gets too bad.

 

[Birdman Adam]

Maybe I can help you with that?

EDIT: Buy one of those fake owls?

 

[audioguru]

I have had many solar garden lights for years. Last week one stopped and I cleaned out a few huge live spiders and replaced its cheap Chinese rusted away Ni-Cad battery with an American stainless steel Ni-MH battery that lasts much longer.

 

[Birdman Adam]

Here in NC we have these huge wolf spiders and such - I found one in my basement the other day - It was at least 4 inches wide. Now that were in spring my house is practically being taken over!

 

[Thunderchild]

I've got 2 X 20 W pannels on my south facing wall and they can in the summer make enough power to run my monitor, in winter I have to keep switching back to the mains often.

 

[Hero999]

Maybe I can help you with that?

EDIT: Buy one of those fake owls?

Not a chance, some birds are far too smart to fall for that, some bird brains have primate level IQs

Corvidae Intelligence

I've got 2 X 20 W pannels on my south facing wall and they can in the summer make enough power to run my monitor, in winter I have to keep switching back to the mains often.

How much did they set you back?

Have you got your initial investment back as money of your bill yet?

 

[Thunderchild]

Not a chance, some birds are far too smart to fall for that, some bird brains have primate level IQs

Corvidae Intelligence



How much did they set you back?

Have you got your initial investment back as money of your bill yet?

they were £ 55 a peice off eBay, I doubt I'll get my money back for many years to come I just did it for the fun of it

 

[Vizier87]

AGs persistence toward the quality of Chinese stuff really grows on me now..

 

[Birdman Adam]

He does have a valid point with many situations though! It seems many devices are designed to fail!

Now that I think about it, the owl would only work with pigeons, and the like. My breeding Quakers would try to fight it

 

[nsaspook]

He does have a valid point with many situations though! It seems many devices are designed to fail!

The company I work for (they all do it) sells lots of under-spec products to China. Parts that in final test fail in some none fatal way. (bad memory bits, low frequency operation, etc...). These parts are only qualified for toys and things like that but sometimes they wind up in something more critical when a wholesaler defrauds a buyer for top spec parts.
https://www.circuitsassembly.com/cms/news/8900-workshop-addresses-growing-dilemma-of-fake-chips]

 

[audioguru]

AGs persistence toward the quality of Chinese stuff really grows on me now..

The cheap old fashioned and poisonous Ni-Cad battery cells in my solar garden lights rust away in less than 1 year. They were made by Ronda Battery Company in Guangdong, China. Their annual revenue is 20 Million US Dollars.
My replacements are Energizer Ni-MH battery cells that are made in Japan, last for years and have 6 times or more capacity.

The Chinese garden lights were made with holes for the spiders to enter (and maybe for rain leaks to exit?). I plugged all holes.

 

[Birdman Adam]

The Chinese garden lights were made with holes for the spiders to enter

I'm thinking the holes are for condensation to vent? But if you plugged all of them, it should stay dry.

I guess it really does come down to how much money they can trim from the production of each device.

 

[audioguru]

The cheap Chinese solar garden lights are probably made for 50 cents each, the workers who assemble them are paid a bowl of rice per day and the product sells for ten dollars each! Somebody is making a huge profit and it isn't the boat driver that brings them here.

But I don't care because I got many of my solar garden lights for free from my electrical utility company. The remainder I got on sale with low prices.

 

[Birdman Adam]

Here's a (saddening) example:

**broken link removed**

"Breakfast - thin watery rice gruel"
**broken link removed**

"Payed 41 cents an hour"
**broken link removed**

 

[Thunderchild]

I bought cheap solar lights in the pound shop and they were not very good, on close inspection I can see that the "solar panel" is actually 4 thin strips of solar panel so the actual area of panel is not a lot, the batteries soon failed and they did not even last the winter out, toward the end of summer the ones sold in wilkinson for £ 4 went on sale and I bought a few, the solar panel was "all there" and they coped pretty well throught the winter but for the darkest and shortest days, they do have a tendency for water to buildup insude but i tip it out now and then. When I move to my own house my solar lighting arrangement will probably be fed from my main panels and battery and serve more that function plus some indoor or shed lighting than running a small portion of my computer equipment, powerful whight leds are becoming inexspensive and provie a more practical low voltage solution than energy save bulbs

 

[Birdman Adam]

I would definitely run any landscape lights off buried low-voltage power converted from mains. Way easier to maintain.