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Outdoor solar lights are a prepper’s best friend. I have several in my front yard that I plan on using for extra indoor lighting during a power outage. But the following article has several interesting ideas I never considered before.
For example, if your solar garden lights have AA rechargeable batteries inside, you can use them as solar battery chargers. I have to admit, I felt kind of stupid for not thinking of this on my own. Another tip is to remove the decorative shade; they’re much brighter without them. And that’s just two of the many ways you can hack your outdoor solar lights for survival.
Nancy writes, “It’s that startling moment when the lights go out in the middle of the night. You haven’t had time to mount your flashlights next to your bed. And you can’t find your candles in the complete dark. As you stumble about, you notice a white glow coming from your vegetable garden. It’s the solar lighting you put out there earlier this year.” Follow the link below to keep reading.
And they’re OPSEC! Who would think, “Oh, he has solar yard lights. Must be a prepper.” No one! And they’re waterproof! And because they’re cheap you can have several charging in rotation at the same time so you can use the batteries every day instead of waiting for a charge. And because they’re cheap you can have multiples in case of failures. And as another mentioned, they’re safe light in power outages. They’re really a good idea for preppers.
When buying them, open them up and look at the writing inside. If they say 2/3AA pass on them; that’s an unusual battery size and not compatible with most other devices. Most of the $1 units at Dollar Tree have AAA which is great; you can use adapters for those from eBay to scale all the way up from AAA to AA to even a D size, although know that if you use those in high drain devices, draining too much too quickly it can shorten overall battery life (have to throw it away sooner) and you don’t want to have to do that with expensive Eneloops. So stay away from using AAA-to-Ds in devices that drain it flat in less than an hour. Some AA-to-D adapters require two AAs (or adapted AAAs) so at least you get a battery life that starts to come close to a real D.
Solar yard lights with AAAs inside make *excellent* prepping tools. I snag more almost every time I see them at Dollar Tree.