New Monument Sign Lighting

The Emerson Master HOA gave us a landscaping light for our monument sign as a test, with the objective of determining whether the lights would work well enough in Autumn Walk and Skylark Ridge to roll them out across the community.

Old and New Lights Together

However, we felt the light had several issues, including a harsh white color temperature, limited placement options for the (single) light, and limited ability to place the solar panel to collect sunlight and avoid getting turned off by headlights at night (with the light shutting off as cars turned onto our street).

Old Light (in the center)

So after some research we found lights, the Solar Light Mart SLM81250, that we felt would deliver a much better result, and purchased them at a very reasonable cost of $39.99. [The manufacturer now has a third generation light that is brighter and still is rated to run from 7-12 hours, though the price of all the lights has gone up slightly.]

New Lights (one on each side)

The caveat, however, is that installation is significantly more complex (a few hours during both daylight and at night versus 10 minutes, to include waterproofing the connectors and burying the cables), which we could afford since we did it ourselves at no cost.

But hopefully you'll agree with us that the result was worth it! Go out after dark and check them out for yourselves!

Specifications:

• 60-100 lumen per light fixture. High power warm white (3,000 K) LED with special magnifier lens, output angle 45-degree to cover wider angle area than average light fixture.
• Cast aluminum textured black finish spotlight fixture, with clear impact resistant lens on fixture.
• Includes large remote 3Wp solar panel & Lithium battery for improved performance. Built for outdoor, IP55.
• Three levels brightness setting. Runs 5-15 hours on a full charge with adjustable brightness setting.
• New improved feature, two-way mounting: stake-to-ground OR wall-mount with mechanical fasteners to create soft downlight / uplight ascend. Package includes: 2*cast Aluminium solar light fixture with spike, 1*remote solar panel with spike

The expected lifetime of the custom rechargeable 3.7V Lithium battery is about 2 years, but it is replaceable at a cost of about $50 for a pack of 6 batteries.

To replace the battery, 10 screws must be taken out and then the back cover pried off (it is held in place by adhesive strips on the battery). When replacing the cover, the rubber gasket must be repositioned to fit into the grooves.