How to Repair a Solar Powered LED Garden Light

This is a guide on how to repair your light if you have had it for a few years and the stress of the outdoors have caused it to stop working.
Honestly, why won't cheap things last longer than five minutes?

Step 1: Take Apart the Light Fitting.

First of all, you need to take apart your light fitting. Usually most lights will be held together by screws around the edge. Just look on the underside and remove any that you find. The glass or plastic cover for the light sometimes twists apart aswell so try that too.
After you have opened it, just take off any big removable parts, taking note on how they assemble so you can fit them back on. Also remove the batteries if they are rechargable. If they are physically attached / soldered in, just leave them as they are.

Step 2: Recharge the Batteries

If the batteries in your light are stuck in, skip this step to step 3.
Place the rechargable batteries into a recharger for a while. If your light hasn't been working for a while, then the solar panel will take a looong time to revive the dead batteries. This will just give the batteries a kick-start so that the solar panel will just top it up during the day.

Step 3: Cleaning Time!

To improve the brightness of your light, you will have to clean the casing. Just clean the see-through cover in hot water and washing up liquid and wipe around the casing. Remove any bugs too!

Next, check the circuit for damage. You should be able to work out something thats stopping the circuit from working. A good indication is rust or broken wires. Where possible, just try to replace the parts. If you haven't got spare wires or a soldering iron, just use wire cutters to strip wires and twist the ends back together. If the switch is broken, you can cut it out and twist the wires together. If the LED isn't very bright, you could consider taking it out and replacing it with a new similar LED of your choice if you know how to.

Step 4: Re-assemble and Huzzah!

Put all your clean and repaired parts back together, along with the partially recharged batteries. (You can try to fill in the gaps with something if you want to prevent bugs from getting in).
Then Stick your finger over the Light Dependent resistor (usually next to the solar panel) and turn it on. Does the LED light up? Hooray! :) Congratulations on fixing your old light. Now just stick it back in your garden and enjoy it's glowy goodness.

If it doesn't work, you better go back to step 1... :(

Watch this space for more tutorials from Rhodesy.
You're on the Rhodesy to success with me!