converted garden light

One of the items on sale at Canadian Tire this week was a set of four Solar-Powered Garden Lights by Emerald (#52-4010-8). I bought a box (for a couple of reasons).

Each light has a (remarkably) small solar panel, super-bright white LED, on-off switch, and small circuit board (with some through-the-hole and surface-mount components). A Ni-Cd battery AA-style is included.

I examined the circuit board noting the colour bands of the ¼-watt resistors and the pathways. I realised that I could substitute super-bright red LED without changing the resistors. Sweet.

So, I popped out the white; and replaced it with a red. It works!

Now I have some astronomer-friendly solar-powered (or should I say, star-powered) garden lights!