Poundland solar light scavenge.

At the moment Poundland have a range of solar powered garden lights in stock. These lights come in a range of colours and sizes all have more or less the same components inside. The lights I am scavenging parts from are the colour changing solar light.

A £1 source of parts.

Inside the box there is the light itself, a soil spike and a short section of steel tube. I can't think of a use for the spikes & tubes at the moment but I'm sure they'll come in handy someday.

Contents of the box

Once the light is opened up the parts reveal themselves.

The insides.

Most of the components can be scavenged, the only bits I don't use is the pcb with the chip on board, the resistor and the diode. The solar cell, RGB led, battery and switch are all worth saving.

The solar cell is a glass 2.5v 10mA amorphous silicon panel and should pop out of it's housing with a fair bit of bending the plastic around it. If the cell doesn't pop out easy stick it in the fridge for a few hours to make the hot melt glue more brittle and less sticky then try again and it should pop out easier. Quite often the leads aren't actually soldered to the cell but just held in place with hot melt glue so don't worry if the leads don't come off with the cell.
The battery is a tagged 1.2v 40mAh NiMH cell and can be snipped off the board or desoldered. The led is a 5mm two lead RGB led and just gets snipped off the board. The switch is the only part that will require desoldering.

Got to be worth a pound.

So for £1 you get a solar cell, battery, switch and RGB led. Bought as individual parts the cost would be many times more expensive.