I have a set of stand-alone solar lights with integrated dusk-to-dawn sensors that I use to illuminate a porch flag. This works well as long as I have enough direct sunlight to charge the lights enough to run through the night. For example, on an overcast day, the lights have enough of a charge to run for approximately 5 hours.) Is there a means by which I can calculate the the number of hours of “quality” sunlight? Does anyone in the community have experience doing anything similar?
My thought is that if I can calculate the number hours of full/cloudy/partly cloudy, or some other solar parameter, I could roughly estimate the runtime of the lights and turn on the porch lights when the solar lights are estimated to die.
Right now I’m using a rule to turn the porch lights on a few minutes before sunset and off again at bedtime. Prior to installing the solar lights, I was leaving the porch lights on all night. The only problem really with leaving the porch lights on all night is that it attracts bugs. Hence we end up with spider webs and dead bugs all over the porch. I was hoping to avoid that with the solar lights. Using a light sensor to detect when the solar lights go out is a good idea in theory. However, I don’t think it’s going to be sensitive enough to pick up the solar lights going dark.
I forgot to mention, that I found @rlkoshak posting here:
