Walfront Solar Lamp Controller Module for Solar Lamp Night Light Controller Module Control Circuit Board with Switch

Soldered the board as directed but didn’t work so had to check board and found unsoldered land so soldered and now ok.

As it does of course, and Duncurin has been running up this super little circuit. I am doing my best to build a new notice board for the local church. Someone has ripped the door off the old one. I looked at the old rusting pins that are now in the rain and wondered if they simply wouldn’t bother with a new one (which are ferociously expensive) and if they didn’t what else would quietly be let go.At this point I thought – at least I could have a go and I have been attempting to make a new noticeboard in solid cherry. Not just this, but I wanted it to glow at night ! Enter this super circuit.It is fairly easy to understand, Duncurin was lucky to have a 6v solar panel in his odds and ends and also a 3.7v Lithium ‘pouch’ battery of uncertain age. I started by charging this and carefully protected the terminals with insulation tape and set it to one side. Please note also, the circuit does come with some nice instructions, so you know where you are soldering all your wires to. Be careful, don’t let any of the wires short across and remember to cut one wire at once so you don’t inadvertently do this. This is especially important with Lithium batteries which can produce some really strong currents or even explode when shorted in this way.I am hoping my new noticeboard will have a cross member on top in cherry and also at the bottom which I have routed to form a nice rolled edge. I then routed some recesses in the under surface of the top cross beam to take the battery and circuit.Please see the photos. You can see the battery which has simply been stuck in with some clear gel and the little circuit is next. Next to the little circuit is a step-up circuit also obtained from Amazon. My reason for using this is that I am hoping to power a very short, 6” led strip also from Amazon. One of the photos shows a frosted strip at the top of my notice board in evolution and the LED strip is behind this.It is important to measure your voltages at each stage and you will see my multimeter as previously reviewed, applied to this task.One of the pictures shows the little solar panel covered with a red cloth (sorry it’s all tatty). The panel when in darkness causes the voltage to drop and the circuit kicks in and allows the battery voltage to form the output to drive a string of LED that one often sees in those garden lights that are widely available and I guess run at something like 3v and a bit. Because I wanted to power a LED strip running at 12v I tuned the step-up to provide this and you will see the multimeter showing just below 12v, which is fine. Allowing the panel to receive light and the circuit shuts down but the battery is being charged.The little circuit has some tiny holes to accept small screws as does the step-up board and I have now screwed these down. I am hoping the recess in the cherry beam will allow a cover to be applied to cover the whole compartment. The cross piece of wood can then be turned upside down and – here’s the plan anyway! – can then be screwed to the top of the noticeboard and hopefully still allow the door to open and close! Fingers crossed!Of course, solar-powered lights are fine as the days grow longer but it is in mid-winter that one needs to re-consider this strategy. The Lithium battery is fairly meaty at 3000mAh but I am not expecting it to receive enough charge through the winter months and maybe the smart money was on having a simple timer to allow illumination for a couple of hours each night to preserve battery charge and allow the solar panel to catch up better in the shorter days of winter.