Straight Answer

How long solar lights keep working without sun

Roughly three nights. Here is what that number is actually for.

Around three nights. That is the reserve the lamps we install hold on a full battery, and it exists for the grey week rather than the sunny one. In practice a Cyprus winter rarely spends it fully, because even a bright overcast day puts real charge back. Motion mode stretches it considerably further, because a lamp that waits uses a fraction of what a lamp burning all night does.

Reserve matters more than the daily charge

On most Cyprus days the question never arises, because the lamp charges fully and lights all night. The reserve is not for those days. It is for the front that parks over the island for three days in January, and it means a grey Tuesday borrows from Monday's sunshine instead of leaving your steps dark.

That is also why we would rather talk about reserve than about brightness. A very bright lamp with a thin battery is a lamp that impresses in the shop and disappoints in February.

What stretches the reserve

Motion mode is the biggest lever by a distance. A lamp that sits at low output and lifts when someone walks past spends a small fraction of what a lamp at full output all night spends, so the same battery covers far more bad weather.

Placement is the second. A panel in clean winter sun refills the reserve on the first decent day after the front passes, and a panel in a January shadow never quite catches up. That is why we place for the low sun.

The honest limits

Five or six heavily overcast days in a row will dim the lamps toward the end of it. Cyprus produces a handful of such spells a winter, and on a dusk to dawn setting you would notice the last night or two.

The reserve is a new battery figure. Batteries age, and after some years the same lamp holds less. That is a battery replacement, not a fault, and it is the one consumable in the system.

The lamps carrying the largest reserve are the 3000 lumen street lamps, and any lamp of ours can be set to motion mode when reserve matters more than constant light. Solar Street Lamp 3000 lm · Solar Park Lamp 2800 lm

The next questions

The lamp dims rather than dying outright, and the electronics protect the battery from deep discharge. One good day of sun brings it back. Nothing is damaged by a spell of bad weather.

The reserve is the same, but you never reach it. Summer nights are shorter and the charge is complete every day, so the battery starts each night full and ends it far from empty.

For lighting, comfortably. An empty house is also the best case for motion mode, because the lamps sit low until something moves and the reserve stretches a long way. The garden stays lit for the neighbours and for anyone arriving unannounced.