Mike wrote:
Thanks Bob. I had given that thought, less time in the winter, but
hadn't thought of figures and the length of darkness in the winter.
They will be used predominantly for illumination in the winter, up to
about 11.00pm when I come in from a night out with the boys;-)

I have about 8 that I bought from Sander's garden centre in Burnham-on-Sea,
and for the first year most of them stayed on for about 5 hours after dark,
summer or winter. Now only 3 can manage that. The instructions do say to
change the nicad batteries once a year as they wear out, so I will be doing
that if I get the tuits. Now, since they manage 5 hours regardless, it
appears that the limiting factor with mine is not the solar cell but the
battery capacity - there is more than enough area of cell to charge fully
even on a winter day. I shall be looking at putting larger cells in, as
they may last longer! (the ones in there are 760mAh, I have seen some as
high as 1100mAh)

For your pub wanderings, though, you might be pushing your luck in Dark
December. There is enough light to delineate the edges of the path, but not
to illuminate an e.g sleeping cat or fallen branch. There are several
low-voltage ones where you could put a transformer inside on a timeswitch,
and bury perfectly harmless bellwire style cable in the soil, or there again
you could just take a torch. A bloke I used to know had a torch locked in
one of those steel mailboxes by his front gate, for use when he came home
late. Course, you need to be able to still use a key, but the front door
will present a similar problem in a few minutes.