DIY Solar Power Sun Jars

Credit to Tobias Wong

After the recent post on making your own creative lighting I stumbled upon an Unplggd.com post about making your own sun jar, which is a solar rechargeable light and is normally priced around $45 dollars or possibly $20 from resellers, which if you want multiple for mood lighting can add up.  Unplgged sourced an Instructables.com how-to for making your own for under $10 and it is reposted below.

You’ll need the following to get started:
Components:
1. Ikea Slom glass jar or Mason Jar
2. Solar garden light ($4 each)
3. Rechargeable battery (AA size)
4. Blu-tack
5. Tracing paper or glass frosting spray

You’ll need a screwdriver, a utility knife, and some glass-frosting paper to make your sun jar complete. You’re going to take the solar light apart and put what you find inside the glass jar. You can use some Blu-tack to keep it all together. It’s important to use a glass frosting spray so that the light generated by the lamp is diffuse. As an alternative, you can also use tracing paper. That’s it! We’ve calculated that by recycling some of your Mason Jars and buying the solar lamps in packets of 6, it won’t cost you more than $6 per lamp. That’s a whole lot better than $45. Basically, you’re just repackaging the solar lamps into a more usable and friendly form. You can fiddle around with this idea, but this is quite straightforward and simple. It’s important to use a transparent lid. If you use a metal lid, that usually comes with a Mason Jar, the solar panel won’t be able to recharge the battery.

You must leave the jar for several hours in direct sunlight for it to charge.  Also, because it is water tight, sun jars may be left outside no matter the weather.

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