New Solar Walkway Lights

J

jmellc

Senior Member
Location
Durham, NC
Occupation
Facility Maintenance Tech. Licensed Electrician
My daughter gave us some solar walkway lights about 5 years ago. They’ve worked well but the flimsy plastic stems haven’t held up. My fixes ran out too. I found some at HD a bit sturdier but still with plastic stems. I bought them and some 1 inch EMT. I cut 18 inch sleeves, painted them & drove them halfway into the ground. Light stems fit perfectly. They’re well protected & a sleeve is easily replaced if it rusts out. Tried to add pics but system won’t take them.
 
AC\DC said:
The cells and batteries are still good?? If so I guess there not tk bad around here you get 1 year
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Yes, the cells & batteries were still good on most. The Achilles heel wears the stems. Square plastic, brittle. Plastic ground stake. I replaced each stake with 1/2 inch EMT from the start. But weather & string trimmer took a heavy toll, gentle as I tried to be around them. Square stems fit ok over 1/2 EMT but I didn’t have any square tube that could go over them for protection. Ordering square tube would probably cost more than the lights. 2 sticks of 1 inch EMT were $40, ecoensive enough. Lights were a little over $10 each. Total cost about $160 for 10 lights. I would have checked out our 1 lighting store in town but they aren’t close by. They may have better ones.
 
jmellc said:
Yes, the cells & batteries were still good on most. The Achilles heel wears the stems. Square plastic, brittle. Plastic ground stake. I replaced each stake with 1/2 inch EMT from the start. But weather & string trimmer took a heavy toll, gentle as I tried to be around them. Square stems fit ok over 1/2 EMT but I didn’t have any square tube that could go over them for protection. Ordering square tube would probably cost more than the lights. 2 sticks of 1 inch EMT were $40, ecoensive enough. Lights were a little over $10 each. Total cost about $160 for 10 lights. I would have checked out our 1 lighting store in town but they aren’t close by. They may have better ones.
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Perhaps you could try protecting them with schedule 80 PVC conduit instead of the EMT? I know EMT is galvanized for corrosion resistance & you are giving them a paint job, but I don't think that'll hold up very long being stuck into dirt.

Schedule 80 PVC is plenty strong, is fairly inexpensive, and has superior corrosion resistance. You also wouldn't have to worry about damaging the paint/galvanized coatings that would leave the steel exposed to the elements (as you would with EMT). And you can paint it just as you would the EMT to make it more aesthetically pleasing.
 
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DBill64 said:
Perhaps you could try protecting them with schedule 80 PVC conduit instead of the EMT? I know EMT is galvanized for corrosion resistance & you are giving them a paint job, but I don't think that'll hold up very long being stuck into dirt.

Schedule 80 PVC is plenty strong, is fairly inexpensive, and has superior corrosion resistance. You also wouldn't have to worry about damaging the paint/galvanized coatings that would leave the steel exposed to the elements (as you would with EMT). And you can paint it just as you would the EMT to make it more aesthetically pleasing.
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That’s a thought but I doubt the stems would fit into 1 inch Schedule 80. They are a near snug fit in EMT. And I doubt being able to drive Schedule 80 into our heavy clay soil. I’d have to go up to 1 1/4 and auger the holes first. The 1/2 EMT stakes from the old ones were rusted but intact.
 
jmellc said:
That’s a thought but I doubt the stems would fit into 1 inch Schedule 80. They are a near snug fit in EMT. And I doubt being able to drive Schedule 80 into our heavy clay soil. I’d have to go up to 1 1/4 and auger the holes first. The 1/2 EMT stakes from the old ones were rusted but intact.
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The ID of 1" PVC vs 1" EMT should be the same. They are tube, which is measured on its internal dimension as opposed to pipe which is measured on it's outer dimension. But yes driving it would be an issue. Perhaps if you notched the end that is being driven into the soil (kind of make it look like a hole saw) and spun it into the dirt like a drill (I've seen this done to drive PVC pipe into the ground for water wells). An auger would be preferable though.
 
DBill64 said:
The ID of 1" PVC vs 1" EMT should be the same. They are tube, which is measured on its internal dimension as opposed to pipe which is measured on it's outer dimension. But yes driving it would be an issue. Perhaps if you notched the end that is being driven into the soil (kind of make it look like a hole saw) and spun it into the dirt like a drill (I've seen this done to drive PVC pipe into the ground for water wells). An auger would be preferable though.
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Since they’re in the ground now, I’ll stick with the EMT. I’ll look into the Schedule 80 for future use.
 
DBill64 said:
The ID of 1" PVC vs 1" EMT should be the same. They are tube, which is measured on its internal dimension as opposed to pipe which is measured on it's outer dimension. But yes driving it would be an issue. Perhaps if you notched the end that is being driven into the soil (kind of make it look like a hole saw) and spun it into the dirt like a drill (I've seen this done to drive PVC pipe into the ground for water wells). An auger would be preferable though.
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*I got tube and pipe backwards. Tube is OD, Pipe is ID.
 
DBill64 said:
The ID of 1" PVC vs 1" EMT should be the same.
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If that was true there would not be separate wire fill tables in Annex C for those two raceway types.
The ID of 1" EMT is 1.049" and 1" schedule 80 PVC as an ID of 0.975"

The measuring method for electrical raceways keeps the ODs for all of the types of raceways pretty much the same for any given size.
 
don_resqcapt19 said:
If that was true there would not be separate wire fill tables in Annex C for those two raceway types.
The ID of 1" EMT is 1.049" and 1" schedule 80 PVC as an ID of 0.975"

The measuring method for electrical raceways keeps the ODs for all of the types of raceways pretty much the same for any given size.
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Aye, I got my tube vs. pipe confused. Since they are tubes their OD would be the thing that is the same across the two types (like you said), and since the PVC has a much greater wall thickness that means it would be taking up ID space instead of making the OD larger.
 
don_resqcapt19 said:
EMT is a tube, PVC conduit is a pipe. All of the raceways in the NEC have pretty much the same OD
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If its trade size is measured from its OD, then that would make it a tube, no? All tubing is measured off of its OD. (i.e. 1" schedule 80 PVC conduit is the same OD as 1" schedule 40 conduit even though they differ in wall thickness). As opposed to pipe, where a 1" pipe of one material may be wider OD than a 1" pipe of another, but their ID will be 1" regardless of difference in OD.
 
DBill64 said:
If its trade size is measured from its OD, then that would make it a tube, no? All tubing is measured off of its OD. (i.e. 1" schedule 80 PVC conduit is the same OD as 1" schedule 40 conduit even though they differ in wall thickness). As opposed to pipe, where a 1" pipe of one material may be wider OD than a 1" pipe of another, but their ID will be 1" regardless of difference in OD.
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Raceways do not follow the conventional rules of pipe vs tubing. Rigid conduit is the same as schedule 40 plumbing pipe in all of its dimensions. The actual ODs of both tubing and conduit are pretty much the same. We don't have different schedules of rigid metal conduit, but even with plumbing pipe, schedule 40 and schedule 80 have the same ODs. The only difference is the wall thickness, just like with PVC conduit...the OD remains the same but schedule 80 has a thicker wall than schedule 40.
The ID of both pipe and raceways is always larger than its trade size.
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Pipe Schedule Chart - USA Industries

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