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When a friend of mine was reversing out of my driveway, he ran over one of my solar garden lights. It broke into a few pieces, but the small solar panel and battery compartment remained intact. I looked closely at the guts of the unit. The battery compartment houses two AA NiCd (which came with the unit) and is wired directly to the small solar panel. Pretty straight forward engineering. I don't have a working garden light anymore, but I do have a fully functional solar powered AA battery charger...not bad for $5. Just the two AA rechargeable batteries alone sell at Radio Shack for $10.
When I find that I have a couple of NiCD batteries that could use a little boost, I just leave them out in the sun for a few hours in my newly deformed bulbless garden light.
If you don't have any solar powered garden lights, I am sure that you have seen them for sale at a home, garden, or even a dollar store for about $20 for a pack of four. No need to break one. Keep it intact so that you can either use it for its original purpose OR as a battery charger. Or, if you had an incident similar to mine, at the very least, you can salvage the rechargeable battery.
I figure that this is a great item to bring on a camping trip to have extra lighting available as well as a battery charger for your gadgets.
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