List Price: $42.00
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I bought this Solar Mason Jar after buying a Suck UK Sun Jar from Fab.com. This was half the price and had the color changing option. The hinge used on this jar is sub-par compared to the Suck UK jar. The hinge cause the top lid to chip after opening it 2 times. If you still buy this product would suggest you leave it closed and use a higher capacity battery so that the jar will stay lit from sundown through most of the night.
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I ordered one of these for myself and loved it so much I ordered one for each of my adult children. It charges quickly and will run for hours and has an "off" switch so you can store energy instead of having it run out. There are two lighting options, I prefer the changing colors but one my kids prefers the soft yellow glow. Great indoors or out all it needs is a few hours of sunlight. In stores these lights are much more expensive. Would highly recommend!!Best Deals for Solar Mason Jar with Yellow Glow and Color Change Option
I bought the original SuckUK brand Sun and Moon jars several years ago. For the money, these are a much better value, but they do have some pros and cons compared to the SuckUK versions.
As another reviewer stated, the hinge on the SuckUK version feels higher quality, but honestly, the LampLust version isn't terrible and it hasn't presented any problems for me. The frosting on the jar is very nice and even. Unlike do-it-yourself versions of Sun Jars which typically involved gutting a solar garden/pathway light and putting it into a mason jar that you've sprayed with frosted spray paint, the glow comes from a much larger and more diffused source inside the mason jar thanks to the internal light diffuser that covers the two LEDs. The mason jar itself is also a lot nicer than the standard jars you'd find in multi-packs at your local store. This jar is larger, more squared-off, and has no markings/molding in the glass except some ridges that go in a circle on the underside.
This jar has two separate LEDs inside of it, which are selectable via a switch under the lid. One LED emits only a yellow glow, while the other LED cycles through a rainbow of colors that switch approximately every 3 seconds. The really nice thing about the rainbow cycle is that each color eases into the next color; it's not a sudden change, but a morphing as the colors cross-fade over the course of about 1/2 second. Very smooth and soothing to look at.
What I would really like is to either be able to freeze the jar during its color rotation on a particular color, or to have a few more non-cycling selectable colors. I've seen a SuckUK jar that had both Sun (yellow) and Moon (blue) selectable in a single jar. And I'm pretty sure I once stumbled across another brand that also added Dusk (purple/pinkish) into the same jar along with the other two colors. However, given that my original SuckUK jars I purchased several years prior only had a single color in them, this LampLust version is still the better deal than those.
On the downside, this light only has a 600mah NiCad AA battery installed in it, and that doesn't provide a lot of run time. I haven't timed it out yet, but if we put the jar on the color cycle option and let our kids use it as a night light, it's dead by the time we go to bed about three hours later. I don't recall what my SuckUK jars came with, but 600mah is a pretty low capacity. The battery is easy enough to change out if you'd like to put in a NiCad battery with more capacity. Just be aware that you'll have to let it charge up a lot longer in the sun to fully charge the battery. While you could also replace the battery with a NiMH cell, using a NiCad batery is your best bet for continued proper performance. The reason is that the solar charger provides a very slow charge which may not be able to full charge your battery during the day depending on your upgraded battery's capacity. Once you turn on the light at night, unless you turn it off on your own, the battery will be run down COMPLETELY after a few hours. NiCad batteries are better suited to that sort of deep discharging cycle than NiMH are.
To change out the battery, follow these steps:
1) Open the lid
2) Remove the rubber seal that has the LED diffuser on the bottom and the solar cell on the top (all attached as a single piece that you can pull out). If it makes it easier to hold, you can remove the diffuser over the LEDs by pulling it slightly to one side and then the other to pop its retaining tabs out from under the little rubber holders keeping it in place
3) Hold the entire piece with your hands on each side
4)Put your thumbs along the bottom edge of the rubber "cup," next to the LED diffuser
5) With a couple of fingers along each side of the top rim, gently pull the rim in opposite directions, pushing in very slightly with your thumbs along the bottom. This will expose the edges of the solor-cell unit from within the rubber groove that holds it in place
6) Stick one of your fingertips under the edge of the solar cell rim and gently work the cell out of its groove. Be VERY GENTLE HERE! The wires that connect the solar cell and battery the LEDs housed in the bottom of the rubber cup are just soldered to the LED anode and cathode with nothing supporting the wiring itself. Unless you just yank the solar cell part out, they should be perfectly fine as they're soldered on very well, but still keep thinking to yourself, "Gently!" in the best "Westley" from Princess Bride voice you can manage.
Once you have the solar cell free of the rubber cup, simply pull the AA battery out of its holder on the bottom side, replace it with your better battery, and then do the whole thing in reverse to put it back together. Once you have it apart and are looking at it, it's easy, so don't sweat my verbose details too much. You can do it!
I've heard with pretty much all sun jars using these rubber seals that the rubber can break down over time and let the elements in if you leave your jar outside. For that reason, I've never kept them outside overnight if I knew it was going to rain, so I can't comment on whether or not the seals do their job to keep water out.
All in all, I'm giving these 4 out of 5 stars. The price on this item fluctuates greatly. At the time I wrote this review, you could get a SuckUK jar for about the same price. When these are available for under twenty dollars, I'd probably rate them 4-1/2 stars. The other 1/2 star I docked was for the low capacity battery that comes from the factory.
If they made a "pause" switch that let you freeze on any color you liked during the rainbow cycle, I'd go ahead and bump this up to 5 out of 5 stars maybe LampLust will read this and give it a whirl, because that's a feature that would really set this apart from the other Sun Jars available!
Honest reviews on Solar Mason Jar with Yellow Glow and Color Change Option
Bought two for a Christmas present and now will need to buy a couple for myself.They sit in the kitchen window, collecting rays all day, and then let off a soft glow.
They look nice as well frosted glass mason jar style top and seal.
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I wish I had the money to buy 100s of them,I love them!!!!I live off the grid and these little lanterns are useful and fun.
