The light saga

As you may recall, I got some solar powered patio lights for my balcony, and that the box did not come with instructions. Lo and behold three days of sitting in the sun lead to this view at night on the patio:

Yup. NOTHING. They did not turn on. Le sigh. So I brought one in and decided to try and get to the battery pack to see what was going on. When turned upside down, I could see four small screws that seemed to hold the lid on, so I busted out the screwdriver and popped those screws out.

It isn't lit up here, that's just the guide light on the screwdriver.

Pictured: World's Tiniest Screws. I should have put something in the photo for comparison but these things were like half a centimeter in size!

Once I got all those screws off, I was able to remove...a piece of metal. Yup, lid did not budge. I was lost! Googling the brand did me no good.

Eventually, by sheer luck, I realized the lids TWISTED off (this is where instructions would have come in handy!!). It was not entirely evident that this was the solution because once I figured it out, it still took forever to unscrew and it was not user friendly.

Once I had the lid popped off I found this:

AN ON/OFF SWITCH!! WHAT?!?! sigh...the importance of instructions once again...

So I switched that puppy on, stuck the lid back on and stuck it outside!

Yay! Let there be light! The light is definitely not strong (but I don't know if this was because it wasn't in the "on" position for the past three sunny days), but it is very pretty and adds a nice mood to the balcony.

Finally happy with the result, I went out the next night to enjoy them again and I found this.

*facepalm*

At this point I am lost. I was in Canadian Tire today and I opened another box of these lights and found instructions (so maybe mine were returned merchandise and the instructions weren't returned) and the instructions definitely indicate to leave them in the "ON" position at all times.

The lights DO work if I leave them in the off position and then turn them on when I want them. So I am conflicted on whether to live with them like that (it's not like I want them on all night since the light will shine to my bed), but they definitely are supposed to work better than this. I also don't know if I even can return them since the poles will NEVER come apart again considering the effort I took to put them together.

Has anyone ever had solar lights this these? Any suggestions??