Once the idea of 12v main power was settled on, it became immediately apparent that incandescent lamps were too inefficient and would provide very little runtime at night (think about a cars headlights). I made the same determination of halogen lamps, anything that gets that hot is throwing away power.

The idea of LED lights came to be the only viable solution. Then came the thought process of colour. There are many colours available, and several versions of "white". As an engineer I didn't want to be committed to a single colour so I decided on RGB LED strips. By modulating each individual channel, I can decide the colour I want whenever I want. The original idea was to use manufactured postcaps and modulate the gazebo lighting to match them. As time went on, and I researched LED postcaps, I came to the realization that buying postcaps with LED lighting that did NOT have a battery and solar panel on the top was limiting my choices. I then decided that I was willing to modify the postcaps we decided on and use smaller lengths of RGB strip to create my own lighting. The gives the added benefit that the postcaps can have their own individual colours separate of each other and the gazebo.