There’s a better way to light your home in Sons of the Forest. As of the latest patch, players can now install Solar Panels and wire up LED lightbulbs for a much more convenient light source inside your cabin. You can wire multiple lights onto roof beams, bathing your domicile in the warm glow of modern conveniences. Finding these new useful items can be tricky, and installing them can be trickier, so we’ll explain how this all works with the step-by-step instructions below.
More Sons of the Forest guides:
How To Escape The Island | Ending Guide | How To Get The Shovel & Unlock Hidden Underground Locations | How To Unlock The Mysterious Door | How To Find A 3D Printer | How To Get The Pistol | How To Get The Machete | Where To Find The Best Weapon | All Keycard Locations | Silencer Location | How To Make Bone Armor & Farm Bones | Flashlight Locations | How To Catch Animals | Can Opener Location | How To Stay Warm | Winter Jacket Location | How To Use Multiplayer Cheats | Knight V Unicycle Locations | Night Vision Goggles Location
How To Use Solar Panels & Lightbulbs | New Items Guide
Solar Panels are a new method for generating electricity in your base. As of Patch 4 Solar Panels are used to power Lightbulbs — and that’s it. To light bulbs, you’ll need three items; a Solar Panel, Lightbulbs, and Wire.
- How To Find Solar Panels, Lightbulbs & Wire: All three items can be found in plastic military crates or containers. These are the large (often red) containers found at military sites or inside bunkers. They are totally random, so keep searching every abandoned campsite or former military outpost.
Once you find all three resources, you’ll need to put them together. A rooftop is required to give yourself working lightbulbs. The easiest way to make sure you have a workable structure is by building one of the preset structures — the Small Log Cabin is ideal for this.
- How To Power Lightbulbs: Place a Solar Panel on the rooftop of your structure. The rooftop must be a Roof — made of half logs so the Solar Panel can lay flat. Solar Panels are found in the upper-right corner of the inventory.
- After placing the Solar Panel, you’ll need to run Wire from the panel to a Beam. Beams are full-sized wooden logs that form the main frame of your structure. When holding Wire in your hand, a white guideline will appear if you can place the wire. Place it on a beam connected to the roof. Wire is found on the lower-center spot of your inventory, near the tape and watches.
- With the orange wire in place, we can now place a Lightbulb. Select one, then place it on the orange wire. If the wire is connected to a Solar Panel, you’ll be able to turn on the light and illuminate dark interiors. Lightbulbs are next to the ammo and batteries in your inventory.
Right now, there are some limitations to electricity. They can only be hung from wooden beams with wires. The only source of power is Solar Panels, but this provides infinite energy for our simple lightbulb setup. You can turn the bulb off or on, but it is really only apparent at night.
Solar Panels and lightbulbs make your outpost feel even better at night — and we’re sure there will be many more ways to use electricity in the future.
