Poor program, need to reset MCU daily for solar light to function properly

[notzippy]

Hi,

I have a solar powered light that is supposed to switch off after 4 hours,6 hours, or all night after turning on at night, but the unit only functions properly (using the 4,6hr timers) on the first night, every night after (the first) it turns on and stays on until morning (or the batteries run out). The circuit revolves around an unmarked 8pin IC (I assume it is a programmable IC) three of the pins are inputs to the switch, one detects if the solar panel is collecting power and the last drives a couple of transistors to turn the leds on.

What I would like to do is briefly interrupt power to the ic after the unit turns off the leds, this should simulate someone turning the switch off and on. So my thought is to power the ic using an inverted monostable multivibrator arrangement. Does anyone have a good example on how to do this with transistors ? I need the output to be normally high and dropped temporarily to a low (triggered by a high to low transition). Or would a better solution would be to replace the badly programmed ic with my own ? I am not sure what the cheaper solution would be.

The solar led's were $40 for each and currently all 9 they have operate with the same issue. The manufacturer claims he will fix the problem in the future but has not offered any solution to fix the current units.

Thanks
Nz

[notzippy]

99% sure the controller is a picaxe, if that is the case it will be a simple matter to program it properly.. Waiting for programming cord..

nz