Blackout !!!

[CNC Dan]

So I'm going out to the mall to see the movie *******, and I have some time to kill. I go to the Lowes down the street to pick up a few things. A length of pipe, some chain. And while I'm there I better look and see what they have for flashlights. Not much, Just the usual cheap crap. But then I go by the lighting section and what do I see?!? A 12 inch battey powered Fluoresent light. They have a smaller one too but the 12 inch one takes 8 AA batterys. That's 12 volts. Just the thing to replace the weak dome light in my car. I start thinking of how I can add a power jack so it is powered by my cars lighting circut when its plugged in and will still work on the internal AAs when it's unpluged. Hmmm, better get some AA while I'm there. Oh look, 24 pk of Ray-o-vac maximum plus.

As soon as I get to my car I have opened the light and batteries. And the light is brighter than I thought. I can't wait for the sun to go down.

Then later at the theater I remember something I need to do, so I call my house to leave myself a message. The machine doesn't pick up !?! What the hell. I must have hit the off/on button last time I was playing a message. So I let it ring 10 times, and it should pick up so I can send the 'turn on' code. 11 rings, 12 rings, 13 rings.....WTF!

So I call my parents house.

ME: Is the power out or something?

MOM: Yah, since 1:00.

ME: Great, need anything at the mall?

MOM: now, we're all set.

ME: OK I'll see you later.

This light was just the thing for going to the barn and cleaning a stall.

Everyone else at the barn had the most pathetic lights I've ever seen. And I had this bright and very white light, allong with my ARC-LS, ARC-AAA, and four extra AAs. One pair of Alks, and one pair of NiMH that I just toped off with the help of my ray-O-vac one hour charger. I have a large (30AH) 12 volt SLA I keep on hand to power a small invertor and other 12 volt stuff as well as two 12 volt 6.5AH SLAs that I have added lighter plug sockets to.

Then after the barn I went to my parents to help them set up the generator. They were impresed with my new light too.

I was so sad at 8:00 pm when the power came back.

Tomorrow I'm going to Lowes to get another light, and then to Rat Shack to get a co-axal power socket.

 

[EMPOWERTORCH]

We are suffering high winds here and I have my torches on standby... freshly batteried and ready to go!
About 4 months ago we had an outage and took a BT2 cyan out with excellent results.
It certainly did a good job! Mine was the only light that would light up the whole width of the street! Everybody else I saw in the street was ill prepared with rapidly yellowing torch beams!

 

[geepondy]

There are various fluorescent battery powered lamps available. I wish there was a review where various ones are compared against each other. Myself I have a Coleman that takes six D batteries and has two lamps that can have either one or both be on. I wouldn't call it shockingly bright, but bright enough to get by with. I'll have to check out the one you have next time I'm at Lowe's. I wonder how long it will run per set of 8 AA batteries?

 

[CNC Dan]

Originally posted by geepondy:
There are various fluorescent battery powered lamps available. I wish there was a review where various ones are compared against each other. Myself I have a Coleman that takes six D batteries and has two lamps that can have either one or both be on. I wouldn't call it shockingly bright, but bright enough to get by with. I'll have to check out the one you have next time I'm at Lowe's. I wonder how long it will run per set of 8 AA batteries?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Me too. I should have noted the time I started using it and just left it on.
It draws 340mA from the 8 AAs though, so you could figure the runtime from that. What is the capacity of ALK AAs?

I just had a thought. I have 2000mAh NiMH AA cells so 2000 / 340 = 5.88 hours. I know ALKs have more capaicty than NiMH. I would need to have 10 1.2volt NiMH cells to equal the volts of 8 ALKs. Is there room for two more cells? I think so. Better check.

With the aid of my X-ray device ( legend LX pressed to the side) I can see that there is room for two more cells. But the spare room is on the other side of the inverter board. I can move the board without problems, but moving the battery contacts might present a problem. Will give it a try later. Need to stock up on some X-acto blades, epoxy and JB weld. If I damage the case too much it will get a small DC socket and live in my car as a new dome light.

FYI
GE page for this light
MFG: GE
PKG: blue with purpol band at top reads "12" closet light"

P/N? ge3412-73d
Price: <$11.00

 

[Stefan]

CNC Dan,
I found the following data sheets for Energizer cells. Regular Energizer alkaline (AA) have a capacity of 2850 mAh, the E2 (read e-squared) AAs have 3150 mAh, and Energizer Lithium AA have 2900 mAh. If you want something that is meant for emergencies (ie. extreme cold) I would recommend Lithium batteries. True, they may be most expensive, but when you are stuck in your car overnight, and your alkalines die from frost, you'd wish you had lithiums. They are ideal for cold environments.

 

[Sigman]

Stefan,
Do you have a link to point to those data sheets?
Thanks.

 

[Stefan]

Energizer data sheets.

 

[EMPOWERTORCH]

Anyone in England whose using his torchaholism to great effect in the power-outages caused by the storm...?
This is where CPFers can become true heroes!
If you're reading this on a portable battery powered computer, and you have torches to lend, check out with your neighbours and show them the benefit of LED torches!

 

[carbonsparky]

As for running this on NiMH's, give it a shot. Most battery powered devices are designed to take battery depletion into account. The NiMH may start at a lower voltage, but they will hold that voltage longer than the alks. You may not need the extra cells. With fresh alks, replace two of the batteries with a dummy and see if it still can function off of 9 volts. This will let you know if it is worth the investment of NiMH's or it needs to be modded.

 

[Lux Luthor]

Originally posted by EMPOWERTORCH:
We are suffering high winds here and I have my torches on standby... freshly batteried and ready to go!
About 4 months ago we had an outage and took a BT2 cyan out with excellent results.
It certainly did a good job! Mine was the only light that would light up the whole width of the street! Everybody else I saw in the street was ill prepared with rapidly yellowing torch beams!

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">It's on American news. My understanding is it's very severe, and 6 people have been killed.

It's a good thing you have those torches.

 

[CNC Dan]

Originally posted by Stefan:
CNC Dan,
I found the following data sheets for Energizer cells. Regular Energizer alkaline (AA) have a capacity of 2850 mAh, the E2 (read e-squared) AAs have 3150 mAh, and Energizer Lithium AA have 2900 mAh. If you want something that is meant for emergencies (ie. extreme cold) I would recommend Lithium batteries. True, they may be most expensive, but when you are stuck in your car overnight, and your alkalines die from frost, you'd wish you had lithiums. They are ideal for cold environments.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">OK so I'm gonna figure that rayOvac max plus is around 3000 mAh. At a draw of 350 mA that should give a run time of 8.5 hours. In my car it will be powered by the car's electrical system. I have a JEEP and the dome light is behind the front passengers. You are always in your own shadow. I'm going to put one on the top of the windshield frame.

For emergency use I would rig a holder for two 223s.

 

[CNC Dan]

Originally posted by carbonsparky:
As for running this on NiMH's, give it a shot. Most battery powered devices are designed to take battery depletion into account. The NiMH may start at a lower voltage, but they will hold that voltage longer than the alks. You may not need the extra cells. With fresh alks, replace two of the batteries with a dummy and see if it still can function off of 9 volts. This will let you know if it is worth the investment of NiMH's or it needs to be modded.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">That's a good idea. I wasn't conserned about not running or lack of brightness, but with reduced runtime. The NiMH I would use are 2000mAh cells and that would be 19.2 watt hours (2Ah X 1.2V X 8 cells) VS. 35 watt hours (3Ah X 1.5V X 8cells)

So I wanted to add two more cells to get 24 watt hours (2Ah X 1.2V X 10cells).

But with such long runtimes I think I will stick with ALKs.

 

[CNC Dan]

I went to Home Depot and found the same kind of lights but with a power jack built in!! They had the 12 volt 12" 8 watt ones and the 6 volt 6" 4 watt ones. I got two of the 12" ones. I can use the charger cord from my cordless spot light with my SLA batteries and I can wire in a cord to the dome light circut in my car. And these ones were about $2 cheaper!