Emergency Home Lighting using LEDs...

[Normark]

Hey Guys....

I've seen screw in light fixtures using a pile of LEDS for alternative lighting...

This sounds interesting...

Now how about this...

Could a bunch of LEDS be driven with a small motorcycle battery?

I've always wanted some type of emergency lighting for the house,,but haven't liked what I have seen..LEDS sound kind of cool...

How long would a mortorcycle battery last running say 20 LEDS ??

Also I've got a light fixture in my kitchen that is low voltage,,could it be converted ??

Dang,,I want to convert Everything now..

ttyle

Eric...

 

[Brock]

You sure can. I have a med base lamp that uses 12 LED's and pulls about 100mA. or .1A (about as bright as a 20w bulb). So if you have a motorcycle battery with say, 20A in it, it should about 200 hours. Although being lead acid I would not recommend running it below 1/2 charged. I have a number of LED and 12v compact fluorescent lights placed around our house, just in case. But then again I have 1000AH battery bank and 2 SW inverters and a backup genset also.

You can get SLA or Sealed Lead Acid batteries pretty large and I would recommend them over other batteries since they can't spill acid. You can commonly find them in UPS's for computers. If you do use a motorcycle battery make sure to keep it in some sort of plastic container just in case it leaks.

Another fun thing to do is take an old UPS (at least 500w) that runs on 12v and add a 12v marine battery to it. I did that at my parent's house them moved one of their house circuits over to it so they have a plug and some lights that work all the time. The UPS keeps the battery charged and it is fused at 5 amps.

 

[Spork]

they make deep cycle batteries just for your type of application. some of them last 5-15 years with everyday use. people use them a lot in solar power homes. i think you can get a cheapie for 100-200 dollars. i wouldnt really trust a motorcyle battery for emergeny home lighting. i kinda found my way over to cpf by looking for information on a reliable and efficient light source for emergency lighting in case there was ever a extended power outage. then i started reading about leds and didnt know they had them bright enough to actually be useful. another idea and probly much cheaper would be just to hang a long running led flashlight from your ceiling. I use compact floresents for my everyday home lighting. last time i checked they are still more efficient than led's (for home lighting anyway). in my opinion small flashlights is where led's really excel.

 

[KenBar]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Brock:

Another fun thing to do is take an old UPS (at least 500w) that runs on 12v and add a 12v marine battery to it. I did that at my parent's house them moved one of their house circuits over to it so they have a plug and some lights that work all the time. The UPS keeps the battery charged and it is fused at 5 amps.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

What a great idea!!!!!! I cannot believe I did not think of this before! Paradigm breaker to the max.

 

[MY]

I have a portable jump charger for my car. It is amazingly light (about 1 kilo) and says that it will stay charged for about a year. The secret is that it contains about 12 AA alkaline batteries that keep the primary cell topped off. It is a great idea and could be used for emergency lighting!