12v garage power..

[Fozzie]

A couple of these should do the trick

http://www.ledhut.co.uk/home-page-bests ... price.html

I would forget about the inverters Tango you would be surprised just how much power they consume themselves before offering any mains output.

 

Think this was aimed at me?

Inverter is 85% efficient and uses less than 10w. I measured with a multi-meter, it's only a small one

As it's still over 30 hours of run time between charges, it really doesn't bother me I could get a few more hours of it it. But I do hear what you're saying!

[Joeman]

had this arrive today...

Planning to connect it between my solar panel and leisure battery.. its got little red lights so its got to be cool

[Tango]

Oooohhhhhh......it's got LED's on it.......must be good......

[Fozzie]

had this arrive today...

Planning to connect it between my solar panel and leisure battery.. its got little red lights so its got to be cool

 

A charge controller, I built one of those for an old college project, come to think of it I wish I could fit a solar panel on my roof but I can't get access and I bet it would be stolen

Still...

http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130807201645/nickfanon/images/1/17/Not-bad-meme.jpg

[Fozzie]

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/Chris-Fozzie/GarageLights.jpg?t=1415603602

Had a first crack at this LED business.

And I've already redesigned it, but more on that later

So I have a 70ah battery, connected to a small 75w inverter with a constant run of 60w.

I have 8W of lighting in that picture, about 350 lumen of light from each. It lights the desk, and much of the garage although the camera was adjusting for the light so can't really show this!

I have a 18W light in the middle of the garage which is good.

Only problem is, after about 20 minutes the inverter goes to overload. It starts again and often then lasts another 20 minutes but I think the use of a modified sine wave with electronics that have small transformers to change 240v to 12v is causing the inverter to flip into overload. The ballast on fluorescents was actually blowing the inverter, even a 2000w inverter could be fried by a 18w light.

So I have slightly intermittent lighting. But I've developed a plan! Sat in the garage designing a new system in that funky spiderman book you see on the desk. I came up with a method to eliminate the inverter.

I have E27 bulb holders, so I've bought some E27 female to MR16 female converters to support 12V LED bulbs, and have 2 12v 4W LED's in the post. These will replace the cheap LED bulbs I have in there and eliminate the inverter.

I am then going to take away the 18w bulb and run a 12V 10W floodlight from the ceiling. The aim is to light the entire back half of the garage where I will be working with less losses and more lights.

Finally I'm going to get one of these...

http://www.lead-lighting.com/images/flood-light/portable-flood-light-10w-01.png

It comes with a plug for car 12V DC sockets, so I can either run a line off the big battery, or be cheeky and take advantage of 2 small 7ah AGM batteries. They are very small, and with a line running to a socket for the light, I imagine I could get 5 hours of extra juice out of the flood lamp on top of its battery of 4-5 hours. So 10 hours per recharge.

Best idea I've got, short of running a few switched spot lights off another battery.

[Mr Fro]

I'm confused Fozz. What's with the desire to run on 240V? Surely it's way easier to run 12V LED or whatnot like I did.

Also, I reckon your mega-light will create a load of shadow.

Here's mine with 6xLED GU10, 3 at each end:

http://i760.photobucket.com/albums/xx246/Mr_Fro/IMAG03321.jpg

http://i760.photobucket.com/albums/xx246/Mr_Fro/IMAG03341.jpg

[Fozzie]

GU10 LED you say?

All the GU10 LED's I find all have "220-240v input" stamped on them

The best bulbs I could find were all made for that range so I thought I'd just take the 15% loss and rock it with an inverter.

I am actually eliminating the inverter this week, converting the two seen in the picture to MR16 LED's.

The big one I have at the middle of the garage doesn't seem to trip the inverter but it was a whopping 1500 lumens.

My new system is taking on a design similar to yours...

Just one question, where do you get 12v GU10 LED's from? As I came up empty handed!

[Mr Fro]

GU10 LED you say?

 

GU10 I said, MR16 I meant (oops)!

I found all mine on Amazon - £5-10 a pop for the 4W+ wide angle types.

[Joeman]

GU10 LED you say?

 

GU10 I said, MR16 I meant (oops)!

I found all mine on Amazon - £5-10 a pop for the 4W+ wide angle types.

 

did you bother with holders, or just solder the wires to the terminals?

[Fozzie]

GU10 LED you say?

 

GU10 I said, MR16 I meant (oops)!

I found all mine on Amazon - £5-10 a pop for the 4W+ wide angle types.

 

Good stuff, we will have similar set ups!

I've tried fluorescents as I thought they'd be the best, but they blew the inverter!

Luckily no money lost as they were old lights from an old garage, so switching to LED's only cost like £20.

If the inverter didn't overload intermittently I would keep it that way, but I'm planning on running "sectioned" lighting, for efficiency.

Aim is the big 70ah battery can be used as a semi-permanent solution, with my use of the garage it should only need recharging once a month at most. If not 2.

My plan is to have a smaller, very portable battery powering a portable LED lamp. Or possibly powering some lights positioned at waist height. I found with the existing set up I get a lot of shadows whilst working on the bike and I have to use my head torch instead. Would rather have something moveable and gives a good blast.

[Mr Fro]

Joeman - I soldered some of the bulbs but some just wouldn't take so they got the trusty scotch block.

My "universal bulb holder" is about 6" of hose pipe (other pipe is available) with a slit cut in one end, in to which the bulb body is jammed. The other end is screwed to the joist. This allows a good range of movement by rotating it around the screw or wedging some pipe lagging or similar behind it.

Fozz - The as-yet unrealised part of the plan is to have a roaming light on the same circuit but independently switchable - probably with some sort of magnety clamp attached to a really long retractable cable coming from the centre of the middle joist. The longest USB cable I can find is 6' which isn't really long enough and the "proper" retractable lighting rigs are muchos deniros!

[Joeman]

Like the hose pipe idea.. I was wondering how to mount the bulbs without a holder.

Might take a trip to the 24hour tescos to pick up some bulbs later on tonight.

[Fozzie]

Just designed myself a new 12v system, hopefully I can implement it this weekend

One thing is fitting lights, there seems to be no such thing as an MR16 lamp holder. It seems determined for me to hang them up via their cables rather than be actually mounted!

[Pete]

Chuck us up a wiring diagram lads so I can copy!

[Joeman]

Loads of MR16 lamp connectors on eBay..

But if the lifespan is to believed, you'll never need to replace them so could just solder them in.

[Fozzie]

Loads of MR16 lamp connectors on eBay..

But if the lifespan is to believed, you'll never need to replace them so could just solder them in.

 

I've found the connectors, and got 5 in the post, but my issue is angling them to make the most out of the beam angle, I can't seem to find empty fittings anywhere, I'd actually like a light that can rotate on one axis, like this:

http://i01.i.aliimg.com/photo/v2/349098387/Underwater_Light_led_lamp_underwater_led.jpg

 

Chuck us up a wiring diagram lads so I can copy!

 

If you want a dead simple method, mount a simple system on a piece of ply wood like a mini fuse box on your wall, get a small connector block, and some 1.5mm 16 AWG cable (most places rate this size able to handle 17A-21A, it's always best to use a cable too big for the job in terms of loss reduction and future expansion of a system). And using some inline switches have a play. I can put up a basic system if you want? It assumes all the bulbs you are using are fitted with resistors, so it's more like a block cable diagram.

[Pete]

Thoughts on this (crude diagram) lighting setup? Can add resistor after the fuse if needed I guess. Would it be necessary to ground the system or not?

http://i976.photobucket.com/albums/ae248/peteblakemore/Lightingsetup.png

[Stu]

fuse wants to be before the switch

[Fozzie]

I scribbled this up in 2 or 3 minutes as I'm at work but it should work

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/Chris-Fozzie/IMG_8473.jpg?t=1416212233

Using a 70ah battery from halfords, a leisure battery usually used for caravans.

Inline fuse is usually near the positive lead so if you have a problem it will blow.

It connects to a 30a connector block, then using small lengths of cable I jumper one terminal to another 2 terminals, and same for the negative bunch. This is the easiest method. Make sure you use insulation tape or heat shrink.

The cables run to inline switches, each controlling a lighting rig of your choice, but I strongly suggest MR16 LED's or 1 metre of LED strips are the best (5050 SMD's are best for power consumption and light given off).

This assumes you buy proper LED bulbs, or ready to go LED strips. If you buy big LED's straight from rapid you need a resistive circuit putting in there with it, and potentially a small 9v driver as a lot of 12v LED's only use 9v. If you want to go down the el-cheapo route then I can produce proper diagrams with all the maths but I'd rather not if you can spend a few quid more and buy a bulb with it already fitted

[Pete]

Interesting idea having switches for each light rather than the whole lot. Would save in power for sure.

Nobody has mentioned earthing the system - would it even be necessary? If so, how?!

I was in B&Q today, they've got some decent switches with fuses built in (albeit 13A so would have to change for 5A), under £7 with a back mounting box with them too. Think I'll go for one of those or maybe a shower room pull switch as earlier mentioned.

[Joeman]

Nope, no need to earth the system just as your Bike is not permanently wired to earth

[Pete]

Nope, no need to earth the system just as your Bike is not permanently wired to earth

 

You mean you don't drag your feet on the floor to earth the bike?!

[Fozzie]

Regarding earthing, on such a small system at 12v, the negative terminal of the battery is the ground.

Earthing is all about equalising the system to the surrounding area in terms of it's electrical potential. When you get a high electrical potential in the sky, it causes lightning and earths itself... Giving a system an earth means it is always equal and can't discharge unexpectedly in a path IT determines rather than you!

A 2 wire 12V system, there's no worry.

If it gets more complex, put a ground in line with the negative line.

I run switches to control the load I have, I try to get 20 hours from the battery across 5 or 6 uses. But I try to keep the load so that it would last to 25 hours or so.

I also have a smaller sacrificial battery, a 26ah AGM battery, was only £25 and on offer so I nabbed it. I can carry it easily so I be running 2-3 amps off it for 6-8 hours at a time.