My friend has built a summerhouse and is now talking of using an extension lead to provide power for a bit of decorative lighting.
I want to direct him down the path of 12V lighting as he has car batteries and chargers - and I guess he could add a solar charger.
I had a quick look to see what Icould find and nothing was obvious. Low volt LED setups came with AA batteries. Some camping type lamps were not what he would want either.
Any ideas?
LED tapes (see my other recent post) are available in 12 and 24V versions.
These are available in all manner of colour temperatures, brightnesses and even RGB(W) colour changing versions.
If he puts a solar panel on the roof (small one - you can get ones designed to trickle charge cars via the lighter socket) and keeps a deep discharge leisure battery topped up, it could work quite well.
The next port of call would be a caravan store who will have all types of 12V lighting.
Look for caravan and boat lighting, they tend to be 12 (or sometimes
24) volts.
Boat or caravan suppliers. I currently run my stables on 12 volt CFLs in standard domestic fittings (I have a couple of LED lights with PIR on gate and tack room door).
Ordinary LED lamps designed to be replacements in LV lighting systems would possibly fit the bill.
There are several supplies of 12V garden lighting eg
Owain
Wot e said.
12 Volt battery, wired direct to LED tape with a switch, and a fuse (inline auto fuse holder), if you want to be posh.Cheap Voltmeter to keep an eye on the voltage, and you can get away with using some random car battery rahte rthan a more expensive deep cycle.
You can get a cheap trickle solar panel -- but those generally work somewhat in summer but not at all in winter...
Thomas Prufer
snipped-for-privacy@gowanhill.com wrote in news:8750cd5c-09c2-4e18-881d- snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:
Mmm - but are that 12v AC?
Sorry, yes, the Techmar system appears to be 12V AC
Owain
Wouldn't it be easier to just lay on a proper mains supply to the summer house? That's not going to need replacing every so often like a car battery.
"Proper" would be costly - for what is essentially a fad! He works on cars so he has access to batteries and a charger. We are really talking of a few fairy lights and perhaps a bit of light inside if really needed to help find things in the dark.Fad / decorative rather than essential. Not worth the upheaval of getting a cable from the house and all the associated costs.
Pretty much what I have in a shed.
Self-adhesive LED strip with silicone rubber over the LEDs, wires soldered to it, and a wall switch (unrated for Dc, but hey). Runs off an old UPS battery,
12V/7,2Ah hooked up with two crocodile clips. Gets unclipped, taken in, and charged once it hits 12,3 Volts or so...LED strips are a vast improvement over cheap 12 Volt CFL lights with nasty inverters: same power consumption, much more light and the many SMD leds in the strip lead to a very even and shadow-free light distribution.
The LED strips are about a good as the expensive "quality" 12 Volt CFL system, on a lumen per watt basis -- but much simpler to install, and cheaper. Stick self-adhesive strip in place, unobtrusively run clear "speaker wire" to it, add croc clips and some switch, done.
Thomas Prufer
And the summer house is now too cold and dark to sit in.
A bit of decorative lighting to watch from the house might be nice:-)
Car batteries are fine if you keep them near to full charged. Discharge a lot and they don't survive long.
NT
Lugging a car battery to & from the house in order to re- charge it isn't really a fun job.
Needn't cost a fortune for a medium current supply. About a quid a metre for NYY-J cable. And a 13 amp socket out there is bound to find a use.
A decent battery is expensive. With a limited life when used for this sort of thing. Plus the hassle of charging it. Then the problem of finding suitable lights. Cheap fairy light are usually mains.
It can all work, our boat has solar panels (three 'full size' domestic ones) keeping the batteries charged and we can mostly run independently of shore power. However you do need to design it properly and use good solar panel controllers to maintain but not overcharge the batteries.
You ain't got much option on a boat. You have with a summerhouse - especially when using a mains extension lead was mentioned, so mains must be reasonably close.
Dinnae need the typical 75Ah up of a deep discharge Pb battery for a few LEDs.
12V lipo/lion battery pack and a modest solar panel should cover it, something like , first random from the bay
You have *lots* of options on a boat, very few boats have enough solar panel to keep them going without connecting to shore power occasionally. Nearly all (canal and river) boats live in marinas connected to shore power, very few have the amount of solar panel that we have.
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