Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.

Project time…

One of the things Ive been wanting for a while is a dedicated lighting system for when the power goes out. Ideally, it is to be utterly and completely ‘normal’ looking. I’ve got a cabinet-type nightstand that would house a battery, charger and, if necessary, an inverter, quite nicely. What I was thinking of doing was picking up a 12v trouble light and swapping it out with the innards of a normal table lamp. Then I’d simply run the wires to the battery inside the nightstand and , ideally, run it off of the battery. Now, the problem is, I’m very fuzzy on battery/electronics. As I understand it, since I’d be charging this battery indoors I would want a sealed UPS-type battery so that no hazardous fumes/gases would be given off during the charging process? Is this correct? The other question is can I leave the battery hooked up to a charging device constantly so that it charges to the proper voltage and then maintains it? Ive seen several chargers that charge batteries and then ‘float’ them, keeping them topped off as necessary. This seems to be what Id be looking for..something I could plug into the wall and know the battery is always at its peak…and then when the power goes out I can operate the light off of this completely charged battery.

Or would doing such shorten battery life or short the battery itself?