Tag Archives: lighting

Light work

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About three years ago, I picked up some AGM batteries off Craigslist. My original intent was that I wanted to rewire a common house lamp to use 12v LED lighting. The idea being, naturally, that in a power outage I would have a ‘normal’-looking source of light, rather than the stark and brutal harsh lighting that we get from just standing a battery lantern on top of the refrigerator or something.

So, my initial forray was…meh. I wound up buying an adapter to let me use a bayonet-type socket in place of a normal screw-in bulb socket...basically following these directions. But, in that case, it turned out there was a much easier way to do things – simply buy an LED desk lamp and remove the ‘wall wart’ AC-to-DC inverter and simply run it straight off 12v. Which I did…and it worked awesomely.

And that’s fine. My own testing showed that off of a battery jump pack the lamp would run non-stop for over a week. But try lighting an entire room with a desk lamp…it’s not really up to the task. So, I had a cheapo ‘dorm quality’ lamp sitting in the corner that I decided to experiment on.

First thing was to cut off the existing plug, determine where + and – were (you have a 50/50 shot of getting it right on the first try), and attaching some method of connecting to the battery. Bare wires work, but if you can make things neater, why not?

Next step was the bulb. Here you can see the previous bulb, and the bayonet adapter, that I had used. It worked, yes…but it didn’t put out enough light to seem like the lamp was ‘normal’ in its output. The other bulb is a Made-in-China (just like Covid!) bulb ‘designed’ for low voltage 12v systems. A somewhat more elegant solution than a bayonet adaptor and odd-attachment bulbs. All this required is a) bulb and b) changing the plug on the wire.

So, hows it look? Not bad.

(Yes, I have Archer on DVD. Do you not?)

Lighting

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Last week I plugged in the 12v desk lamp into the rehabbed Goal 0 battery to see how long it would run. Well, today is about a week since then and the little battery meter says it’s down to approximately 40% charge.

So, seven days at 24 hour usage means I could run this thing for six hours every night for a month. Or eight hours a night for three weeks. Thats a not inconsiderable amount of time to have ‘normal’ lighting.

Sometimes it’s hard to wrap your head around something like an economic collapse, a gigantic earthquake, a global pandemic, etc, but pretty much everyone can relate to a blackout or loss of electricity because we’ve all experienced it before at some point in our lives.  A power failure is probably the ‘disaster’ that the majority of people can relate to. Not everyone thinks keeping a case of 5.56 and years worth of freeze drieds is a good idea, but pretty much everyone has a flashlight at home.

Anyway, as I mentioned in the previous post on the subject, I like keeping a couple battery-in-a-box type of items on hand so that I can just set up a light source and pretty much not have to worry about it. I’ve yet to experience the outage that lasts more than a day and at the moment I have the resources to not have to sit in the dark for an entire month.

Gotta say, man….Ii remember when LED lighting started to be a thing. I recall thinking that if it delivered the lighting they promised at the low-usage rates they calculated it would revolutionize emergency lighting and low-power lighting systems for remote locations. Apparently it lived up to the hype.

Goal 0 Extreme 350

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I have a couple ‘battery in a box’ setups around the house. I have an ancient (pre-Y2K) ConSci powerpack that has, rather unbelievably, held up for the last twenty years. And, as of late, I picked up a battery jumpbox that ran an LED desk lamp for a week. That told me that as far as emergency lighting needs go: a) anything other than LED’s is a remarkably foolish choice and b) assuming six hours of use per night, I can light the house up for a month with a lamp and a charged battery. So, the logical conclusion was to get a couple lamps,a couple batteries, and keep them charged. This I have done.

Now, the emergency lights I use are from Goal 0. I have fabbed up my own in the past, and I’ll probably do that again, but Goal 0 had some nice, simple, daisy chainable lights. Goal 0 also makes various battery packs. I was gifted a dead one last week, along with a Goal 0 panel to charge it. And thus begins our tale.

So I was generously given a Goal Zero Extreme 350…a discontinued batterybox type of product. It featured Anderson power pole connectors, charging regulator, charging input, fuses, and a battery meter. Really, you could put together the exact same thing for less than what Goal 0 charges but some of us are not terribly handy with tools and prefer an out-of-the-box turnkey solution.

Anyway, this thing had sat in storage and was deader than Hillary Clintons presidential chances. I let it sit on the supplied charger for a couple days and got no joy at all. Clearly the long period of non-use, and slow discharge (because the battery meter is on all the time), led to the sealed lead-acid battery becoming unrecoverable.

But..I liked the other features. Perhaps Goal 0 has a replacement for this battery? Nope. And the replacement batteries they do sell are $$$. So….off to the itnernet. Which is where I found this – directions on DIYing a replacement battery off Amazon. Since my basis was $0 in this, I didn’t mind dropping the coin for a new AGM battery to replace the dead SLA battery. So, ran off to Amazon and ordered up the suggested battery which was an exact dimensional fit, gives me the advantage of AGM, and was an extra 5 amp/hour. Followed the instructions and – voila – brought it back to life. I’ve got my desk lamp hooked up to it to see how long it’ll run on a full charge, and then to see how long it takes to charge it using the panel. I’e no doubt this thing willrun the lamp for at least three or four days…and probably longer. It’ll give me one more self-contained lighting unit to distribute where needed next time the power goes out. And the price was right.

Dreams and gear

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I cant recall all the details, but the dream was in some sort of new ice age scenario. Me and a group of people were trying to navigate these dark, narrow passageways under a building looking for supplies. Of course, no one had a flashlight. And then, in the dream, I remembered I had one in my pocket.

I really hate using trendy terms like ‘EDC’ but this little guy has been rolling around in my pocket for a couple years now and the more I carry it around the more I really like it. I’ve given away a handful to friends and every single one of them has commented on what a good light it is. I won’t bore you with details like lumens, weight, runtime, etc. You can look those up yourself. I’ll simply say that I have three of these sitting on the shelf as spares and there is always one in my pocket and one lanyarded to my Bag O’ Tricks…and I’m a tough customer on flashlights.

For about twenty-five bucks this thing does everything I need in a ‘non tactical’ flashlight. But its most important and most redeeming feature is that it is always there…so much a part of my everyday routing that even my subconscious knew that I’d have it with me in the dream.

I’ve mentioned these little Fenix E-series lights before, but I’ve found them to be an excellent light for toting around in a pocket every day and figured it was worth a bump.

Battery storage stuff

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So the general consensus, it seems, is that leaving non-lithium batteries in a device for any appreciable length of time is a recipe for trouble. As I mentioned earlier, on the devices that I do leave batteries in, I’m instituting a periodic inspection schedule to make sure things don’t spiral out of control.

But, really, the solution is to not have batteries in the device until such time as that device is needed. Makes sense, right? The problem is that anytime you have two items that need to be combined together to be effective, and you keep those two items separate from each other, you introduce a potential point of failure. The very easy example is keeping a loaded magazine separate from the gun.

So, to my way of thinking, the solution is to keep the batteries separate from the device to avoid damage, but near enough to the device as to be available for immediate use. So, with that in mind….

What we have here are, essentially, shotgun-shell holders for batteries. Here’s the link to the manufacturers information, and, of course, I just snagged ’em offa Amazon:

The shotgun shell analogy is pretty accurate. There are two tabs, such as youd fend at the end of a magazine tube, that hold the batteries in place. They’re quite secure. The more astute of you will notice that this thing doesn’t provide any environmental protection…that is true. But what it does do is give you a secure storage for batteries that can be lanyarded to your device of choice.

You could argue, I suppose, that you simply keep the lantern and the batteries in the same box in storage and that obviates the need for this sort of thing. True, but preparedness is about removing or mitigating as many potential problem points as possible. For me, having the batteries lanyarded to the device gives me the virtually the same benefit of the batteries being left in the deivce but without the attendant risk.

No doubt the poverty-preppers will say that the same effect could be achieved with a small plastic bottle scrounged from the kitchen garbage and a little duct tape. May be. But my career goals have hit the point where I can insulate myself from future risk without resorting to using garbage. When its oh-dark-thirty and the power goes out in a blizzard, I don’t mind having spent ten bucks for the security of having the batteries where I need them when I need them. :::shrug::: Your choice.

If you really wanna go full Burt Gummer, the guys over at County Comm have battery safes that will do the PERFECT job but be prepared to pay a bit more than what you might feel comfortable with. I actually use the County Comm ones to keep two lithium AA-batts in my Bag O’ Tricks.

Anyway, thats the direction I’ve decided to go in in regards to not keeping batteries in devices while still keeping the batteries close at hand. YMMV, but to me it seems a good solution.

Deal – Siege lantern $20 at Amazon

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If you’ve got Amazon Prime, theyve got the Siege lanterns for twenty bucks, inc. shipping. Maximum quantity of three. Excellent deal and an awesome price that lets you get folks a cool holiday gift. Deal ends at midnight. Link doesnt say $19.99, but when you click it and get to Amazon its priced at $19.99. Go!

Thanks to the person who told me about this deal in comments.
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ETA:
One is none, baby!

A siege of Sieges

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Hmmm. Was bopping around Amazon looking for holiday gifts and encountered that age-old problem that occurs when shopping for other people: the gift you’re looking at is so cool you decide you want it for yourself.

It happens, right?

So, the people I was going to send a buncha Siege lanterns to will have to get something else. In the meantime, I have several of them showing up Monday.

Actually, if youre stuck with what to get that survivalist-type person on your wish list, I strongly recommend these things. They’re handy, pretty affordable, and they do exactly what you need them to do. Three levels of brightness, a blinky strobe function, and a red’save your night vision’ mode. I really can’t say enough good things about them. Of course, when you come up with a cool product, there are imitators. Everready and Rayovac make some similar produccts but for a lousy $27 I see no reason to go with an imitator. I mean, if Rayovac made a weaponlight that was a knockoff of the Streamlight you’d have some doubts about that, right? Same thing.

I’d been meaning to pick up a few extra of these for a while now, but I just never got around to it. Now that winter is here, and we had, what, an earthquake two years ago and a couple power outages in the last year, it seemed a good time to move some money out of one budget category and into another.

I’ll head up to CostCo this weekend and stock up on D-batts to load these things up when they get here Monday.

Pick up three or four for the LMI on your gift-giving holiday list.

Nudge to pick up an E12

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I’ve given away a couple of the Fenix E12 flashlights and have recommended them to a few people who actually took me at face value and went and purchased one. To a man, every person who got one from me or bought one on my recommendation has been extremely pleased.

I was reminded just how freaking handy these things are the other day when the power was out. Since the E12 is so small, taking only one AA batt, it’s small enough to carry in your pocket without losing much pocket real estate. But disproportionately big performance.

I love SureFire for their stuff, and even Streamlight makes a couple things I like, but these things are the absolute shiznits. About $20-25 at most places, but absolutely worth it. I have several that I keep scattered about. Drop in a lithium AA, leave it in the console of the rig, and you will be extremely happy someday when it’s the middle of the night, the weather has turned to crap, and you need to exit your vehicle to investigate something. Lanyard one to the inside of you EDC bag. Or just carry it religiously in the pocket of your jeans like I do. But….handiest flashlight ever.

This is one of those items that when I recommend it to a friend I tell them “Look, this is an excellent piece of gear. Buy it and if you don’t agree I’ll buy it from you.” That, mi amigos y amigas, is a ringing endorsement.

More LED lighting experimenting

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So, if you recall, late last year I had a post up about picking up one of those handy-dandy battery jump-packs at CostCo. They’re a fairly simple, though not perfect, solution for people who are just not inclined, mechanically or motivationally, to whip up their own battery-in-a-box.

After that, I got the curious interest of wondering how long my converted DC LED desk lamp would run on the jump-pack before failing. (The short answer was at least a week 24/7, which, at 6 hours per evening comes out to a freakin’ month of light. Probably more…I quit the program after a week figuring I had enough info.)

It was, to me, a very useful experiment and showed the potential for some tremendous utility from those devices in case of emergency. But…it’s very localized lighting. Its a desk lamp, after all. Which means it’s ‘area of effect’ in terms of illumination isn’t very large. So…what if……….

Was up at CostCo and they have a 4′ LED shoplight that looks similar to the old-style fluorescent shop lights we’re all familiar with. Now, lets state right up front that these were not the really high output LED worklights that are avaialble…for $25 the box says you get about 4000 lumens. Ok, thats fine…what I’m after is the ability to light up a room in a manner that looks virtually identical to what it looks like when the power is on, and not like someone pulled the housing off a MagLight and set it up on a file cabinet in the corner.

Here’s the rub…its set up for AC current, which means that I have to plug it into the built-in inverter on the battery pack. Problem is, the LEDs are DC to begin with…. converting DC (battery) to AC(fixture) to DC (LEDs), as I understand it, isn’t as efficient as if it was just straight DC to begin with. Fortunately, the internet is not without a supply of posts and DIY from people who wanted to do exactly that…. so, I may dig out my snips and electrical tape and see what I can do. But, for now, I’m curious to see how long it’ll run off the battery pack.

I still have these guys sitting here and it would be interesting to put them together to form a self-contained emergency backup lighting system for the storage area where all the emergency gear is.

I have no illusion this thing will run as long as the desk lamp did, but that lamp ran over 168 hours…this thing, on the ther hand, ran for three. Three. I suspect that the actual runtime would be several orders of magnitude longer if it were DC-DC. So….some tinkering is in order.

Betalight

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I was visiting with someone at the gun show a few weeks back and, as sometimes often happens when you’re hanging out with like-minded individuals, the conversation turned to gear. As the person I was with was going thruogh their bag I noticed something…

“Is that a BetaLight?”
“Yeah, I got it….”, and I heard how this person came into it.
“Cool. I’ve always wanted one of those but they can be a little tough to get.”
“Here. You can have it.”
“!!!!!!”

Some people are just too generous to describe in a way that does them justice. I try to be as generous with other LMI, but it’s pretty hard to top giving someone a BetaLight. (Although, it can be done….rarely)

So what is a BetaLight? Well, the easiest way to describe it this: you know how those glow-y tritium dots on your pistol are about the size of a pinhead? Imagine if they were the size of a quarter. It provides enough light that, when its dark and your eyes have adjusted to the low light level, provides enough light for close-in tasks. And, since the thing is powered by physics and not batteries, it lasts quite a while.. (12.3 years half life, so it’ll be half as bright in about 12 years.)

Although readily available in the UK, they are a tough thing to get your hands on in the US.

Advantages? No moving parts, no batteries, no electronics, waterproof, shockproof, dustproof, everything-proof. Produces a useful amount of light for close-in tasks without being strong enough to draw attention to you.

Disadvantages? Small amount of light limits utility for anything other than close-in tasks. Cancer if you eat it.

So, naturally, I have to play with it. In a dark room, after your eyes have adjusted to the light, it generates enough dim light to see the walls of the room, and definitely provides enough light to read instructions, check a gun, examine switches, operate combinatin locks, etc.

It’s a cool piece of gear that I’ve always been fascinated by. I am very grateful to the person who gifted it to me, and I hope I can return the favor someday.