Lamps

A few posts back I mentioned that I had picked up a small battery jump-pack for charging my cellphone in a power outage. (I am amazed how many people are so short-sighted that they assume that because the cell towers may not be operating a functioning cell phone is useless.) The battery pack I picked up has a socket for 12v. ‘cigarette lighter’-plug devices.

A while back, as a project, I modified a desk lamp to run off a 12v power supply. I recommended such a setup to someone who recently had an extended power outage. I got curious about just how long that desk lamp would run, non-stop, before the battery pack lost its charge. Unfortunately, I’m having a heck of a time finding what capacity the battery in this thing actually is. Simple math then lets us calculate the length of time the thing will run. But I like empirical data…so I’ve hooked the thing up, parked it in the corner of the room, and am going to run it until the battery shuts itself off. Thus far, it’s been running since Tuesday night. It’s little battery meter is showing two out of three bars.

The batteries I picked up earlier this summer would equal about 76 amp/hours. Divide that into the draw of the lamp and, I think, that means I could run the thing for 114 hours (almost two weeks of 8-hour later night reading)  and draw the batteries down to 50%.

More interesting is that I could also daisy-chain those lovely Goal 0 lights to this thing and get a few days out of them as well.

While I do have a generator packed away for this sort of thing, I really don’t want to run it just for some area lighting. An arrangement like this battery/light combo seems to be a very neat way to get the lighting need taken care of without having to crank up the Honda.

I’ve ordered up some parts on Amazon to modify another lamp. When they get here I’ll document the process and those of you interested can follow along.

Edited to ad: I just realized that I’m leaving a lamp running to see how long it will run on the small supply of fuel/power. During Hanukah. Well, ’tis the season I suppose. Pretty confident it won’t last eight days though. Oy!

8 thoughts on “Lamps

  1. Go down to Harbor Freight and pick up one of the bigger solar charger kits for super cheap and you will not have to start the gen set. One or two of these kits put in emp storage and your golden.

  2. Get one of thesed things http://www.westmountainradio.com/product_info.php?products_id=cba4, hook it to a PC, and run it. It will safely discharge the battery and tell you the capacity.

    But looking at the picture, and guessing it’s a dozen or so pounds, very likely the battery is a 12 V, 12 AH sealed lead acid cell: https://www.batterymart.com/p-12v-12ah-sealed-lead-acid-battery.html. I have an old Rat Shack unit that looks a lot like yours, and after 12 years the battery failed (actually split a seam). I replaced it with one of the above and it’s working great. I test once or twice yearly with my CBA II and use them until they fail, or the AH are down to 60% or so of original.

  3. I use LED lanterns (The Coleman model that takes 3 D cells) and they last me for a summers frequent use on the patio, including leaving them on all night numerous times. I also use them for our occasional power outages.

    One thing stands out. During power outages, Mine is the only house in sight with decent lighting at night… and yes, the neighbors do come over and ask what’s up.

  4. Picked up a harbor freight jump starter that has 12v and usb ports for even more multipurpose ability. The weak link is the cord,always have the cord!

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