Chat & Social > The Bar - General Chat
12 volt lighting
Llanigraham:
I know it's a Canal based forum, but have a look here:
http://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php?act=idx
There have been some threads about panels etc here.
Evilgoat:
Am looking at a proposal to change the daytime lights in our flats to solar. Landlord is already putting a grey water supply in so hes well of for it.
The panel arent cheap and they do have a finite life. But if you go with strip lighting and low voltage tungsten where you can get away with it you should be laughing. Its also possible to convert full sive 240V tubes to 12V.
Biggest thing is going to be weeks like this one has been, grey and nasty, You'd be well advised to have the ability to switch over to mains or top the charge up from mains. Surplus switch-mode should be fairly easy to come by.
If your system can provide the power then why not switch all the things powered by wall-wart style power supplies too? I have circuits to replace these with 12V switching regulators.
muddyzook:
Intresting thread :!:
A few years ago I rented a house that had pay as you go meters, and they where knackered they kept tripping out and the landlord whould do nothing about it so I got around this by fitting a 2nd hand computer UPS I picked up from work to one of the circuits in the house (don't ask to much about the legalities of this now days) result was when the power was OK it charged the batteries and when it tripped everything plugged into that circuit remained powered whilst I went a kicked the meter.
The UPS has 12volt battery's and an inverter inside it, so if you could find someway of charging the batterys not via the mains, you should be able to run it continualy. and then if your external 12 volt source failed, you could go back to the internal circuits without any major hassle by plugging the UPS back in, thus removing the need to change any cable going to 12 volt.
Try EBAY for a UPS the batterys inside these things are the small alarm style ones, but can't see why you could not upgrade them to caravan batterys with a bit of research.
Evilgoat:
12V to 240V is a really inefficient way of doing it. Lot of power lost as heat in the invertor stage and mechanical noise (yes Im serious). In a UPS you just fit a bigger battery but in a domestic situation you are worried about every last watt.
Also this setup IS illegal :)
muddyzook:
Had a feeling it was going to be illegal, but remember it's only illegal if you get caught :D only joking.
What are the rules on doing something along these line for say a garage or shed ? that has no connection to the grid at the moment, if it is a simple as changing the batterys for bigger one's to make them last longer then this could get around my shed power problem. Getting hold of a big UPS should not be a problem as we are having all of ours changed at work.
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