Thought I would share a little emergency LED Lighting project I’m working on.
No pictures yet, but I’ll get around to it this weekend if I can figure out how to embed pix in wiki text.
Basically here is the project:
Standard automotive light bulb fixture, 1156 parking light socket LED replacement 1156 bulb from Ebay/ choice of colors. White/Red(preserves night vision), or Amber Misc wire 12 volt switch Connectors to my rig-runner power splitter
The idea is to take some cheap over-the-counter parts from an automotive parts store, combine it with the LED 1156 replacement bulb off of e-bay and come out on the other end with a cheap and BRIGHT 12 volt light source that won’t kill your battery in short order.
So far I’ve been VERY happy with the results.
I’m currently working on a double-throw switch, so I can switch from white light to RED light for night ops.
I’ll outline sources in the followup post, and if I can figure out how to link pictures, I’ll make it graphical.
BirdGuano – at 14:24
Are the bulbs available anywhere besides Ebay?
Sources and pictures:
1156 automotive lighting socket: about $2.50 each
http://autolumination.com/1156_1157.htm
near the bottom
1156 LED replacement bulb: <$10 each
I got mine off of e-bay, but here is a link that shows the diffrent types of bulbs available:
http://autolumination.com/1156_1157.htm
Some of the arrays without sockets are my next project. A SHEET of light for room illumination.
You can google LED automotive bulb replacement and find a lot of sources.
There are 3 plants in China that make all of them.
And I have to tell you…
These things put out a LOT of light for the amperage penalty at 12 volts.
You can illuminate an entire room with a good working light for less than 1/2 an amp of power, and about 3 of the 1156 LED bulbs wired in parallel.
I started this project for my communications room, so I could use the existing 12 volt tap and battery bank for lighting.
I can go for weeks with light, without having to worry about the battery bank.
www.dotlight.de and http://www.led1.de/shop/
I dont have anything more to do with this companys exept that I have been happy to buy bulk of LEDs from them. Germans are very progressive on new tech /energy savings :)
The ordinary bulb sockets ledlamps of differnet kinds are easy to build with, but.. They use more energy than actualy needed (but not much..). The best is to make the arrays your self. Easy calkulator to decide the resistor values: http://led.linear1.org/1led.wiz
Great idea to get efficient lighting into the hands of the general community. If you could find a good easy to use source for the lamps, then it would be a really valuable Wikie page to post the whole thing, plus a wiring sketch.
Let me know if you need some help.
Yep, I’m not that into do-it-yourself LED projects to build the actual lamps one-by-one.
No time for that, when the Chinese sources make them so cheap.
I’ll gather my thoughts into a coherent form and do some photos and wiring diagrams with parts sources.
Probably next week as my time is booked for the rest of this week.
It’s actually a pretty easy project, and you could even do it without any soldering if necessary.
I’m currently working on different mounting methods for task lighting arrays.
I also need to confirm the power draw under use.
A 12VDC input CFL will put out far more light per W than LEDs The light output of LEDs are directional and CFLs are basically not. This is important if you want to light a whole room. On an equal lighting basis it would take far more LEDs and power to equal the light output of a CFL. I have two 12VDC CFLs sitting on my desk that I was planning on testing tomorrow. I’ll post the data if anybody is interested.
BirdGuano
Your plan sounds good.
Do you have any ideas on where to get a small 12 volt battery charger I could use for my car battery? I think I have seen these for RV’s etc.
I have been thinking that would be a good way to keep the car battery charged up.
You could buy a cuople of car batteriess and with a solar panel you could have lots of lights an night??
You want deep cycle batteries not car batteries if you plan on a strong discharge cycle. Otherwise you kill the battery in short order.
Are you talking about the 110vac to 12vdc chargers ??
They make charge/maintainers specifically for car batteries.
I’d google car battery maintainer for some hits.
Re: LED vs CFL
I’m using the led’s for ambient lighting and task lighting for my communications gear.
The CFL’s suck too much power for my limited needs.
They also destroy night vision.
You would be surprised at the light output of some of the new LED arrays, vs the power consumed.
YMMV
I went with LED arrays for my needs after careful consideration.
Pfwag – at 19:18 --- I agree with you about whole-room lighting, as I’ve replaced nearly all my incandescants with CFLs. But on the other hand, if one is trying to keep light to a minimum so outsiders don’t see it through drapes/windows, this might be the way to go. Small, bright directional lighting. And LEDs do use less power than CFLs… ;-)
And, yes sir…I’d like to know what you find out about the 12v CFLs…battery drain, amount of light for an average room, etc.
I have current drain stats for 12volt CFL’s from manufacturer data sheets.
I just need to get more information on lumen output, etc. before I publish anything
The LED arrays are running about 6:1 on power savings over CFL’s at 12 volts.
Not sure how to do a fair lumen comparison, as they are used for two very different types of light.
You can’t directly compare lumens of LEDs and CFLs thus you also can not directly compare power consumption. One is directional and the other is omni-directional.
If you want or can use focused light LEDs are the way to go. If you need to illuminate a large area CFLs will do it better and use less power than a bunch of LEDs trying to do the same thing. I’ve got a bunch of references on my work computer that I’ll post tomorrow (which is actually today).
I wonder if folks over at http://www.worldchanging.org (and allies) will look into this project and report about it - comments might bring help!
This would also let us link the “ecotech community” and the “fluwikie community” to the advantage of both.
So someone please contact them!
Someone who is not BirdGuano might want to follow this thread and act as a “learner-teacher”, perhaps helping edit the wikipage, or trying to create a http://www.instructables.com set of pictures. There are a few ways to help!
BirdGuano, maybe it’s just me, but using red light to read by at night is nearly impossible. It gives me a headache and printed words are really hard to see. Amber light doesn’t have this effect. So try both colors and see which works best for you, since either will preserve your night vision.
BTW, if they’re available, you might try green light for nighttime applications. I believe that green is really easier on the eyes even than amber, and somewhat brighter.
If you are going to compare different light sources, please remember to use the appropriate units and keep the units consistent across all comparisons:
candela = luminous intensity (approximately the same as “candle power”)
luminance = candela/square meter
lumen = flux of light, calculated as candela x angle of radiance (in solid radians)
lux = lumens/square meter
Unfortunately I have to do job related work today and can’t test the 12VDC CFL bulbs but here’s some info from my lighting file. I tiny-URLed some of the bigger links but I apoligize in advance for all the others.
LIGHTING Efficacy and efficiency A light can waste power by emitting too much light outside of the visible spectrum. Only visible light is useful for illumination, and some wavelengths are perceived as brighter than others. Taking this into account, luminous efficacy is a ratio of the useful power emitted to the total power and is measured in lumens per watt (lm/W). The maximum efficacy possible is 683 lm/W. Luminous efficiency is luminous efficacy divided by this maximum and so is expressed as a number between 0 and 1 or as a percentage[1]. However, the term luminous efficiency is often used for both quantities.
Another, related measure, the overall luminous efficiency, instead divides by the total power input. This takes into account more ways that energy might be wasted and so is never greater than luminous efficiency.
Category Type Efficiency lm/W Reference candle 0.04% 0.3 Incandescent
40 W tungsten incandescent 1.9% 12.6 60 W tungsten incandescent 2.1% 14.5 100 W tungsten incandescent 2.6% 17.5 glass halogen 2.3% 16 quartz halogen 3.5% 24 tungsten-halogen 2.6%−3.6% 18–25 high-temperature incandescent 5.14% 35
Fluorescent
13 W twin-tube fluorescent 8.2% 56.3 compact fluorescent 6.6%−8.8% 45–60
Light-emitting diode
white LED (low power) 2.2%−6.2% 15–42 white LED (high power 3.8%−8.8% 26–60 white LED (prototypes) 8.8%−14.7% 60–100
Arc lamp
xenon arc lamp 4.4%−22% 30–150 mercury-xenon arc lamp 7.3%−8% 50–55
Ideal radiators
black-body radiator at 4000 K 7% 47.5 black-body radiator at 7000 K 14% 957 ideal white light source 36% 242.5 monochromatic 556 nm source 100% 680 6
Thus a typical 100 watt bulb for 120 volt systems, with a rated light output of 1750 lumens, has an efficacy of 17.5 lumens per watt, compared to an “ideal” of 242.5 lumens per watt for one type of white light. Unfortunately, tungsten filaments radiate mostly infrared radiation while remaining a solid. Donald L. Klipstein explains it this way: “An ideal thermal radiator produces visible light most efficiently at temperatures around 6300 degrees Celsius (6600 kelvins or 11,500 degrees Fahrenheit). Even at this high temperature, a lot of the radiation is either infrared or ultraviolet, and the theoretical luminous efficiency is 95 lumens per watt.” No known material can be used as filament at this ideal temperature; this is hotter than the sun’s surface.
LINKS
Don Klipstein’s Lighting Info Site! http://members.misty.com/don/index.html
http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_lighting.html
http://www.efficientlighting.net/
NLPIP – Lighting Research Center http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/nlpip/index.asp
Luminance Converter http://www.onlineconversion.com/illuminance.htm
National Lighting Product Information – Screwbase CFL Products http://tinyurl.com/k8rjh
Compact Fluorescent Light Bulb Investment Analysis Worksheet http://www.homepower.com/files/kerrcflbulbs.xls
LEDs & LED Lights http://www.enluxled.com/ http://www.lumiled.com/led-lamps.htm http://members.misty.com/don/led.html http://lighting.sandia.gov/Xlightingnewsarchive.htm http://members.misty.com/don/ledx.html http://ledmuseum.home.att.net/ (the definitive source for LED info)
Full Spectrum Lights http://www.lightforhealth.com/ http://www.fullspectrumsolutions.com/ http://www.soluxtli.com/ http://www.aerolights.com/energysaving.asp
Dimming Fluorescent http://www.lutron.com/ballast/whylutron.asp http://tinyurl.com/pcuss
12VDC Fluorescent lights and LED lights http://www.backwoodssolar.com/Catalogpages2/lights2.htm
12V ballasts http://tinyurl.com/qc4cz
12VDC Fluorescent lights http://www.thinlite.com/products.htm
Flashlights http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/ http://tinyurl.com/hdual http://tinyurl.com/zvwbv http://ledmuseum.home.att.net/ledleft.htm http://www.elektrolumens.com/ (VERY BRIGHT flashlights!) http://www.equippedtosurvive.com/led_lights.htm http://www.flashlightmuseum.com/ http://www.flashlightreviews.com/index1.html http://www.shake-flashlights.com/
Lanterns http://tinyurl.com/e67q6
Bulbs http://freespace.virgin.net/tom.baldwin/bulbguide.html http://www.coffj.com/veg1/lamp.htm http://www.pti-nj.com/obb_lamps.html
Look, I don’t want to turn this into a religious war of CFL vs LED.
I just thought it was an interesting project for ME and my specific application.
I have NO desire in a disaster to have room filling light for several reasons.
What I did was cheap and met my needs for the requirement.
This is turning into “engineers gone wild” which was NOT my intention when I posted the information.
Forget the whole thing.
Carry on.
Sorry if this has been posted already. I am at lunch so I do not have alot of time:
http://www.superbrightleds.com/carbulb-notes.htm
This company makes led replacement bulbs for cars
See also this page:
On a personal note, I have not been here much lately. I have my day time job and I am now working at walmart part time (70 hour work weeks) Its all good. I get a 10 percent discount on non food items. Lots of prepping in my future
They are all made at the same 3 factories in China.
Only the distribution channel is different.
Bird Guano – at 15:58
LEDs are an excellent low-power source of high-quality light. Please continue with your experiments and let us know what you find. My comments were directed at those who were making unscientific comments about lumens and power consumption. They were in no way meant to disparage your work or discourage your efforts.
Closed to maintain Forum speed.