connecting a socket to a recheargable battery?

[lovelylace]

hrrrm...this might sound a bit mad..but I am in the process of preparing and building up a field shelter/ stable for next year...and as this is quite far away from the mains I will have to depend on recheargable lights for light...now I have a floodlights on a tripod that i would like to use, but it ha a wall socket connector, anyone know if there is any way i can cconnect a socket to a battery?

[nutkin]

dont quote me on this as I am not 100 % sure but I think you can buy some form of transformer to do just that.Try looking on a builders suppliers type website.

[jill]

I think you will need lights which are of a lower voltage than mains which is 240v - most batteries only put out 12volts I think. Do you have a camping or caravanning shop nearby, they will know because they have stuff to run off batteries, they will have adaptors.

[lovelylace]

thanks guys, I am so useless with these things... ;D

[pollymania]

You can buy inverters which clip onto the battery via leads and crocodile clips, they have an ordinary plug socket on them so would take a normal plug. Different watts in size available depending on what you want to run.

[rifleman]

Lovelylace - first of all, check the wattage of the bulbs in the floodlights. They are commonly 500 watts each. If you want to run them off a battery, you'd need an inverter which can cope with a slightly higher wattage than that, as lamps draw a surge current when you first turn them on.

The downside is, as inverters are never 100% efficient, the battery will have to supply a higher wattage still. As watts = volts x amps, a 500 watt load on a nominal 12 volt battery will draw nearly 40 amps - not allowing for the losses in the inverter.

If your battery has a capacity of, say, 80 Amp hours, one 500 watt lamp will flatten it in between 1 and 2 hours. If you have 2 500W lamps, you'd be lucky to get three quarters of an hour from a battery that size.

Even if you get a 100 Amp hour leisure battery, it still won't give you much more - and how will you get the battery to a charger? If you were thinking of connecting the lights, through an inverter, to the battery in your car, then, to avoid flattening the battery, you'd need to leave the engine running all the time the lights were on.

Have you thought about the possibility of getting a small generator to power the lights? As a firm called Wolf advertised a 1000 watt generator in the paper the other day for about £80 - and that's cheaper than a 100 amp hour battery, let alone the cost of the inverter as well.

Hope this helps!

Jack

[(\^/) Lotuspoint Joe (\^/)]

I would go for a generator i use one most of the time to run the lights in wagon, tv, stable

[rifruffian]

Generator is a good idea, trouble is, everyone else thinks so too and they get stolen. You would have to house it or store it securely.

Not too clear what your proposed layout is but if you plan to drive up a track to this stable/shelter, you could wire it just like a caravan or interior of horsebox using 12 volt fitments, then plug into your vehicle when you arrive there. I've used this system for domestic accommodation in remote areas and it works fine.

[cobalmighty]

If you can build a secure box for the generator into your stable / barn design I'd go down that route too - rifruf is right, they 'walk' far too easily!!!


A battery : mains plug adapter is available in Maplin for emergencies - kind of thing designed for lorry drivers.

My horse box used to have small battery lights with LEDs instead of bulbs. Very bright, and low power drainage. They were cheap and came from either B&Q or Homebase (I forget which!). I put rechargeable batteries in and I only had to recharge about once a fortnight (I used the lorry for hay and feed storage, and the lights were probably on for at least half an hour every evening). But even better than that.... one of my school students (electronics whizz kid) has built me a simple circuit that runs 5 super bright LED lights in the roof of the truck, from a 12V car battery. The power drain is so low that the battery lasts for ages and I recharge it using a solar trickle charger.

[lovelylace]

aah great ideas guys...
the field is close to my house, but it is one field in between the one wher the field shelter/ stable is, but it is really secluded an no one knows the field is there sort of thing, I live on a private estate, so not alot of people I dont know, but can build a secure box for the generator...no probs...

also wont generatos make lots of noise and smell?

the flood lights are 500 watts each, would that 80 quuid generator power those?
thanks again ;D

[rifleman]

First, re. noise and smell; no, modern small generators are pretty quiet. On a generator this size, the engine is smaller than that of a moped, and they have pretty efficient silencers. If you were willing to pay more for it, you could get what they call a 'suitcase' generator, which makes less noise than a sewing machine - but they do come out a fair bit more expensive.

To be honest, if you're putting it in a small enclosure anyway, you could stick some of those polystyrene ceiling tiles on the inside of the enclosure, and that would really muffle it down. Only thing to arrange is for some vents to let air in, and exhaust gases out. The smell would be no worse than a very small lawnmower with a petrol engine - again, because the engine is so small, it won't make a lot of exhaust fumes anyway.

The one I saw (link below) isn't quite powerful enough for two 500W lamps - but you could change one of the bulbs to a 250W / 300W (they are the same size physically, and a straight swap), or alternatively, rig up some ordinary domestic lights to go with one of the floodlights. I've found in the past that having too powerful a lamp is a bit tough on the eyes, and a few lower powered bulbs instead ( e.g. 60 - 100W), placed in suitable locations, makes it much nicer to work in.

The genny has two 13A three pin sockets, plus a 12V outlet for charging a 12V battery; the tank holds 8 litres of fuel (mix of unleaded petrol and 2-stroke oil, like a Flymo), and will run for about 10 hours on a full tank. You can buy 2 stroke oil at most filling stations, motor factors like Halfords, and garden centres.

It costs £80 (inc. VAT), plus £10 delivery - as it's an online store, they don't have shops anywhere.

The link to the appropriate page is:-

www.wolf-online.co.uk/product.asp?id=002712

It might also be worth looking on e-bay; friends of mine have bought generators that way.

Hope this helps,

Jack

[Karon]

Thanks for that Jack, will keep that link as it might be useful for me, too

[pollymania]

You could also consider having a couple of leisure batteries and connecting up a solar panel to trickle charge them, I have that set up, go for the biggest solar panel you can afford, mine isnt really big enough for the winter when there is little sun but it still trickle charges the battery to prolong the time before I have to take it home to recharge it.
You can also get special low wattage light bulbs, now I can remember the figures but they take very little out of a battery compared to normal bulbs, also fluorescent tubes are about 65 watts and give a good light, better than the equivalent watt ordinary bulb.