I'm looking for something to run a basic fluorescent (plug in, compact swirl) lamp during longer power outages--Saturday was the second time in a few months that we've been out for hours.

The lamp is 20 watts (probably during power outage I'll cut that to a ten watt bulb). Anybody have any ideas on reasonably good, inexpensive systems?

I'm also thinking of a basic inverter--during extended outages, I can tap Myrtle's batteries (four 12 volt, 20 Ah) separately to provide power.

MorpheusPA wrote:I'm looking for something to run a basic fluorescent (plug in, compact swirl) lamp during longer power outages--Saturday was the second time in a few months that we've been out for hours.

The lamp is 20 watts (probably during power outage I'll cut that to a ten watt bulb). Anybody have any ideas on reasonably good, inexpensive systems?

I'm also thinking of a basic inverter--during extended outages, I can tap Myrtle's batteries (four 12 volt, 20 Ah) separately to provide power.

Any of the APC ones will work, although you'll have the beeping. A generator is the way to go. Even a small Honda will keep your heat and refrigerator/freezer going (although a standby hardwired is the ultimate in peace of mind).

Morph you need to work out some math. One problem in your statement is using a 20 AH battery. Using a 20 watt light bulb the battery will only last 6 hours to 50% DOD before you start to damage the battery. About 10 hours until completely destroyed.

Second using an inverter to run a light is a bit of waste of good money and extremely inefficient along with very short run times with the battery limitations.

If all you want is to run a few low wattage CFL lights just buy 12 volt DC CFL's and eliminate the expensive inverter all together. In addition buy yourself 2 Trojan T-105 batteries and a 20 amp battery charger.

With that setup you just leave the batteries connected to the charger so they will be ready to go whenever. Using a 15 watt CFL on those batteries will give you 90 hours of usable light, and 180 hours till you destroy the batteries.

It is all about watt hours and how many you use.

Myrtle's batteries are deep-cycle, so no problems there.

Looking at it, and given the budgetary limitations (tiny) and restrictions on what I can have outside (considerable), I'm thinking simple emergency lanterns are good enough. Heat we have--the gas fireplace works fine in power outages. The stove is gas, so cooking's no problem. Outages are generally four to eight hours, so that's not awful either, just annoying.

MorpheusPA wrote:Myrtle's batteries are deep-cycle, so no problems there.

Do not kid yourself Morph, all deep cycle means is you can use up to 50% of the rated capacity. Beyond that damage occurs and it is permanent. If not immediately recharge even after light use damage occurs. A 12 volt 20 AH battery only has 12 volts x 20 amp hour = 240 watt hours. At 50% depth of Discharge gives you only 120 usable watt hours/ With a 20 watt light bulb only gives you 120 wh / 20 w = 6 hours.

A good quality APC inverter with roughly a the same sized 12 volt 20 AH battery will cost you around $300 to $500 depending on the battery option. It still only gives you about that same 6 hours on a 20 watt light bulb. Well even less because the inverter losses in efficiency of converting DC to AS of about 80%

Two Trojan T-105's, and a 20 amp battery charger will cost you around $300 to $350. The Trojans will give you 12 volts @ 225AH or 67 hours on a 20 watt 12 volt CFL.

Its a No-Brainer comparison

why don't u look into LED lamps. i know it's not the same but its prtty close. but i bought an LED flashlight that has a rated 156 hrs of battery life from 3 D batteries.

xxryu139xx wrote:why don't u look into LED lamps. i know it's not the same but its prtty close. but i bought an LED flashlight that has a rated 156 hrs of battery life from 3 D batteries.

+1. Before Irene my wife bought a bunch of these really cool LED lamps that you would take camping. They have stands, etc. They could run for days. I told my wife we didn't need them because we have a 20kW cummins generator, but she felt better with them. The irony was that virtually of LI was without power, but we never lost it.

If you do every by a generator you are practically guaranteed to not lose power for 2-3 years. If you buy a new snowblower then it won't snow the following season.

texasweed wrote:

MorpheusPA wrote:Myrtle's batteries are deep-cycle, so no problems there.

Do not kid yourself Morph, all deep cycle means is you can use up to 50% of the rated capacity. Beyond that damage occurs and it is permanent. If not immediately recharge even after light use damage occurs. A 12 volt 20 AH battery only has 12 volts x 20 amp hour = 240 watt hours. At 50% depth of Discharge gives you only 120 usable watt hours/ With a 20 watt light bulb only gives you 120 wh / 20 w = 6 hours.

Actually, Myrtle's batteries are rated for 80% deep cycle over 300 charges; they're 24 volt (2 cells) so double the time per battery if I do some rewiring to put them in parallel instead of series; four times if I jumper between batteries and use both. While immediate recharge wouldn't be in the cards during an outage, they'd get recharged the instant the power comes back on.

I find that the rating is actually rather conservative. One of her batteries is on its third year and my storage is no great shakes.

+1. Before Irene my wife bought a bunch of these really cool LED lamps that you would take camping. They have stands, etc. They could run for days. I told my wife we didn't need them because we have a 20kW cummins generator, but she felt better with them. The irony was that virtually of LI was without power, but we never lost it.

That's the way I'm leaning. With not needing heat (got it), clocks (got 'em, including alarm clocks that don't require power), or cooking power (got it), computers or television (survivable without), or radio (got it), and plenty of batteries of all types and description, the only remaining shortage was light to read by. I made do with ten candles and a rather lonely oil lamp, but it was still a bit dim for me.

We're not talking about long-term outages, just twice a year or so for periods of up to eight hours. Rarely twelve. And twice a year is a rarity.

There are plenty of LED lanterns out there that can be charged and left plugged in, with very long run-times. I think Black and Decker even makes a small emergency station with built-in radio, lamp, and a tiny inverter capable of delivering 25 watts output for a short period (enough, and more than enough, for recharging a cell phone, although I have an old fashioned princess phone in the bedroom for just this kind of thing).

jglongisland wrote:If you do every by a generator you are practically guaranteed to not lose power for 2-3 years. If you buy a new snowblower then it won't snow the following season.

Lol, we bought a snowblower the morning of the noreaster thinking we weren't really gonna get to use it. we assumed only 2-4 inches that would have melted off by the next day... next day.. it was crunching through frozen snow..

jglongisland wrote:
If you do every by a generator you are practically guaranteed to not lose power for 2-3 years.

I stopped tornado season in Arkansas this year using the generator purchase method.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

xxryu139xx wrote:

jglongisland wrote:If you do every by a generator you are practically guaranteed to not lose power for 2-3 years. If you buy a new snowblower then it won't snow the following season.

Lol, we bought a snowblower the morning of the noreaster thinking we weren't really gonna get to use it. we assumed only 2-4 inches that would have melted off by the next day... next day.. it was crunching through frozen snow..

That's always the way. You either don't need the item or you need it very, very badly indeed!

That's done.

Three lanterns, one Rayovac 300 lumen LED that runs for 72 hours on high using 3 D batteries. One rechargeable Coleman fluorescent 6 hour high light. One Cree XLamp based lantern that runs 24 hours on high using 3 AA batteries. I have rechargeables of AA and D, but of course light time will probably be shorter on rechargeable batteries.

All have a lower light level if the high isn't necessary.

I did pick up an inexpensive inverter at the same time, 400 watts, which could be used to recharge the Coleman lantern or the batteries off the car battery (with the car on if necessary), or tap Myrtle's batteries if the Zombie Apocalypse should happen to hit.

I'm reasonably sure everybody here knows enough that this warning is unnecessary, but I had a coworker once who lived in an area that was subject to frequent loss of electricity. He told me that almost every year there would be a story in the local paper about somebody who bought a generator and set it up inside. The first time it was needed, it kicked in automatically during the night and everybody in the house died of CO2 poisoning.

Hi Morph - Here's an informative site on inverters and appliance power needs. Not sure where it was referenced, but I remember reading in here that certain flourescents do not play nice with inverters.

Click here for more information

- One of my first posts

gotcrabgrass wrote:Not sure where it was referenced, but I remember reading in here that certain flourescents do not play nice with inverters.

That has to be put into context because it is only half true. There are two types of inverters:

Modified Sine Wave which are the inexpensive ones most people buy. They are low quality and basically use a square wave to approximate a sinusoidal wave form. They generate significant harmonics and RFI. They can be used for some things like resistive loads. However they do not work well with motors and non linear loads. Fluorescent lights are non linear loads and have high power factors. If you use a MSW inverter you will likely here a buzzing sound in the ballast and the lamp will be short lived. However they work very well with plain ole incandescent light bulbs because they are pure resistive loads.

True Sine Wave inverters are what the pros, commercial, and industrial users use. They are expensive and provide just as clean and stable power as the POCO supplies. In fact it can be cleaner and more stable. You can run anything on them within the power and pf limit of .8

Thanks! I'm actually planning on using the inverter to power an LED bulb (which is nothing more than resistors and LEDs), so that's not an issue for me. I tested the new inverter I got with my main LED lamp and it works very well. It may shorten the life of the bulb, but that's of no extreme consequence when it may be used 6 hours a year.

Plus I can reverse the inverter in case of extended outages (which we've never had) and charge the battery off the car while I'm using the second battery. Additional backup is some battery-powered lanterns, which can be recharged off the car again if necessary or simply use alkalines.

Thank you for the clarification, texasweed!

MorpheusPA wrote:Thanks! I'm actually planning on using the inverter to power an LED bulb (which is nothing more than resistors and LEDs), so that's not an issue for me. I tested the new inverter I got with my main LED lamp and it works very well. It may shorten the life of the bulb, but that's of no extreme consequence when it may be used 6 hours a year.

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on the type of ballast/driver the LED is using. If using an electronic switch mode ballast then it will burn up rather quickly. If using a passive device like resistors and a diode no effect.

You have also touched on something I have tried to explain about LED efficiency and the number games manufactures play with efficiency ratings. Many, or I should say most when stating Lumens/watt are only stating what the LED uses and not including driver/ballast power is using. The resistors you mentioned are huge power users which uses more power than the LED consumes A typical 1 watt LED uses 3.5 volts @ 285 ma = 1 watt. When driven by a 12 volt battery, the resistor has to drop the voltage down from 12 volts to 3.5 volts. Well to do that they stick in a 32 ohm resistor to supply the LED with 3.5 volts and 285 MA. So the LED light uses 12 volts x 285 ma = 3.42 watts. So when they state the LED efficiency is 100 Lumens per watt is true, but at the same time is false because when you add in the driver power the true efficiency is 29 Lumens/Watt which is not much better than a standard incandescent light bulb and not near as good as a basic cheap Communist made CFL.