Battery Christmas Lights
Most of the Christmas lights have to be plugged into the wall to get power. But if you could with batteries could put them anywhere an outlet is not available – like a bicycle.
The type of electricity it receives from the wall is called AC, and the kind you get from the batteries called DC. You have three options for the operation of the Christmas lights outside DC (battery):
Buy a whole and for DC wiring.
* Use equipment called inverter that converts DC to AC.
* ReWire your Christmas lights to escape DC.
Whatever option you choose, it is important to use the LEDs Christmas, as electricity use 90-98% less than standard lights, so their batteries last longer. Much longer, like 16 times. Instead 15 minutes with incandescent bulbs, you can get four hours with LED's. I just ran a test with a large VGN-FZ140N battery and only got two hours in a chapter of 20 light bulb, old school, and a whopping 31 hours with a line of 20 LED bulb. Dude / Dudette, using LED's.
When I first wrote this page a few years ago, LED Christmas lights were rare, and certainly had not connected to run on batteries, so I was sharing two secrets: one, you want LED for battery and life, and two, how they adapted to run on batteries. But now you can buy a solution off the shelf, without having to wire anything, as it appears in the yellow box on the left: lights, the VGN-FZ150E battery and charger. The only extra that was added some connectors on the ends of the cables to allow me to easily "plug" battery of the lights or the shipper. This is a 2200 mAh battery and I get 31 hours of run time (!) With this combination.
Thus three commercially available products are the easiest solution. There are others, however. Here are all the options:
Buy a set and wiring DC. This is by far the easiest option. You can get through Inirgee (which will give you a lifetime warranty), or Backwoods Solar, which has a line 18-bulb uses 1 / 2 watt, and a line of 36-watt light bulb uses. If you know of another online source DC LED Christmas lights will be happy to include it here too. I did once see a small incandescent (NO-LED) set at a Lowe's home store improvement of $ 1.97, but I estimate the two batteries Type C is required only last about 75 minutes while the lights are standard (incandescent). You really have to go with LED's if you want a significant amount of battery life. Buy a set of AC cord and use an inverter to power batteries. An inverter changes DC current into AC. Connect a battery 12V to the inverter, and then just plug your Christmas lights in the standard power outlet on the inverter. It's like a mini power plant.
When I wrote for first time this page and off the shelf ", pre-wired 12V LED Christmas lights did not exist. Now that there are not many reasons to go with an inverter. The main reason would be if you already have an AC inverter or Christmas lights, so you only need the other room to get up and running. ReWire an alternative to the battery configuration. It is very easy to take a set of AC cord and rewire battery-operated. I'll show you how to do further down the page, with nice pretty pictures.
No matter which method you use, you will want to know what kind of batteries to use and how long it will last. So let's cover that.
How long run you will get from your batteries
Calculation of electrical use is easy. The formula is very simple:
Volts x amps = watts
In general, we will abbreviate. (For example, 2.5V = 2.5 V, 25 W = 25 watts).
Do not even know what volts, amps or watts are, as always you know the formula.
When using a watt of electricity for an hour, that's a watt-hour, or WH. A power amplifier for an hour is one amp-hour, or Ah. Batteries store such a small amount of electricity are normally valued at milliampere-hour instead of ampere-hour (mAh). 1800mAh is the same as 1.8Ah.
A typical bulb strand 50 – (NO-LED) Christmas lights uses 25 watts. So each bulb uses about half a watt. (Remember that we will use it later.) Now we have to see how much electricity is stored in a battery.
A typical AA rechargeable battery VGN-FZ160E (NiMH) makes 1.2V and is rated at 2200 mAh. Remember that V x A = W, we see that one battery has a capacity of 1.2 V x = 2.64Wh 2.2Ah. But the lights use 25 watts. Therefore, it would take ten cells to power the lights for one hour. Ouch.
You have four options to get more runtime out of the batteries:
Use LED Christmas lights instead, such as Inirgee. LEDs use 80-90% less electricity than regular lights. So the batteries will last about 16 times more. Use fewer bulbs. Who says you have to use 50 lights? Use only the 25 and then your batteries last twice as long. Use lights, and even less more battery time. Use more batteries. The best batteries you use, the total power you have. Use higher-capacity batteries. NiMH D-cells store up to 11,000 mAh. You can also use a small lead-acid battery or a rechargeable battery pack used for video cameras or toy cars by remote control.
My solution is to use LED lights. In this way do not have to limit the number of lights, or the use of purchase and recharge a gazillion. I have 31 hours runtime with the installation program listed in the yellow box at the top of this page. LED's offer other advantages: it does not burn (not about ten years, anyway), and are resistant – do not break easily as regular weak Christmas lights. Most light bulbs are sold permanently Inirgee can not be mounted fall out of their sockets, and carry a lifetime warranty.
Now that we know we have to use LED's, few lights, or food plots battery, we will choose an energy source for our lights.
Choosing batteries
You can use regular household batteries (AA / AAA, etc), or you can buy a battery pack, as set out in the top of this page. The advantage of a large battery is that there is only one thing to charge. A single 12V pack takes the place of ten individual household batteries. It is much easier to load a pack of ten separate batteries.
On the other hand, if your lightset batteries required only 2 or 4, then it is cheaper to use only the batteries to buy a large package. Each rechargeable battery (AA, AAA, etc) 1.2V out. If you need to 6.0V, then that's five batteries (5 x 1.2 V = 6.0 V). Non-rechargeable batteries put more voltage (1.5 V), but I do not recommend because it is a waste of using disposable batteries. It is certainly possible, but if you choose to then you're on your own. The numbers that follow assume you are using rechargeable batteries. To connect the batteries in your lightset, has only one battery holder from Radio Shack, which costs about $ 1 or something. If you need an odd number of batteries, such as 5, then get a 4 – PA3641U-1BRS Battery holder and a battery holder-1 and tie the wires together. Connect the colors opposite each other (red + black).
Rewiring Christmas lights for battery
This is where you can play the mad scientist. Many devices runoff only AC or DC, but the lights are not very demanding and drain well. The trick is just to rewire the chapter for the bulbs get the proper voltage. Remember, you really really really should use LED lights or batteries only will not last long. However, we will use standard (non-LED) bulbs in our example below, because they are the most common.
A power supply on 120V, so if there are 50 lights on the beach, each bulb is 2.4V. The bulbs actually want to 2.5V, so 2.4V supply only makes only a little dimmer, but not much, and the low voltage which makes them last longer anyway. In our example below, we offer our line with the battery 9.6V, which will power four light bulbs (4 x 2.5 V = 10V). Before you start screaming that four bulbs is not enough, do not worry, in a minute I'll show you how to connect multiple sets four together.
Most Christmas lights are 2.5V but some are different, and could be more or less. Usually, the voltage is printed on the lights box or a label on the beach. If they are LED lights, then every color has a different voltage, are usually white LED ~ 3.5V. If you can not find the voltage check with the manufacturer. Also, do not assume that if a line of 50-2.5V bulbs bulb has a 100-bulb light bulbs should be 1.25V, it is more likely to Chapter 100-bulb is only two 50-bulb strands interconnected.
Anyway, here's how four lights together 2.5V cables:
But what if you want more power than four lights measley? Easy, just create several sets of four lights and hook them together. You can have as many games four, as you are, but more lights, the faster the batteries will run out. Here is how to wire three sets of four bulbs together.
This is what it looks like real lights:
STEP 1: Do three sets of four bulbs each
I tied the relay to the lights would be more compact.
No nothing special between each bulb, only one continuous thread.
STEP 2: Connect all the "heads" together.
That is, make sure that the beginning each computer is connected by a cable. There was usually wrap the cord around the other cables, but I made the cable separately here so it is more easy to see how the wiring works.
STEP 3: Connect all the "glue" together.
That is, make sure the end of each series is connected by a cable. Normally the return wire is also wrapped around the other cables. I did it separately so it is easy to see how you're wired. Note the battery pack is actually eight batteries, although only four are visible (the other four are at the bottom is two batteries in depth).
This set was to last nearly two hours on a set of eight 1.2V 1800mAH NiMH AA batteries with a capacity each (the type Radio Shack sells). Remember that each lamp uses one average watt-hours per hour. So 6wH use 12 bulbs per hour. Our store batteries (8 batteries x 1,2 V x 1800mAh =) 17 280 MWh, or WH 17. So our 17 wH battery VGN-FZ180E willpower of this chapter 6-watts for about three hours.
So there you have three ways to get Christmas lights to battery!
About the Author
armyxi comes from laptop battery factory and vgp-bps12 battery export.
