Hey guys,
I am looking for ideas here: I have a fairly large garden shed and today installed a powerstation (bluetti elite 100v2) and a solar panel. I would like to add lights, as all there was until now is a small window and the door. I would like to use the 12V output of the powerstation as the 230V inverter has a higher idle power consumption than the DC output. The most simple solution would be to just add some 12V LED strips to the ceiling, but they are not very efficient (at least from what I know) and I “only” have 10A at 12V available. Also it would be great to not use all 10A, as this would require rather thick wires. The shed is around 10m long and 4m wide I think.
Thanks for your help, I am open to any suggestions.
I think it’s possible to stack 5 LHP531/LHP73B in series and add a few dozens more of them in parallel for super high efficiency lightning, like a Dubai lamp does
Actually my old LED strips have efficiency close to incandescent bulbs, so I may replicate this, maybe with B35AM for higher CRI
These strips look great. I would need to step up 12V to 24V, which would come with some loss, but this might be a viable option. Are the claims of ~ 200lm/W correct? And is that for the whole strip, or only for the LEDs? How does that compare to a budget LED strip from amazon?
You might have thought of this already, but what is the colour of the inside of the shed? White or light colours will help a bit.
Even if you only use 5A of the 12V supply, that’s 60W- at a (guessing) system efficiency of 110lm/W, that’s 6600lm. How big is the shed and do you think this is enough lumens?
Depending what you’re planning on doing, how about ambient lighting and 12V task lighting so you only have to light up specific areas e.g workbench, very brightly.
The walls are bare, not painted or anything, the bottom is concrete. I dont really know how much light I would need, which makes this hard. Colour is not needed, this would strictly be for work and finding stuff. Its not really a place to hang out, as there is not really a comfortable place. Its also not heated or anything.
Yes, 6600lm sounds a lot, but I dont really know how to compare it. Currently I am thinking of using 3 to 4 “lighting thingies” with 3 LEDs in series and a constant current driver to maybe 1A, so ~9W per light. Cooling would be an issue to be solved, but that should be doable.
I have a garage that is close to the size you mention for your shed. I replaced the door opener a few months back. The new opener has a light that shines from all four sides. They claim it produces 2000 lumens. The LEDs are behind a sort of translucent diffuser. Not sure if the specifications is light outside the diffuser or at the LED. Anyway, it produces enough light to get around in the garage and find things. Not enough for doing any serious work. I think that 6600 lumens, if distributed well would give you plenty of light for use as a storage shed. If you are wanting to do things like wood working , machining, or electronics projects, You really would want to use task lighting to supplement.
A few years ago I posted here about lighting a two car garage on the cheap using seven 50cm (20") 12V DC bar lights and a 60W converter. Each bar has 36 SMD 5730 LEDs and are evenly spaced around the garage ceiling. Yes, they are very efficient and bright. I looked to see if I could still get them on eBay these days and they are available from China. A package of 5 will cost you around $14 with shipping, tariff included. 5pcs/lot 50CM U Aluminium shell DC 12V 36 SMD 5630 LED Hard Rigid LED Strip Bar | eBay The seven strips don’t come close to using 60W. Picture here bar light — Postimages
As an alternative that is even more efficient, you could buy a roll of COB strip lights and cut them to any length you wish. A 5 meter roll will cost you $!0 at several of the eBay sellers like this one COB LED Strip Light Flexible Tape Lights Home DIY Lighting Cold White 5m 12V 24V | eBay Watt for watt, these strip lights are brighter than the individual 5730 LEDs. It’s nice having the lights in holders but naked strips like the COBs work very well too. If I were to replace the LEDs in the existing holders in the garage, I would use the COB strips.
I’ve got a 12V off grid solar system with wiring run into the house to run lights etc.
One of the easiest options for lighting is to use MR16 LED bulbs that are designed for 12VAC transformers. They work fine on 12VDC and you can also use 12VDC dimmers that operate using PWM to control the brightness.
You can find various light fittings that use MR16 bulbs, or even convert GU10 light fittings to MR16 using GU10 to MR16 converters.
These look interesing as a finished solution, however at around 80lm/W they are not really efficient, are they?
I ordered a PCB yesterday that uses the same idea as @MineHack7488 proposed in the original post, just with a lot cheaper LEDs. (Osram GW JTLPS3). I will be using 3 in Series and 8 of those in parallel. The LEDs are, according to the datasheet at around 170lm/W. Since I will be driving them at only 125mA, the efficiency should be slightly above that, giving me hopefully still more than 120W if I include the driver (for which I still dont really have an idea).
They are 90CRI, so won’t be the most efficient example of a MR16 bulb. Don’t forget that efficiency figure is also for the entire product- LED and driver. You appear to be only looking at the LED specs for your other examples?
For an efficiency focused build, what else should I be looking at? I did chose 80 CRI LEDs and 4000k as a compromize, but I think anything above that is overkill here.
