Looked up and down the sub forums for where to put this……not sure this is the right place.
Anyway, I need to get some light into the garage, on a budget (well this is BLF). Right now, I have a BLF D80 stood on its tail pointing at the roof - it’s not ideal. I have no mains power, but I do have a couple of 18650 cells and a bunch of eneloop AA’s, so ideally I’m looking for a solution that uses either of those. Searching around there do seem to be cheap solar offerings, but I’m worried about the output I’d get.
My charger is a tiny Liitokala that has a USB output, so maybe that could be of use too… i dunno?
So I have a single garage that I’d like to illuminate enough that I can work on my bike in the winter and tinker with stuff. I’d like something that I can permanently affix to the wall and power through the above methods. Technically I own a soldering iron, but I’m not too hot with it (ba-dum!) so something ready made is the preferred option - any ideas?
I dont know how large your garage is but I was really impressed by the spread of light from this lamp when I saw it operating in a 12ft square concrete bunker , it runs on AA cells, may not be what you are looking for but worth a look...its on my shopping list, with billions of other light sources :)
Thanks, I’ll have a look at that. The garage is about 2.5m x 5m.
I’ve seen a few setups with LED strips mounted to roof trusses that look fantastic, but they’re 12v and tend to use old computer power supplies run from the mains. I’m guessing I can’t replicate that from batteries…… maybe a car battery, though they’re not cheap and then I’d need a way of charging it up….
What about a headlamp? I know it’s not permanently affix to the wall but that way you have enough light where it matters, in the area where you work. In my view you won’t have enough light from a fixed lamp to comfortably work on your bike even if it has 1k lumen. There will always be areas where your body is blocking the light from the part you are currently working on. The skilhunt H02 for example has a nice floody beam profile.
What’s 700 lumens? About what you’d get from a 60W incandescent light. Obviously the light distribution and colour would be different.
There are others on fleabay for half the price, but the Screwfix one is easier to return. Also some of the ebay ones are a bit vague about the details, which batteries they use and so on.
Just for the record, any recycling center will have piles of old PCs with power supplies that have a 12 volt rail. If not, 12 volt DC PSUs should be easily found online for very little, and there are many LED light strip kits that include a adapter as well.
But there’s no mains power in his garage. If there were he could use a fluorescent strip light, which you can often find thrown out but OK for a garage, and efficient and reliable. They produce a lot of shadowless background light. A small inspection light could do the rest.
So he’s stuck with some sort of rechargeable solution and he says he’s not a dab hand with a soldering iron. That pretty much leaves him with something off the shelf.
Are there rechargeable striplights? I think there are a lot of things like that for the caravan and boating crowds, but they run off 12V lead acid leisure batteries which are quite pricey and have problems.
I should get a commission for the way I’ve been pushing this critter, but for 8bux, you can’t possibly go wrong.
Ramps up/down when you press’n’hold the button. At dimmer settings, it should last forever on an 18650. And full-tilt is actually quite bright for a head-light.
And the wave on/off doodad is pretty convenient, too!
Non-headlights, maybe a regular flashlight with diffuser would work. Any efficient light will work, and will throw more light vs just shooting up at a dark ceiling.
If you want more light, get a piece of clean white poster-board, and shoot the light at that vs at the ceiling. The cleaner and more reflective, the better.
Grab an old car battery, pretty much anything holding over 12v, then a 5w or 10w solar panel. Connect panel direct to battery (no need for controller at 10w (on a car battery) Then get a cheap led strip or work light.
If you get the battery for free, whole thing should be under 15 pounds.
The Q8 is a BLF project that is nearing completion. It can run on 1, 2, 3, or 4 Li-ion 18650 batteries. No one can say for sure yet what its final performance ratings will be, but when fully loaded with 4 cells, I suspect that it will be able to bounce 1000 lumens off your ceiling for a minimum of 4 hours straight, and probably a lot longer.
Guys, thanks for all your suggestions - some interesting ideas.
On the face of it, a head torch could work, but it already feels as though I’m rummaging round in a cave using the D80. I could be wrong, but I think I’d be happier illuminating as much of the room as possible, to make it feel more inviting, rather than dingy. Perhaps I’ll end up with a combination of both some general illumination and a head torch when I need a bit more light.
When Mrs Nightshade decides on a kitchen I’ll have the old cabinets and a worktop to use as a bench
Peardrop, I keep coming back to images/ videos of those led strips creating fantastic garage or workshop light. Your post got me thinking, out of interest, if I either used this little project as an excuse to bring my soldering up to scratch or maybe even drafted in some help, does that open other options up?
I have a Hakko 936 soldering station clone, and I have done bits but only putting plugs on heavy gauge wire.
You want to light the garage on a budget and if you are messing about with developing a solution you are going to hit problems and costs rise as you go up blind alleys. Even things like getting or making battery boxes costs time and money.
I’d search for an off the shelf solution first. You could email companies that sell LED lighting which might have or know of something. If that turns up nothing, search to see if anyone else has done this and developed a similar project, ironing out the bugs.
I’ve had a quick look and what I found was for closet lighting, so OK to find a pair of shoes but not something to work by.
Then there were LED tape lights running off 12V which look impressive and I assume that’s what you were talking about. There were also USB LED strips, which I suppose could be run off USB power banks, although I’m guessing because I know little about USB power banks or LED strips.
It must be possible to make a 12V supply for these LED 12V strips using 18650s, but I haven’t really thought about it. My first idea would be to use four cells and a 7812 low drop out linear regulator but there are almost certainly better ways.
yes, i was gonna say what ANGLER just said… i was worried it might seem rude, but…
honestly, if i wanted light anywhere INDOORS, i would just run a piece of romex, wire up a light fixture or two, and wire up several PLUGS and be done with it.
if i had a garage out the back yard? I would bury a conduit rated for ground exposure, run to the garage, and be done with it. If I were “concerned” about the garage or anything power wise? I could shut the breaker off thereby shutting the garage down.
I’m probably not the only one here that could give advice on how to accomplish some simple mains 110 wiring, its really cost effective (budget, lol) when you can do it yourself.
To ME, this is the ultimate solution, and a long term one.
I’m assuming here that getting mains power to the garage, say via an extension lead, just isn’t a possibility.
I’ve seen a few places where the garages are off the main property and even across a road from the property, and have no mains power connection of their own.
My preference would be to run the extension cord if possible (I would pursue the buried option and actually wire the garage myself) but since you want to keep it battery powered:
My first though was my SkyRay King. I was lucky enough to get one of the older still-good clones, but you can get the light fairly cheaply through different sources now. Possibly a gently-driven seven-emitter model:
More emitters to get the lumen output up, but keep the drive level down to prevent overheating.
More emitters means floodier output, which would be desirable in this application.
Most of the cheap ones are junk with poor thermal path and Lattice Bright emitters, which can vary from decent to terrible.
I’m thinking that if the light is gently driven enough, but has decent enough emitters:
Fabricate a rounded diffuser to radiate the light around the area.
Hang it as high as possible from the ceiling pointed down (would be easy with the cut-outs in the SRK design).
Find a used laptop battery pack to salvage some surplus 18650s.
Since the SRK design uses parallel cells, it should be safe in this configuration.
At a reasonable drive current, you should be able to get several hours of use from 4x 18650s.
Depending on the construction of the garage, paint the ceiling/walls white if possible, as that would make a huge difference.
Or, staple foam insulation sheeting if you have exposed joists?
If you have exposed corrugated or other sheet metal, just spray paint the underside white.
