Hello there!
At first, I’m happy to find such big forum with a helpful community!
I hope, I choose the right subcategory.
As the title says, my family preparing for the scenario in which we will have relatively scheduled (4/4 hours) power outages for several months in a row during winter and late fall/early spring.
I will continue to read this forum, Reddit etc but I will appreciate your opinions, recommendations and propositions for solutions.
I think we will have power for at least 8 hours per day in total or in the best case up to 12 hours. In the worst case, there can be total blackouts for days (till I hope not). Also, I’ll have power for 6-7 hours in a row in my workplace 5 days per week (except for blackouts).
Last winter we were using mostly candles, smartphones, AA-powered strings of lights, one AA-powered small lamp, one tiny AA powered cheap led flashlight and one LED Rechargeable E27 Light Bulb.
I like candles, but we burn them a lot and it’s not the best light source to walk around.
String lights were placed in the bathroom and kitchen for frequent short visits. They are ok but emit too dim light and you always must find a power switch first.
AA lamp was just junk IMO. But it’s a cheap chinese thing, so not a big surprise.
The flashlight was one of the most valuable things for me for the ability to move around quick, but regimes switch with just one button was very annoying. “Oh, you need a light? Here is a strobe!”
E27 LED light bulb was interesting, but it needs to be turned on all the time to charge even during the night (which annoys us) and it can’t hold the charge long enough in between outages. But we liked the ability to light the whole kitchen to cook, wash the dishes etc.
We need light sources for occasional visits to kitchen/bathroom, some movable light sourse that we can put on table or hang to furniture in the kitchen to cook/wash dishes, maybe pocket flashlights and this year, I had a request to have a good light source for reading and, I think, writing and embroidering/needle work.
We live in flat, so generators isn’t an option (sad fridge noises).
My idea, for now, is to have several rechargeable light sources which will run 21700 batteries. I’ve ordered Xtar PB2S (the old one that can’t charge protected 21700). But I am still not sure if it right decision. Maybe something with 4 chambers like Vapcell S4 plus / LiitoKala lii-500 / Xtar VC4SL / OPUS BT-C3100 is a better solution?
For frequent occasional visits to the bathroom and kitchen, I want to buy some dirty cheap chinese solar powered lights with motion sensors (like this https://a.aliexpress.com/_EuFxpxh) and replace the batteries with 21700. I know that this tiny solar panel is useless (especially during the winter). I will use Xtar to charge batteries or just will add a circuit to charge them with a micro USB.
For the rest rooms and usages I want to make several DIY led/COB strip/panels based lamps OR to buy some affordable lamps/flashlights. Still don’t know what to choose and how exactly to build them, so I opened to your propositions and alternatives.
Also I found light diffusors for flashlights very interesting. Maybe it’s better to have good reliable long lasting flashlight with diffusor that you can put on the table and grab at any time just to not step at the cats. And a flashlight is a usable thing not only for power cuts so I can use them later. But I wondering how flashlights can handle such extensive usage in terms of overheating, longivety… I don’t want to burn them out. Also do I need for such usage something like convoy s21a? Or cheap noname chinese 2$ flashlights will work too (we already have two tiny cheap flachlights)?
And I still don’t know what to chose for reading/writing/embroidering.
Alternativelly I tnink about buying some 60 Ah car battery with charger and to put DIY 12v led strip lams with power switches everywhere.
So, what are your thoughts? Please consider that I have no acces to Amazon or Ebay. Only local stores and Aliexpress (with limitations). Thanks!
