I’m looking for some practical inspiration for lighting setups for light o heavy emergencies. Whether it’s for your car, home, emergency stash or whatever - be it flashlights, lanterns (BLF LT1!!!), batteries, charging solutions etc.
Show off your gear Photos, Videos, Ideas and Setups *for power outages, grab and go bags, *etc - not your EDC lights or collections but what you have in place for that bump-in-the-night, natural disaster, car trunk kit, power outage or run-for-the-hills scenario.
What do you deem your most reliable kit for lighting and powering your lighting kit in these cases and how do you store / manage it?
well for the bump in the night scenario I have my trusty X80GTvn by my headboard while I sleep, no intruder will be able to see after hitting them with 32k lumens in the middle of the night
Well.
Apart from torches and lamps. Waaay too many most of us.
Setting up Vehicle. Home. Caravan. Plus yachts when I had them.
Caravan. Yachts, had mix of panels on roof and stern. Generator and Battery’s to cover their individual
needs.
Car/ute. has 120w panel on racks on roof some have several.
LED lights front and back, strip lights in and outside to suit.
2 x 12v 110a Battery’s in tray linked to Panel/regulator. Alt. +17a AC Charger in tray.
Genny runs any AC equipt as van would normally be on back.
Home.
Solar system on roof to suit. Evac Tubes water heating system same place.
315ltr Tank with AC heater in garage.
AC. Isolator sw on Grid board (LEGAL install) that isolates MY home system from grid.
So I can run my 3.8kva Genny safely. For complete home. pool pumps,
and Full Aircond.
We live in sub Tropics and get visits from Cyclones occasionally.
So do get some 3 to 7 day power outs. Usually around the 3 to 5 days.
Our AC is 240v not 110v so everything different. no point suggesting items.
We travel in caravans and did so on yachts too.
EVERYBODY you meet that has a system that works.
while NORMALLY different in some ways to the next. BUT.
We all get them working at capacity to suit themselves.
Just make sure it’s done efficiently and SAFELY.
It’s just too easy to slip a 12v system together “”That’ll do”
But when van.home etc goes up in flames. Hmmm.
ALL up. Home and 3.8kva Genny. $16ish grand.
But haven’t paid electric bill for over 7 ish yrs.
With a grand ish cash returns from Power co anually. down to $650ish nowadays.
You living in a place for long term.
You a bit silly NOT setting up for salar I reckon.
Then when they sort out a decent cheaper Battery technology to suit.
It’ll really be a no brainer not doing so.
Van System around a grand AUD. Ute the same or bit more. (OUR “”Grab Bag combination”“)
Yachts. Yrs ago???. $100 to !000.
Including yourself. You won’t see crap when you turn that thing off.
I keep a bunch of S2+’s around the house for personal light. Have some homemade lantern toppers to light a few rooms. I don’t really have any outside lighting. I mean I do but it’s never turned on. I like to use darkness to my advantage. Nobody knows my place as well as I do.
I have some LED strips out of LED TV’s that I can use if needed. I have a inverter I can alligator clip it to the battery of the truck or car and it will run those for a long time.
I have a big generator that I can use to power the pump for the well. A inverter on the generator and a stand alone inverter takes care of most of my needs with lighting. Nothing fancy or expensive. Just stuff I threw together that work reliably.
I use to have halogen lights on every corner of the house, the ones with motion sensors. Too many critter and deer out here. They were turning them on all night, so they had to go.
It’s not fancy, but I have USB strip lights hooked up to battery bank in the bedroom. In the event of a power cut there is enough light to find clothes and a proper flashlight.
I have an obsession with Single AA flashlights for EDC and emergencies as they are easy to feed but I also made sure they take 14450s (and lithium primaries) and I also have a few AAA to AA converter tubes for draining leftover AAAs. These I have in the car, home and quake/emergency kit. For these I also have headbands and diffuser wands as I’ve found out that in times you really NEED a flashlight, you also really need both of your hands free. Some also have magnets on the back for the same reason.
For charging I use a 24w RAV power folding panel along with a 24Ah Anker battery bank and an XTAR VC4 for all the lithiums and nimhs.
I’m also very excited about getting my hands on a couple of LT1s which I plan on charging via the panel and playing with for work as well as fun. These should replace a couple of Zanflare lanterns (loads of fun!) and give some decent lighting when power is out.
I have played around with led strips and battery banks with mixed results but I think the lantern is going to be much more reliable as a solution. Can’t wait to see what accessories DBSAR will conjure up as well as this lantern will have so many uses!
I’ll be putting things in place once the lanterns arrive and hearing everyone’s ideas will surely help.
Actually I’ve done this a few times too and I think it’s a pretty great solution for space lighting. Flashlights with diffusers work for a while but the light they give is not so practical. Led strips and lanterns on the other hand…
Sounds like a great idea! Never thought of it before to be frank, since I found out about the LT1 Project my mind is kind of monopolized by the lantern’s possibilities.
Well if I don’t turn it off then I won’t have that problem, wouldn’t be turning it off until I deem it safe to do so anyways. It’ll just step down and by the time it has to turn off then the situation should be under control :sunglasses:
Not cheap by any means.
Also an interesting place to look for LEDs for projects.
Also Amazon has several strips that claim to be high CRI.
But we know how that sometimes goes.
All the Best,
Jeff
Hey, it’s your world brother. Lots of threads on this. When you fire that thing up in the dark, with your dark adjusted eyes. You will be blind too. When you think it’s safe to turn it off and you do so, you will still be blind in the dark because of that 32k lighting up everything in any room or rooms with very bright light. Sorta like when you wake up while it’s still dark and turn on the bathroom light. Hurts like hell don’t it? Well 32k lumens will hurt more. Then when you turn the bathroom light back off you are still blinded and seeing nothing but white. Same holds true for the flashlight.
You don’t really have to believe me or agree with me. It’s okay, it happens often, I’m not bothered by it. If I come off as a butthead trying to preach, well that’s okay too, opinions vary.
Do yourself a favor and try a few experiments in the situation you described. I hope you never have to blind a intruder. Confronting intruders in the middle of the night isn’t fun for anyone. 100 lumens or less and a firearm of your choice with lots of training classes. That might be the ticket. Crap, just noticed your in Mass, don’t know if they still let you do that there.
….during Monsoon seasons from June to November and during those months where heavy rains- floods and brownout occurs….We should be prepared for any eventuality and calamities ahead…
Since then during my long distance travel for my work, i learned to bring my lightning gear in case anything happens down the road. My simple gear is in storage water proof case containing flashlights( Klarus xt12GT and Olight seeker pro 2), tools and now solar light (and panel) as back up in case i run out of battery. Until i discovered BLF and read many entertaining news and updates plus the people in this forum who unselfishly shared their ideas and guides you. Thank you BLF…… I’m now adding more lights like Fw3a and just recently the MF01s and Convoy……
Again, i will be waiting for others to share their lighting gears and also their emergency kit for us to upgrade and learned…
Subscribed to learn and get some ideas!
I have some info I want to gather to build my “emergency” backpack but I’m newbie on that stuff!
Fortunately here we are don’t suffer many bad weather conditions but no one knows what will happen in the next minutes so…better be ready!
Thanks for the contributions so far!
Problem is, any “kit” will likely get neglected. Rechargeable batteries discharge, hateful little alkaleaks leak and turn into salt-blocks, ruining everything in sight, so they need to be maintained over time.
So anything in a BOB will necessarily be things that don’t require maintenance, and any “lighting kit” will be whatever I scoop off my table into my bag.
Presently, that’s a locked’n’loaded MH20, Cometa, E03, WK30, DC7, RJ02, and a few steps away, a GTmini, C8F, Q8, SD05, and SD02/WK20.
Oh, and the SP32Av2 strapped to my bag, and Jet-II inside.
A small padded “camera case” has a coupla chargers (LK and nonames), some charging cables, and an assload of cells (mainly 18650s and a few 21700s).
I could pretty much ride out the Zombie Apocalypse with all that, so I’ll likely never have to actually use all them.
