12v LED'S

[Camel]

I am always thinks of ways to save power.  Then it dawned on me  my gate motor have a 1 amp charger, charging the battery 24/7. So I came up with this idea, 12v LED on a 12v day night switch on to the gate battery,  added few more around the fence, then put a few in a ball.

As you can see wife was playing too. 

[Guest]

Nice.

[___]

Adapting an al-cheapo AC daylight switch might not be too hard either. Most of them use a capacitive dropper to get things down to around 24V, and then they use an internal 24V relay. Unfortunately it isn't 12V, but if you swap the relay for a 12V unit it would probably work out of the box. At worst you might have to mess a little bit with the divider resistor chain that determines what light level it switches at, but I doubt you'd even have to do that.

Attached is my 12V lamp (those upwards shining things) that stands behind my television. It has a 7W LED down light in the middle and an LED-strip around the edge. Hacky, but works a treat.

[KLEVA]

Nice, I like... Way before I went solar and load shedding was rampant, I bought a simple roll of LED lights. They are designed that every 3 LED's is a 12VDC strip, so I cut and soldered and now EVERY passive in my house has at least 3 LED's on permanently, fed from the alarm battery... Worked for 2 days when there was a faulty transformer, and would probably work more. Not enough to read by, but just enough to put enough light in a room so you don't trip... Even installed them in my ceiling so that you can get around without carrying a torch in your mouth :D. All from the alarm power feed...

 

[Guest]

Shweet.

[superdiy]

13 hours ago, KLEVA said:

Nice, I like... Way before I went solar and load shedding was rampant, I bought a simple roll of LED lights. They are designed that every 3 LED's is a 12VDC strip, so I cut and soldered and now EVERY passive in my house has at least 3 LED's on permanently, fed from the alarm battery... Worked for 2 days when there was a faulty transformer, and would probably work more. Not enough to read by, but just enough to put enough light in a room so you don't trip... Even installed them in my ceiling so that you can get around without carrying a torch in your mouth :D. All from the alarm power feed...

 

What is that speaker doing against the ceiling?

[___]

15 hours ago, KLEVA said:

fed from the alarm battery...

I can't do that. My alarm battery is already 15 minutes short of a load-shedding slot... :-)

Well I COULD do it if I put the alarm on the inverter feed, I just haven't gotten around to that.

[KLEVA]

@superdiy - Surround sound speaker, back wall.

@plonkster - Took out the puny 7Ah for Alarm System and replaced it with a 14Ah - Lasts for days

[superdiy]

2 hours ago, KLEVA said:

@superdiy - Surround sound speaker, back wall.

It is supposed to be ear-height (in line with your ear). 

[KLEVA]

I am tall, so whats the problem

Seriously though, if it gets installed at couch level it steals space and looks ugly. The Sony can at least be properly adjusted for each channel, but this is WAAAAAAYYYYY off topic. Somethings I do right, and some I F-up, solar install was definately a F-up, so I try to teach/help (otherwise a lot of money and time gone to waste).

[___]

I have my Yamaha speakers way up on the (open) rafters too. You can angle them down so they point towards the focal point (where people sit most of the time), but seriously... it works well enough as is. I find myself looking behind wondering "what's that noise!?"... oh, it's the movie.

Edit: Now very VERY off topic, but I think the main advantage of a multi-speaker 5.1 or 6.1 system is that you don't have the dialogue fighting the music. Man... especially with American movies (which is the bulk of them), I hate how you can't hear what people are saying, so you have to crank the volume up, then next thing the music blows your ears off (and the wife is shouting at you to turn it down, kids are crying, dog is barking, etc). With the multi-speaker system, dialogue is on the center speaker, music in the corners. Much more comfortable.

[flatfourfan]

I like. I used a similar idea for my exterior lights and bought cheap casings, gut everything out and then added the 1.5 and 3watt strips and they work a treat. 

Also consider mounting a prism type object at the base of the light on the inside, you'd be surprised how much more light it now reflects to the sides.