inexpensive location lighting

ok here's the goal....make an inexpensive lighting unit that's portable, battery powered, useable for digital (video and still), for under $80.00 Canadian .
$18.00 ac inverter
$12.00 lamp
$6.00 compact flourescent bulb
$40.00 motorcycle battery.
(alot o which I already had laying around.)
result so far:


the lamp is running off the batery in this photo
one could use a different lamp (clamp on style) or cut the base of the lamp off and mount it to a lightstand with an umbrella.
test shot of my degus:


next goal to run it off smaller bateries...8 aa alkalines blinked on and off...I wonder if eight d-cell nmhds will work...
the inverter 12v dc 8 A max, and puts out 115 ac @ 60 W
the bulb I'd like to use is 13 W.
I have no idea what kind of power the d cells will put out, but if someone smarter than me wants to do the math, I'd like to know, cause I'm not gonna go blow $80-90.00 on rechargeble batteries to find out. and I'm no good at math.

Nice shot Don,

as far as the maths goes, I'll attempt to work it out after a couple of cuppas.

Cheers

Liam

have you tried one of those new L.E.D. type torches thay come in various different sizes and are very bright using 12~24 bulbs some of them which should be ok with digital cameras im going to try one and will let you know how i get on

the other alterative is one of those hugh spotlamp torches by eveready that put out 1/2~1million candle power was thinking of trying one with a soft box and baffel to see what the effect is (again probley only good for digital)

The lights I use for my mountain bike use two halogen lamps and a fairly powerful 13.2v NiMH batter. I usually run it with a 20W flood and a 12W spot however with a single 35W it'd give about 1 hour or so of runtime and is pretty bright.

They cost about £150 however I've seen some stuff on the web where people have been building equivalent sets themselves for much less.

I'm looking at using an array of ten or so power-saving lamps. A 20 Watt one is equivalent to a conventional 100 Watt The fact they use very little power is a major advantage, as is their low heat output.

However, they still need mains power, so they are not for field use - just for travelling light.

G

Hi Don,

I don't think you'll get it to work even with d cells. The problem is, and it only occured to me a few minutes ago, is that you're using a flourescent lamp. Although it will run at low power, it needs a bigger start up voltage initially, to get it going. This is almost certainly why the AA cells made it flicker. There just wasn't enough oomph in them to start the lamp up, it just kept trying to start, without actually succeeding.

If you have one, just put an ordinary household bulb in the lamp. Time how long you get with the AA batteries, and double it. This is very rough, but D cells should be about twice the power re: aH. It all depends on the ratings of all the various lamps, batteries etc. though.

With the LEDs, you can pick them up for a few pence (cents) each, packed loose. A soldering iron, and some wood, metal, sticky back plastic, and a battery holder, and you'll be done in an evening, with your own custom lighting setup.

Cheers

Liam

as a side note:
with a short extension cord I ran a 23 watt and a 13 watt bulb in standard lamps for over one and a half hours last night and the motorcycle battery was about half charged...will run it dry from a full charge today with 3 lights to see how long it goes.
Saran Wrap makes bowl cover food container wraps that are like little shower caps...the middle sized one is magenta colored, very close to a fld filter...seems close enough to color balance a digital camcorder....Custom white balance works for stills, but my cheapo camcorder doen't have...

I'm hoping that with the slightly higher oomph from the nickel metal-hydrate d-cells I'll get 20 (or more) minutes off a 13 watt compact for on camera use.

Niblue tell me about your battery? 13.2 might be just what I need....

Don't forget these still work on AC and DC

Sounds like we have the same lights! http://www.lumicycle.com/pages/default.aspx My friend does night-orienteeting with a similar rig attached to her head http://www.silva.se/orienteering/produkter/hea_478.htm

At short range either sysm would give a lot of light out.

thanx guys I think I got what I need...(I got a plastic clip that holds 8 aa in series-I'm going to try adding a second clip like that and wire them in parralell to keep the voltage at 12 but double the amperage...then run that to the ac inverter ...should be light enough to wear on a hip pack and be able to run the light on a camera bracket).ps, George, There are battery packs out there with ac inverter, car jumper cables, air compressors etc built in.
These will power your 10 x 20 watt light banks easily (if you need 200 watts buy a pack that puts out 250-300 watts, we have those at Walmart and Canadian tire over here, in the $150-250.00 cdn price range.
here's an example...note that I've hooked up the jumper cables to a second batery to increase the run time. that allows me to use a less expensive power pack...as long as it has the wattage you require one of these units will work and you can still use ac when it's available.

Ammonyte was correct in identifying my lights as Lumicycle ones. If I recall correctly the battery is made up from a number of 1.2v tagged AA cells combined to give 13.2v to over-volt the 12v bulbs that are used. I know quite a few folks that have made up replacement batteries themselves at low cost.

just for an idea...
one 13 watt bulb gives an incident reading of of 1.7 iso 200, at approx ten feet with this set-up.
so it would appear a two or three light arraingement would work nicely for alot of people looking assemble a portable light kit that won't break the bank.
if you guys want, I will post some serious portraits with this kit next week, to see what you guys think.

If you can some egg boxes and an old fairy washing up liquid bottle but not the soldering iron you'll qualify for a blue peter badge!

(and here's one I made earlier - yeh right!)

sticky back plastic

Dead giveaway every time..

Hi Don,
Why not put an Ammeter in series with your motorcycle battery and measure exactly what the inverter is taking? Then double it, batteries of that Amp/Hour rating should give about 20mins or so.

Please don't put 2 battery packs in parallel, one will inevitably discharge before the other - then the 'good' battery will discharge into the 'bad' battery as soon as there is a Voltage difference, with (maybe) very high currents and heat. There is more energy stored in even a AA NiMh battery than a 44 Magnum shell!! I have a friend who lost 3 fingers when he held a battery pack that went BANG due to overcharging - and they were less than 1A/H!

Probably the best weight/current battery, if you can source them, is Silver Zinc batteris. They are very tolerant when being charged and can supply large currents for their size, but are expensive. They use them on aircraft due to their weight, and are available in small packages and can be recharged with a car battery charger. One possible source is military surplus shops.

Laptop manufacturers got around this problem by using LiOn (Lithium Ion) batteries. But these need specialised (and expensive) charging circuits and can be very dangerous if mishandled (they must never be overcharged - they go bang).

Chris