California Disaster Emergency Lighting

[Dri0m]

wow, a perpetuum mobile...

[derman077]

Thank you for sharing. 

[DasShape]

get rid of cfl, buy a cheep LED flash light off ebay,and hook it straight to you batterys and Led will run forever, and give u pletty of light. or you can run LED's with gatorade

[kimmer6]

Very nice! During the Loma Prieta quake the power went out within 10 seconds of shaking. So a few weeks later I built a 12 volt battery backup system for my entire house using a trolling motor battery and motorhome ceiling lights. A Radio Shack 120 volt relay drops out when PG&E goes out and energizes the lights. The system has come on automatically maybe 30 times in the last 20 years. We are never in the dark. I built in a Shumacher battery tender to keep the battery (8 yr life) charged.

[sirmasterpimp]

Pretty cool, most of my outages come from icy power lines or storms, so I don't need emergency power as much as someone who goes through hurricanes and earthquakes. I still like to have emergency things ready though. I have a combo of hand crank led flashlights and radios, high powered led flashlights running off of nimh batts, 3 big 12 volt power packs + inverters (7ah, 10ah and 20ah) + a couple duracell powersource mobile 100 units. That and a 3500 watt gas generator. Solar soon to be added.

[Drevtoobe]

Hey there,

I found a 24-part 'mother load' for you that you might be interested in. The real thing explained with nice, simple hands-on demonstrations. Enjoy!

/watch?v=xx8fH-r3Luk

[Lidmotor]

Thanks,  That is a great series. Tons of information.

[GBluer]

Try putting your big capacitor inbetween the panel and battery with a diode going from the capasitor to the battery.

I can charge my battery a lot faster this way.

And the bigger the capasitor the better.

[Lidmotor]

Thanks.  I will try that.

[Drevtoobe]

To add to your very nice video, Lidmotor, you can't forget that you can only cycle COTS (commercial off the shelf) batteries so may times before they wear out (there is degradation in the reversible chemical reactions resulting in the battery's output impedance getting very high, rendering the batteries useless). Therefore you have to look at how many redundant sets of batteries you want to keep to cover a given time frame, and the shelf life of the batteries.

[Drevtoobe]

A really cool technology is a high-tech flywheel made of carbon fiber spinning up to ultra high speed in a partial vacuum connected to a motor-generator. Your solar panels could charge the flywheel by day and you could draw power off of the spinning flywheel by night. It's simply a mechanical capacitor that you are charging and discharging.

However, just like solar panels, the technology is too expensive to be widely deployed.

[Drevtoobe]

If you want to have some fun and go on an intellectual journey, aka Google, then ask yourself where do 'leap seconds' come from and how do they relate to this discussion.

[Lidmotor]

Yes. I have always thought that flywheel energy storage has not been looked at enough. Too expensive right now to get a good one. Wal Mart doesn't sell them. LOL

[Lidmotor]

I lived on the sailboat fo 25 years before I got married. The boat has three group 24 batteries onboard. They last about three years if I take care of them. For the house I'm just trying out these small sealed lead acids. So far so good. They hold the pie well. Just not much of it.

[lvecsey]

the other experiments were still within the realm of reality if you read a book like QED by richard feynman it gets you thinking about the extra energy needed to develop the back emf for example at the get go, before any collapse/pulsation or further energy dissipation can ever take place.

[Lidmotor]

If you wander over to the Energetic Forum you will see that a bunch of us are working on Tesla projects.

[marthale7]

Thanks for sharing!... Good to be prepared having canned food on hand and other things that when the electric goes off you can have with out a refrigerator. I had to give away all my food in the fridge when the power went off, had no where else to store it.

[Lidmotor]

Hey--I have a small refrigerator that will run on a coleman can of propane for three days. It is made by Dometic. It also runs on 12V or AC.

[Can101276]

Im confused.... All your other videos and experiments are outside the normal perameters of energy production. Why do you now show a store bought inverter, some solar panels and a cfl????

[Lidmotor]

I simply wanted to show an alternative to all the stuff I have built. Things that any one can do to get by in an emergency. Going way back I have always tried to use a solar panel to get the energy that I needed to run my things. My quest has really been about efficiency.

[Drevtoobe]

Actually all of his other videos and experiments are fully within the normal parameters of energy production and energy consumption. Absolutely, with no doubt whatsoever. Lidmotor is really just a pie man.

[crob227]

not to wish no disaster on you, but you will have the bright house on the block if something were to happen.

would you say that this is the most efficient setup you have had?

[Lidmotor]

As I recall John Bedini had a similar experience and it drew unwanted attention. This setup is one way to get the job done that anyone can do. I personally like my "Lunch Box" Imhotep Lite but not everyone can build one. It is the most efficient lighting method. I didn't show it in the video.

[Lidmotor]

Thanks, I hope that this helps someone get through the dark nights after a disaster.

[harpbloke]

lid, you are a most caring guy.

fair play to you.

love from eire n oz