[Jiff Lemon]

Didn't know whether here or the DIY section would be more applicable, so if it's wrong could a mod please move!

I've been looking with some interest at the LED lighting, but the thing that dissapoints most is that most LED lighting then has some god damn awful "brick in the wall" transformer which eats away at electricity regardless of whether the LED's are on or off. (ikea! I'm looking at you!)

I've been thinking along the lines of LED lighting as both secondary and complimentary lights (so cabinet lighting,low level lighting, stairwell lighting etc) and the obvious thing to do would be just to install multiple 12v feeds, all terminating a 12v battery which could be charged by electricity only once nice green methods won't work.

As an ex autoelectrician, 12v electrics fear me not; However, it seems so obvious a thing to do that I'm sure there's some government red tape involved saying that its far too sensible and they haven't thought of a means to tax you on it.

Any thoughts?

[johntheexpat]

a couple of months ago I bought a 12V/5W solar panel for 40€ which I then connected to a motley collection of lead acid batteries (One from a car, which had some life left and several from a warehouse where I used to work, in which they fed the security lighting- these by law have to be changed every 48 months and tested once a month, so when I got them they were in excellent nick). This whole lot was then connected to a series of 12V lights and other stuff adapted from cars and boats (windscreen washer pump to pump water around for example) and a 400W inverter for most of my power tools (drills etc). As I don't use the shed that often, there is always enough juice in reserve to do what I need to do and it saved a small fortune on electricians bills.
If you look around, there is loads of stuff rated at 12V - the last Screwfix catalogue I looked at had loads - lights, extractors for bathrooms, etc etc which can with a little bit of imagination be adapted for loads of other uses.

[GasDad]

Voltage drop may be a serious problem along very long circuits.

And don't forget the cable still has to match the amperage.

[robh2002]

I had been thinking about the same sort of thing, but came to the conclusion that the DC losses would be too high. What I ended up doing was using a cheap sine wave inverter (ebay ~£50) coupled to an old car battery and I can use this for anything less than 300W.

I did think of removing the lighting circuit from the fuse box and running it to the inverter so I get all mu CFL/LED lights for free. Not that I have got around to it yet, but it's a possibility. No doubt I need a qualified electrician to do this sort of thing 'properly'..and also no doubt the idea may not be considered 'proper' in the first place!

So the inverter is used to power a batter charger at the moment and when I get a chance to do more, I'll integrate it to some lights.