Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries? (for lights and more)

[bandits1]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

My Ryobi one+ area light will do "up to 16hrs" on the big batteries, of which I have 4.
I think it does 5-6 hours in high, which is still plenty for a night, and the light has plenty of output to play a board game or read.

How is the quality of light from that Ryobi Workshop Light? I've read it's a little on the bluish side, but those comments could have been made by someone whose last lantern was fueled by kerosine. So, white or slightly bluish?

I recently bought a Ryobi ONE hybrid string trimmer and before I invest more into their ONE line, I'd like to know how their other products perform, starting with the most practical: an area lantern.

 

[Gatsby]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

I live in hurricane territory - not prime strike zone but still we've had enough sweep through that the risk, along with ice storms, for power outages is my most likely and most frequent disaster situation. I lived in eastern NC for a number of years where hurricanes were a very real and realized threat.

To level set I have a small generator and fuel supply. It is sufficient to keep the refrigerators running every few hours or so to prevent loss of food. It can run a small heater as well if necessary for a period of time. I can also, if needed, charge batteries but that is not something I rely on - that is a last ditch issue.

As far as lighting goes - my time spent out in the woods backpacking and camping with my son has demonstrated how little light I need most of the time so my lumen expectations are probably pretty low by comparison.

I don't have everyone on one battery type - probably should but have made do with some lights I already have for example to meet certain needs. Kids both have Petzl headlamps - my sons is always in good shape due to backpacking/camping. Daughter and son both also have small AA flashlights. My wife will use whatever I hand to her. So the kids trips to bathroom etc.. are with their lights.

For room lighting I have three maglites with LED bulbs installed - two with regular Mag upgrades, one with the Niteyze PR bulb that runs forever (30 hours I think). All are sufficient to light up a room more than sufficiently -and are used actually somewhat sparingly when a lot of light is needed. I keep 8 fresh D cells to backup these lights (2 - 3D lights; 1 - 2D light)

I have two headlamps which get used on the lowest setting mostly - a Zebralight H30w for me and a Surefire Minimus for the wife (she can run the UI on the Surefire no problem!). They'll last for some time on low - and I have a couple spare batteries for both as backups. Another pack of AA and AAA's for kids lights and headlamps.

My primary outage light is a modded HDS era Novatac 120P. Has a trit bezel so I can find it and it runs for lots and lots of hours on low which is more than enough light to move around with dark adjusted eyes. Days straight on low. I think it is literally 40 days on a primary - a bit less on an RCR I suppose but if I need more than that I suppose I better have some zombie plans ready to execute

As you can tell - my strategy is really based around more very low level lights - each person having one - than a few high lumen lights. I keep a few 18650 lights around in case I need to inspect parts of the house or really light up the back yard or something - but they are truly spot use lights and not primary lights.

 

[Gatsby]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

As an aside - it is interesting how my lights change a bit when the emphasis shifts to the lowest light I need and efficiency. The Novatac 120P does have a K2 TVOD in it - so on high it is probably around 180 or so lumens (compared to stock 120) - but the selection of levels, trit bezel and ridiculous runtimes on lower levels make it still a great all around emergency, camping and sometimes EDC light despite being, at this point, gosh 5-6 years old maybe? I have a couple newer and nicer lights - but that 120P still gets a quick reach for certain scenarios...

It may also be comfort - I had an Arc4 back in the day - then used a cracked HDS B60 for years when the Arc4 went on the fritz. Replaced that with an 85P and then the 120P - and haven't had a reason to upgrade from the 120 to the newer HDS generations really. So the UI is like an old friend - the feel - ease of use, etc... also matter in an emergency setting. It is nice to not be thinking "Is this the light that uses x versus y clicks?"

I also have a Milky light that I use as a sometimes EDC that, in mizer mode, really is a great emergency light.

 

[yearnslow]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

No problems here.

 

[Poppy]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

No problems here.

Here you go yearnslow

 

[FourBin Labs]

I work part time IT part time sales at my job. The IT parts allows me any old electronics that we no longer use. My boss gives me any old UPS unit that the battery goes out in. The best part of this, is that we are a tractor dealership, we sell batteries and recycle the cores. Any time i need a battery, I just start testing the cores that come in till I find a marginal one. It might not start a 6 cyl diesel tractor anymore, but it's still way more than a brand new UPS battery would supply (I get pretty excited when an 8D battery shows up).

The best part, it's all free. Any time a battery get's weak, I just bring it back to work and swap it out for one of the newer cores. I have some batteries that have been in use for a couple years, and still last a long time. everything I have in my bedroom will run for a couple hours after the power goes out. The only problem... I need to take some of the UPS units apart and disable the beepers. I have 4 units in my bedroom alone and you can't actually sleep with them going off.

Flashlight wise, I've even managed to get around in the dark with the 1 lumen moonlight mode on my light. It's plenty to get up and use the bathroom if you have been sleeping and your eyes and well adjusted to the dark. This thread has gotten me thinking about looking for an 18650 12v charger though. My trucks got an Odyssey AGM in it, so I wouldn't think twice about charging all of my 18650's in there during an outage.

 

[yearnslow]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

Many thanks.

Here you go yearnslow

 

[Poppy]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

Many thanks.

LOL... that looks like it could get you through ledmitter_nli's 67 days of night
Can you give a little detail on that setup, and what it supplies?

 

[yearnslow]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

LOL... that looks like it could get you through ledmitter_nli's 67 days of night
Can you give a little detail on that setup, and what it supplies?

Well, obviously it's a solar system. We are completely off-grid here. 16, 6v batteries linked as a 48v system, at 30amps, which is capable of delivering 3000w. Each battery is capable of 350+ ah. The panels generate approx.1900w per hour in full sunlight, that is converted to AC with a grid inverter to come to the house (less resistance in the wires with AC), on reaching the house it is converted back to DC for the batteries, the remainder being sent to the house as 240v AC at 13 amps. At night, obviously the inverter converts DC battery power to AC power. It runs our house, including fridges, freezers, lights, washing machine, electric iron, toaster etc etc. At present usage, we could last ten days approx. without any sunshine, and carry on normally. If for some bizzare reason we had to cut everything out except essentials, it may very well run to 67 nights. we will never know though, unless there's a natural disaster that blocks out the sun, which is unlikely here.

 

[Poppy]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

I'm curious, how many square feet of solar collectors do you need to supply a system like that?

 

[Echo63]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

How is the quality of light from that Ryobi Workshop Light? I've read it's a little on the bluish side, but those comments could have been made by someone whose last lantern was fueled by kerosine. So, white or slightly bluish?

I recently bought a Ryobi ONE hybrid string trimmer and before I invest more into their ONE line, I'd like to know how their other products perform, starting with the most practical: an area lantern.

It's on the bluer end of "cool white" but not too bad, but it's also cheap (providing you have the batteries and charger) and looks pretty easy to mod (4 screws to take off the top, 2 screws and 2 soldered wires to get the LED out)
I haven't modded mine yet, it is something I want to do though (with a nice neutral or warm white LED)

I will do some pictures and a review when I get a chance, it might be a while though.

And the 35w Xenon light is worth getting too - lots and lots of light, I ran mine for 6 hours a day for about 3 days straight when I was doing the tiles at my house (taking the old tiles up and getting the glue off the floor) literally running batteries full to empty, then throwing them back on the charger and doing it again (I have 6 battery's)

From what I have seen of the ONE+ line, the tools are well made, and work pretty well, although most are smaller than a mains powered unit,

I have the ;
Circular saw (good for pine, may struggle a bit with hardwoods when cutting thick pieces)
Jigsaw
Mitre Saw
Planer (good, but not really super precise - worked ok when I used it to trim some doors though)
Reciprocating saw
Drill
impact driver (great for driving screws, I rarely use a proper screwdriver anymore)
Impact wrench (1/2" drive, mine lives in the car - I can do a 4 wheel rotation (6tyre changes) in 15 mins, using it)
Area light
Xenon spotlight (has an odd beam colour as it warms up, once warm (a minute or so) its much better, but still has artifacts, throws well, and puts out a lot of light)
chainsaw (actually pretty useless, the reciprocating saw with a long wood blade is better, also the chain lube system just plain sucks)
hedge trimmer (works well, haven't had any issues, except on hard dried twigs that we're up towards the max thickness it could fit in the blades.
Angle grinder (great, but chews through batteries very quickly - 8-10 mins or so)
both sanders (broke the triangle one, but it was caked with spakfilla dust, and it was run till it was too hot to hold a few times, the circular one is good so far, but pretty new to me)
fan (great for blowing away dust, or keeping you cool, runs for ages)
multitool (handy, used mine a lot with a tungsten carbide blade for cutting up grout on the old tiles)

6 bay charger (only charges one battery at a time, but automatically switches to the next pack when it's full)
single bay charger (came with the drill) (this one will cook the batteries if you leave them on it, take them off when they are charged)
12v charger (great, except it's lighter plug doesn't play nice with my vehicles sockets, I will eventually change it for an Anderson plug, when I mount it to the cargo barrier)
And maybe a few others I have forgotten

 

[Jash]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

100 lumens is plenty to light a room using ceiling bounce. Given the supply of AA and D cells in my kit, I'd guess I could keep a couple of rooms lit up for 2-4 hours a night for perhaps a year or so. That's if I couldn't recharge any eneloops.

5-7 days you'd simply need a couple of quarks (regular for tail standing) and a couple of eight packs of lithium cells.

 

[Poppy]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

I hope this is pretty accurate. It seems that there is a geometric relationship to lumen output, and battery demand. I put this list together based on manufacturer claims (not mentioning battery capacity) and Selfbuilt's time graphs for a 2200 mAh 18650 battery for the same flashlight, I calculate that these Lumen/Time rates are what can be expected from XML emitter, (note: XM-L2's will give 20% more lumens for the same amount of time) powered by a 18650 battery.

____________________________________________
From a 2400 mAh 18650 battery

Firefly: 0.09lumen. 695 hours.
low: 30 lumen: 65 hours.
mid: 95 lumen: 9 hours.
max: 705 lumen: 72 minutes

____________________________________________
From a 3400 mAh battery one might expect:

Firefly: 0.09lumen. 984 hours.
low: 30 lumen: 92 hours.
mid: 95 lumen: 12.7 hours.
max: 705 lumen: 102 minutes

 

[Poppy]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

I'm not too familiar with AA lights.
Would someone please list what one could expect in run-times for various chemistries, at various lumens?
Thanks,
Poppy

 

[StarHalo]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

You can't assign a runtime to an emitter; different drivers and configs will give varying levels of efficiency and thus different runtimes. Otherwise all flashlights of similar battery type would have the same runtime.

 

[smokinbasser]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

I have two 6v lanterns and approx 70 spare batteries from AAA,AA, D 123, CR2. 1 hand crank combo light radio. I am not about to take an inventory of working flashlights but enough for most situations short of an EMP. But I do have quite a few emergency candles for just in case. 60 years of scouting plus 10 years military reduces surprise outages.

 

[reppans]

I'm not too familiar with AA lights.
Would someone please list what one could expect in run-times for various chemistries, at various lumens?
Thanks,
Poppy

Yeah sure... I'm accumulating a decent selection AAs, have looked into the numbers for sometime, and have run a number of side-by-side tests with a light meter and stop watch, including trying to reconcile to Selfbuilt's numbers.

First a couple of caveats. I use a conservative Foursevens/Eagletac lumen scale (QAAX/D25A) to calibrate my light meter. This closely matches ti-force's calibration who claims:

"My sphere's have been calibrated using lights that were measured in a professional lab sphere, so my lumen results are very accurate."

We are in the range of 20-25% more conservative than Selfbuilt's lumen scale. SB doesn't claim accurate lumen estimates, just consistent relative comparisons, with which I completely agree.

Next, I'll go to 50% output in a runtime test, not 10% as allowed under ANSI - same as SB.

OK, all that said, my general smell test for an efficient AA is something in the 150-200 lumen-hour range per 2000 mah Eneloop (ie, 150 lms for 1 hr, 3 lms for 50 hrs for a 1xAA) with the highest and lowest modes a bit less efficient than the middle modes. Multi-cell formats run more efficiently since they operate closer the the Vf of the LED and require less from the boost driver. I think my D40A was around 210 lm-hrs (per AA), the most efficient light I have, but it's also my only 4xAA (sub-lumen fan).

So take a look at some examples. The SC52 and LD12 both claim ~ 300 lumen-hrs across most of their modes (to be fair, the LD12 is really 240 lm-hrs adjusted for a 2000 mah batt, in the fine print) while the Quark AAX (interpolated from the 2AAX) and D25A-X spec below 200 lm-hrs. Well, I have run the SC52, QAAX, and D25A side by side (don't have the LD12, but SB just reviewed it) and I find the three about to even on a lumen-hr basis.

On max the SC52 was 25% brighter than the QAAX throughout, but also petered out about that much faster. The SC52 108 lm mode metered equal to the D25A 75 lm mode and both hit 50% at 2.5 hrs (same as what SB got for the SC52)... But specs wise (108lms x 3hrs)/(75lms x 2.5hrs) = 1.73, or ZL claims are 73% higher than ET for the same performance. The SC52 claims 2-3x the runtime/efficiency of the QAAX on the same 0.3 and 3 lumen modes.... Well this is how... clicky (the Quark lumen specs are accurate). My glance of SBs review of the LD12 seem to indicated it falls similarly short of its output/runtime spec claims, adjusted for a 2000 mah battery (if SB finds the LD12 specs are 15% understated, I'll find it 10% overstated).

On the different battery chemistries, just compare watt-hrs (V x Mah) of energy and extrapolate (use HKJs capacity tests if you really want to be anal). Well except for Alkalines of course which capacities vary widely on load.. I personally consider them a wash though - worst performance on highest modes, but the best performance on lowest modes.

So bottom line is that I find that the top 1xAA lights of these 4 manufacturers to be very close in terms of lumen-hrs of efficiency, indistinguishable without equipment really, but the manufacturer claims in the specs sheets differ by up to a factor of 2x. That just pisses me off... (Sorry for the long rant).

 

[Poppy]

Yeah sure... I'm accumulating a decent selection AAs, have looked into the numbers for sometime, and have run a number of side-by-side tests with a light meter and stop watch, including trying to reconcile to Selfbuilt's numbers.

<SNIP>
Next, I'll go to 50% output in a runtime test, not 10% as allowed under ANSI - same as SB.

OK, all that said, my general smell test for an efficient AA is something in the 150-200 lumen-hour range per 2000 mah Eneloop (ie, 150 lms for 1 hr, 3 lms for 50 hrs for a 1xAA) with the highest and lowest modes a bit less efficient than the middle modes. <BIG SNIP>.

Thanks reppans!
You did a great job!

It's a shame that ANSI doesn't include a 50% runtime test and require that it be reported.
If I want/need 100 lumens for a job, 50 lumens MIGHT be sufficient, 10 lumens, certainly would NOT. Whatever time it takes to run down from 50-10 is useless time (when the light would not be capable of doing the job it was bought for.)

How long would a single AA power a light at 15-25 lumens?

 

[Biker Bear]

Interesting thread! As I live alone, I'm not really in a position to comment on the original proposition of a 4-person family, but I have a few points that might be worthy of note. As preface, let me state that I love to tinker, and I do realize most of these are more "last resort" than first-line for most people. First-line for me is going to be my AA/14500/123 EDC lights, with my bright 18650 light held in reserve for when I need lots of lumens. Given my stocks of primary and rechargeable cells - I'm going to have all the light I need for any reasonably foreseeable period of electrical grid failure.

I have one of those 3-AA disc tent lanterns with 48 LEDs - they work as well turned upwards as a bounce light as they do the other way hanging from the top of a tent. I have had a thought - is it more efficient (given a common matte-white ceiling) to bounce a lower intensity of light off a wider area, as with the disc lantern, or a higher intensity in a smaller area? If one is using a fairly tight beam - might it improve the effect noticeably to tape a piece of bright white paper on the ceiling at the center of the beam?

I've also got some cheap LED flashlights that were designed to use 3 AAA's in a carrier, but which I created a spacer for so they can use 18500 LiFePO4 cells. (These are great lending flashlights because most people have no idea what to do but return it when the battery runs down....)

I posted some years ago about a trail-marker light I'd come up with based on the LED "throwie" - CR2032 coin cell, white LED, "bingo chips" as insulators, all held together with a binder clip. Since I've got the parts, I can crank out a lot of these and they'll produce a decent amount of light (to dark-adapted eyes, at least) for a week, running 24/7. Great for places like the bathroom. And larger coin cells (e.g., CR2450) will of course run longer, though they're less cost-efficient. As I live in an apartment building - I'd be handing these out to neighbors as a way to (hopefully) keep them from using candles or the like to reduce the previously discussed fire risk. There's all sorts of ways to put these things where you want them - magnets, pushpins, wedging the binder clip handles into crevices, etc.

I've got spare flat lithium cells from deceased cell phones and such; with the right wires, one of those can sub for a pair of AA's in one of those two-AA phone booster units; if you too have cells that won't fit in your current device, this is a way to make the power they hold useful. (Do note that this might over-discharge them if you aren't paying close attention as the boosters are generally designed to work with alkalines or NiMH cells, so this isn't something to do with a lithium ion cell that's more useful to you.) And if you've got alkaline D-Cells that are depleted beyond the point some other device can use them, you could run 3-4 of them in series into a booster that normally takes 2 AAs and get a little more use out of them. I attach wires with alligator clips to the contacts in the booster, and from there you've got all kinds of options to feed it power. The booster units I use include two 5mm LEDs and I made brighter LED attachments for them; obviously they can also power smartphones and other such devices in a grid outage.

 

[Sub_Umbra]

Re: Power Outage, How many Lumens, How many batteries?

I've got a couple of 1D vampires that Wayne at EL made for me after Katrina. If I tail stand one with a fresh alky in the bathroom it'll light the whole room 24 hours a day for a week.

They have P4 emittters from 2006 and Micropucks. Even though they are a bit long in the tooth they are great to have in extended grid down events. Since I had them built we have had two major outages -- one for five days and one for two weeks. They performed very well.

When we first got them I did an experiment. I took a D cell from a three cell set that was so dead that they would not even make the filament glow in a M/\G light and slipped it into one of my EL 1Ds. Each 'dead' cell produced hours and hours of very usable white light.

Of course one could build even better 1D lights for grid down events with the emitters available today. Highly Recommended.