Illuminating Art in Deep PLaya

[Janet Planet]

My Dear Know-It-Alls,
I'm getting an art project together to bring to Deep Playa this year. I'm stumped by how to safely illuminate it all night long. It's a small shelter with a flat roof and open walls, about 8'x8'x8'.
I need to illuminate it enough that it doesn't get plowed into by mutant vehicles. Any ideas?
Love
Sprout

[danibel]

I am by no means a "know-it-all," but I use battery operated LED's to light things and they would last all night long if I left them on. You could change batteries daily to make sure they were bright. Most of the ones I have use 2 or 3 AA's.

I have not had good luck with solar lighting lasting all night.

[robbidobbs]

The Porta potties in deep playa were originally powered with deep cycle batteries, but then evolved to use solar panels. It's not a lot of light, but very durable.

[MFOB]

Not necessarily Deep Playa, BUT we illuminated our Art all night last year with a setup as such.

Rented a Solar Panel from Black Rock Solar, Build a stand to put it on (you could put it on your roof). Hooked it up the 3 Deep Cycle batteries we had under the solar panel and ran an inverter off the batteries. Youll just have to do the math on how much power you need. Most Deep Cycle batteries have like 107-110 aH to them.

Example on number of batteries to use: 110 Ah x 12V = 1320 watt-hours. Lose 25% for safety margin,(never run a Deep Cycle all the way down) 1320 * .75 = 990. Reduce another 20% if your plugging it to a 120V AC inverter 990*.8 = 792 watt-hours. If your lights are 100w then you can run them for essentially 7.9 hours. But use LED and you can run the equivalent 100W Incandescent bulb with a 12W LED Bulb and you could run it 66 hours or 9.4285 hours per night for 7 days . If you connect 2 batteries in parallel you can double the capacity. 220 aH and so on.

Essentially we had 400+ feet of Rope Light, plugged in by extension cord away from the art to the inverter. The storage of the DC Batts lasted all night long to run the rope light brightly. The Solar Panel charged them (batteries) all during the day, and then ran all night. Only thing is was that we went out to the art each morning and "Turned off" the lights. When Dusk came around we went out and they got "turned on". If it is real deep and you're not into riding you bike way the F out there twice a day, then just lets the light stay on Id suppose.

[danibel]

My only concern with deep cycle batteries and a solar panel (rented or otherwise) being deep playa - they could be stolen. Maybe I am a little paranoid, but things do get ripped off at BM. Valuable things.

LED strings with batteries are much less of a concern. Deep Cycle and solar panels in camp would be harder to pilfer, more people around and all. And I should mention - that I have never put art out deep playa so I have no experience. Like I said - I am just paranoid!

[MFOB]

I concur, but not likely. Most peeps at BM are not going to rip off a 3x5' Solar Panel and 80lb batteries. If it is such a worry, get the Artery to drive a 4 foot anchor and chain all the shit together with a chain. We stored our batteries in a trunk that was locked. and the SP was anchored to the ground and screwed into a frame.

[danibel]

I concur, but not likely. Most peeps at BM are not going to rip off a 3x5' Solar Panel and 80lb batteries. If it is such a worry, get the Artery to drive a 4 foot anchor and chain all the shit together with a chain. We stored our batteries in a trunk that was locked. and the SP was anchored to the ground and screwed into a frame.

Yes! Glad you mentioned all that. Something to plan for - securing things.

[trilobyte]

You may want to look through the resources and guidelines on the main Burning Man web site, register your project once the forms open up, and stay tuned to the various communications that the ARTery sends out to registrants on the subject.

[daft]

Look for solar lights with the biggest little panel and you can upgrade the LiPo batteries. LED strings off a 12v deep cell work as well. Use a baby buggy on a bike to bring it back to camp and charge it off someone's generator.