Turning plug in lights battery powered

[organizedchaos]

Hi everyone,

It's about that time of year again when I start looking at my plug in lights and wonder how I can make them battery powered. We have a generator, but I don't want to run it all night to power our little shade structure as it is dedicated to other things.

I fell into LED lights from Ikea (for free!) that I am planning on covering to make them waterproof - if only there is a way for me to run them off batteries. The website says this model 'Dioder 601.923.55' pulls 6W. Does anyone know of a product I can plug this into, or some simple instructions on how I can run these off batteries? I have never done anything like this before, but I know there must be a way.

Apologies if this has been asked before recently. I'm not too up to speed on exactly what it is I am looking for.

Thanks in advance!

[LowePro]

Consider buying new battery powered Xmas lights. There are a ton on ebay, from $3-6 including shipping. Lots of colors, LEDs that run on AA batteries.
Mine last a long time (all week+) on one set of batteries. Just saying. But do it soon and look at the shipping times as sometimes the low cost items take a while to ship.

[some seeing eye]

What you need is an inverter. The car department of a box store or an auto supply store will have them. Then you need a deep cycle 12V battery. You need a way to charge that. You can take it to Snow Koan solar to get it charged on playa. You might want a wagon to get it there if it is weighty. Many threads on sizing batteries for the load. Search deep cycle battery, solar, inverter, that sort of thing.

[Captain Goddammit]

Don't go to a car parts place for one of those cheap inverters to run your LEDs.
I have done that, with several different inverters.
Going on the assumption that delving into technical details is gonna be so much yadda yadda, I'll just say the cheapo inverters don't make smooth steady "clean" power like you have at home, and LED lights respond to electric input virtually instantly - they will have an annoying flicker, and won't achieve full brightness either.

An inverter is what you need, but you need a good, "pure sine wave" model, not a "modified sine wave" set.
If it doesn't say what kind it is, it's the crappy kind. If its a pure sine wave unit it will be bragging about it.

A cheapo unit will actually work. But it'll suck.

[Jackass]

It can be done, this is how I made some bright ass light sets for my bike wheels. You have to take the lightset apart, cut it into pieces, then rewire and solder back together. Custom 9V 40ct light strings...

Burningman2012 125.JPG

[Captain Goddammit]

That's awesome looking! But just the way this topic is worded indicates that isn't something within the OP's capability.

[Eric]

That's awesome looking! But just the way this topic is worded indicates that isn't something within the OP's capability.

That's beyond a lot of our ability.

For the OP, I'd recommend running them off your genny this year. For next year, hit eBay & start rounding up battery powered LEDs. I bought a ton for pennies on the dollar of what they cost in the US, and a lot of them had free shipping (from Hong Kong or Shanghai!) - but it's way too late for shipping now. There are US vendors you can get them from in time still, but be careful on the shipping charges. One place I previously used for years wanted to charge me $24 to ship less than a pound of lights (the lights themselves would only have cost me $18).

[organizedchaos]

Thanks for the advice guys. I believe that I can do a hell of a lot of things - but teaching myself to put this together in the next few weeks may be outside of my ability. Thanks for your honesty!

[strange love]

Please don't be the guy running a generator just to power some led string lights

All you need for this is a deep cell battery, a decent inverter and a solar trickle charger. All 3 items can be purchased on time from amazon for under $200. Pm me if you would like product recommendations.

[Captain Goddammit]

Please don't be the guy running a generator just to power some led string lights

All you need for this is a deep cell battery, a decent inverter and a solar trickle charger. All 3 items can be purchased on time from amazon for under $200. Pm me if you would like product recommendations.

I'd like to hear your product recommendations; I hope you wouldn't steer our guest toward one of those cheapo shitty "modified sine wave" inverters that LEDs don't like or work well with! And that's what the super cheapies are.

[strange love]

I use this inverter for about 100' of led string lights. I have it hooked up to an Optima deep cell battery and solar trickle charger. It performed well all week and I just checked to make sure it still works, and it does despite the fact that I didn't even bother cleaning the dust off of it since last year. There are better inverters out there, but i feel for the price it's a good value. Ymmv

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B001TE0IM ... -3&pi=SL75