Remote Living > Lighting

12 VDC car headlight bulbs for light

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Clide:
I started out with taillight bulbs with the high and low filaments and burning the high was good enough for reading. A 60 watt commercial lightbulb is about the largest 12 volt lightbulb one can buy and it's not bright enough for me now. For better light the only answer I've found is car headlight replacement bulbs (the old complete headlights work ok). A $1 shiny SS frying pan for a reflector and 65 watt filaments over the desk are ok and I've seen Xenon bulbs that are advertised equivalent to 100 watts at WalMart so I'll try them next. Is there anything brighter for 12 VDC?

crashk6:
WOW, this takes me back to the EARLY days of RE... kind of a nostalgic pioneering spirit... and... a creepy make it all go away feeling! I won't give up my compact fluorescent, LED's, and modern low voltage electronics for anything! We have made some definite improvements since the days of headlights 12 volt car appliances and home brew bailing wire resistors! Granted some things still have there place, but headlights are energy hungry little buggers just like any incandescent bulb.
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crashK6

crashk6:
Good heavens, I forgot to tell you where to get nice bright 12 volt CFs! Go to http://www.naturallighting.com
Contact them via phone, they can put a 12 Volt ballast on most any of their CF bulbs... Their 13 watt is roughly equal to a standard 60 watt bulb. They make up to a 105 watt CF, I don't recall the lumen equivalency to is incandescent counter part but I have used 105 Watt fluorescent as yard lights. So that gives you a good lead.
Now keep in mind our hosts provide 13 watt CFs in 12 volt as well... although you did say you needed more light than an equivalent 60 watt incandescent can offer..

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crashK6

ruddycrazy:
Hiya, Why don't you try the 1 watt luxeon star led's, or even the 3 watt ones. They run only only 3.6 volts and the 1 watt runs @ 350mA where the 3 watt runs @ 850mA. You can buy constant current electronic kits to run them and just make sure you put them on a heatsink to dissapate the heat. All in all these led's are blinding to look into but for their size and current output they should be in every RE's home or farm. I'm playing around with a 3 watt version and I reckon it would make a beaut spotlight for shooting. Then again with 5mm led's now outputting 20,000mcd and getting bigger running a few of them would be very economical as they only draw 20 mA each. If your interested I can put up a few basic circuits showing how to connect them.
Cheers Ruddy Crazy

hiker:
what about a 250watt 13volt landing light[i  use it for testing my alts]

or a 28 volt 1000 watt landing light--that should light up your life..

just might take the spark out of it to! ;}........

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