Any reason for making your own set of lamps
just to save money....or is it mostly for the fun
of it?
A 12 volt battery used in an RE situation, could be anywhere between 11 and 15 volts.
Online calculators are all well and good, but don't assume a 12 volt battery is 12.000 volts.
I wrote a mini-thesis on this subject a while back; the last part is here:
http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2007/10/31/848/94375
but has links to the first 4 parts.
I build all my own stuff on the theory that if I built it, I can fix it.
Generally speaking, lamps designed to run on AA batteries won't handle the much greater voltage range of a real RE situation.
Amanda