MacLauder    MacRae

Helpful Information LED lighting and Inverters

 

Our12v LED system

 

Our lighting system is 12volt LED.  It does not run TV's/decoder's.  You need a DC to AC inverter to do that (see our TV system page).  The lighting solution is independant of your current lighting system.  The power pack controls when the LED lighting must switch on/off and when the battery needs to be charged - the system does this automatically.

 

How much light does it provide?

An 8-watt LED strip provides the equivalent lighting to an incandescent globe of 60-watts (or 15-watts CFL)

 

The formula to work out how long the light will work on a 12v battery is as follows:

• watts divided by voltage = amps.  The amp rating of the battery will be the deciding factor on how long the light will burn

• in this case 8-watts / 12 volts = 0.7 amps. 

• if the battery is rated at 7.2 amps then 7.2a/h / 0.7 amps = 10 hours for 1 8-watt LED strip

• our package of 5 LED strips

• 5 x 8-watts = 40-watt then 40-watts / 12 volts = 3.3 amps then 7.2 a/h / 3.3 amps =  2.1 hours

• it looks borderline but our batteries are top quality and they surpass the calculations

 

Tests conducted on cheap Chinese batteries resulted in dimming after 1.2 hours

 

Conclusion: buying cheap is expensive

 

Our Inverter system (TV's/Decoders)

 

The following information is based on our system

 

• 1 x TV and 1 Decoder - the first question is how many watts do they consume.  Wattage will range from 120-watts to 350-watts depending on whether its an LCD, LED or Plasma TV and the screen size.  Decoders use between 25 to 60-watts depending on the model and whether or not there is a multiswitch on the system or not. 

• We base our system usage on 400-watts as a package (which is on the higher side of the scale)

• Our inverter is rated at 600-watts so it will never be overworked

• Deep cycle batteries are designed to discharge by up to 80% before a recharge is required.  These batteries have thicker plates in the inside which supports constant charge and discharge.  Car batteries are not designed for this

Lets look at the numbers:

• volts * battery rating in amp hours * efficiency percentage of inverter / watts to be consumed

• 12 volts * 100 amps = 1200 * 0.78 (78% inverter efficiency) = 1080 / 400 watts = 2.25 hours

• The system will run for 2.25 hours.  With a typical load shedding cycle of 2 hours the battery will discharge by about 80% which is exactly what the battery was designed for

• The system does does not switch over automatically

 

Conclusion: know what you are buying - a recent article showed a Cape Town based vendor selling an inverter with 2 x 7.2 amp batteries.  The customer managed to view the introduction to Carte Blanche before switching off

 

PLEASE RESEARCH AND THINK BEFORE YOU BUY