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CFL connected to battery bus

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Watt:
We had a good storm last night and our power went out.  I normally have my shed lights hooked to my ups which is powered by my 72v nominal battery array.  This time I had disconnected the lights and hooked them to mains because I had serviced ( and damaged ) my battery bank.  Trying to get ready for the storm, I had got everything hooked back up but forgot the lights.  Anyway, when the lights did go out, I was not able to get to the controller or the panels to trip the panel breakers.  I like to trip the panel breakers just for the extra protection during lightning events.  I do have two Midnite surge arrestors but you know how it is to ' feel ' better.  It took a half an hour to find a flashlight to finally see to do the disconnect.

I decided to try and find a dc power night light or make one.  Here is what I did.

I took an already dead 120vac CFL apart to see how they work.  Well, I sorta got the rough idea of how they work and decided to take a new one out of the package and destroy it.  I connected wires to the rectified side of the bridge rectifiers and then connected the wires to a cord I cut from one of those crappy extension cords which have the three connectors on one end and a two prong plug on the other.  Yes, been trying to get my wife away from using them.  What else is a better way to make use of the wire.  I then clipped the wires into the breaker from the classic for an easy temporary connection to see if it would even work.  It does although, I have no idea how long it will last or how safe it is.  It draws .18amps at 75.4 volts dc but it works. 



The light when used with 120v mains is rated for 13 watts.  It has a current rating on the side at 180ma at that 120v so 21.6 watts.  Used as is, this uses 13.6 watts 75.4vdc.  I just have no way of telling if it's as bright as it would be on mains. 

bj:
As bright, or not, looks like a pretty good  light source. ;)

WooferHound:
Someone on FieldLines was running CFLs off of 90 vdc without taking the bulb apart and screwing the bulb into a socket.

tomw:

--- Quote from: WooferHound on April 09, 2012, 07:34:52 am ---Someone on FieldLines was running CFLs off of 90 vdc without taking the bulb apart and screwing the bulb into a socket.

--- End quote ---

I know Ibedonc was doing that when he realized they had switching supplies in them. Polarity did not matter. Not sure he posted on it but I remember him doing it. He was working on a voltage boost circuit and that was one of the offshoots of it.

Wonder what ever happened to Don? He just kind of fell off the internet one day several years ago.

Tom

Watt:
Thanks for the his name Tom.  I will do some searches and see what he has published.

The light is still burning.  I did notice several breaker trips were required to get the light to do more than flicker.  I did try connecting leads to the base but nothing happened.  I'll leave it on for a while and see what happens but in the meantime, I'll do some research.  By the way, I couldn't get it to light with 48v. 

Another observation, my ammeter changes regularly from .195 amps to as low a zero for a short time then back and back again?  O well, long as I see light reflection, who cares right. 

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