Prepping 4 Planning Your Lighting

Planning your lighting may seem daunting and all it needs is a little sensible thought the correct implementation to not only design a total light strategy, but to include the essentials such as charging rechargeable batteries as either NiCad or NiMh types or lithium; as many lithium chargers automatically adjust to the size and battery capacity of the battery in it. Most types of battery chargers come with a 12 volt input and these are the better type as they can be used off a car cigarette lighter or the storage battery of a solar system which means you are totally unreliant upon any form of mains power and do not need to concern yourself with petrol, diesel, or gas for generators; or your car.
Being totally independent of the grid means you can have light all year round irrespective of the electrical grid situation and this independence is your friend as it focuses your mind on 12 volt systems and standardises them in your mind.
Begin with “what are your lighting requirements” and this should not include children all having torches to flash at each other and waste batteries as you never know how long your battery power will be needed as you never know how long the electricity will be off so always consider this important fact as some of our neighbours outside the village had a power cut which was allegedly to be repaired in around 3 hours, but they were off for over a week. Here is the problem, even the most predictable things can become unpredictable.

How many rooms do you NEED to light and this is not how many rooms do you WANT to light as need and want are different things and need is always more important than want and you need to light your chosen living room which is generally the one with a heater such as a log burner or open fire; so one lantern for this room. More recent trends have seen the traditional two downstairs rooms opened up and called “open plan” and this means you may need two lanterns or a larger lumen output lantern or just live in one half.

Your second room will be your kitchen as you need to see to prepare food and cook as well as warm water for washing up and actually washing up and this means at least one other lantern and generally it can be moved around to where you are working in the kitchen and only switched on as and when needed to conserve batteries. Other potential options exist and these are the 12 volt lighting strip as these have cutting points and can be cut into short lengths and stuck under kitchen cupboards and the wiring run along the back of a cupboard where it can be connected to something such as a smaller 12v 4 or 5a/h battery which will light any worktops below it when needed, and switched off when not needed.
Think about this option as the previously mentioned Lepro lighting strip uses 1700Ma per 5M length which is 340Ma per metre and if you work out 1/20th of a batteries capacity it works out to 200Ma for a 4 A/h battery or 250Ma for a 5A/h battery so each battery would easily power ½ metre of LED strip which would consume 170Ma and this can be cut into 0.25 metre lengths and placed under 2 cupboards. You can recharge these batteries directly from a solar charging panel or generator through a battery charger and being a smaller battery means faster recharge times.
What other light do you use, if you have logs or a generator; these will be outside or in a garage/shed/workshop, or directly in a housing and you may need to go outside to start or refuel your generator or simply collect logs so while a torch may suffice a head torch would be a better option as it provides light and leaves both hands free to work; so one is very handy.

If you like your security you can obtain a couple of wind up lanterns as they run for around 15-20 minutes on around 1 minute of winding and you place them in more obscure rooms and rotate then at every wind/charge between unlit rooms and casual onlookers will see light in different rooms which tells them you, or someone is in.
Wind up lanterns are suited to conditions such as going to the toilet where you may need light, such as women needing sanitary products or people washing in the dark and then needing to comb their hair as life does not stop and people still need medication, or go to work if they are still on the grid, or somewhere where short periods of light are required such as at a generator for starting or simply refuelling or collecting some logs; so yes they have their uses.

I always suggest keeping lighting at strategic places where you can easily get to it and where you can find it and operate it in the dark and I would suggest one in the normal living room during normal conditions and NOT the living room you use during a grid down scenario, one in the kitchen, and one near to any storage area such as a cellar as you may need to go down there quickly. Most people have mobile phones and they nearly all have a torch or other light, if they don’t then turn the screen brightness right up and use that as a light; everyone needs to know where these emergency lights are and that they can get to them and switch them on in the dark.
Remember these lights need maintaining and if they are dry batteries then need replacing periodically, if they are dry battery lights fitted with rechargeable Nicad or NiMh batteries these discharge naturally and run down, and if they are lithium they need periodic recharging as the worst thing is you have a grid down situation and you get to your lights and the batteries are flat.

Some portable lighting is plugged into the mains and on constant charge and if the mains power shuts off, the light witches on which would be useful in certain scenarios; and the but is if the mains power goes off at ungodly o clock and you are in bed the light will still switch on and run through the sleeping hours. Their benefit is if the power drops during the day and they switch on, or the power drops after dark and the unit lights up then you know the power has shut off and at least you will have some immediate light.

When you know what lighting you have along with the battery types you can actually plan your battery strategy and the first thing is do you have a lithium battery charger which plugs into something you have such as a basic solar charger set up and the controller has a USB port which you can use. Failing that can it be battery powered from your 12 volt battery either directly or through a clip on attachment such as a cigarette lighter with crocodile clips which you can plug into.
Lithium batteries often take the longest to charge due to their energy density and the next is the Nicad/NiMh cells in AAA or AA sizes and possibly in D sizes as well as they take a while to charge and can often be used in place of standard dry cells so which do you have? I would suggest Li-On as they are available in very low discharge types and are now available cheaply in large packs of 20 or more batteries and a pack of 20 should cover most things which will accept them. Finally we have dry batteries in AAA or AA sizes and the quantity you keep is relative to your rechargeables and if you have them in most things you will need fewer dry batteries and if you have lithium battery powered lights they often come with a dry cell holder so you can fit dry cells while your lithium battery is charging so you don’t lose light.