gc75067 Posted November 19, 2013 Share Posted November 19, 2013 Have a question from a friend of a friend that I have no clue how to answer. They would like to run their Christmas lights to an old wagon but would like to use a battery instead of connecting to a traditional power source. They mentioned 2500 incans but I imagine they would kill the battery relatively quickly so I was going to mention LEDs.. not sure if they already have the incans or what.. To me the easiest would be to connect a power inverter to the battery which would then give them a fairly easy set up.. just connect it to the battery and connect the lights to the 110v inverter. I imagine the inverter would eat up a good amount of the battery and with lights on top of that it would probably drain the battery quickly. Of course being a wagon this does not have a battery charger or alternator to charge the battery. Has anyone set something up like this before? If so how much time did you get out of the battery? Im trying to push them to using a traditional power source but they are really wanting to stay with this idea. Thanks, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indi Posted November 19, 2013 Share Posted November 19, 2013 One way is to go some place like All Things Christmas and get battery operated LED's. They have them that run on a couple of C cell batteries. I'm sure there are other sites as well that have them. Don't know how long the batteries will last. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gc75067 Posted November 19, 2013 Author Share Posted November 19, 2013 One way is to go some place like All Things Christmas and get battery operated LED's. They have them that run on a couple of C cell batteries. I'm sure there are other sites as well that have them. Don't know how long the batteries will last.thanks for the reply. from what i see, those are usually about $8-$11 per 20 lights for multi-color.. maybe a little less for white only. not sure they are wanting to spend that much on 2500 lights Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaGoose Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 Tell them to use LEDs and buy an inverter and keep the wattage below the constant wattage rating for the invertor, use a marine battery that is deep cycle so you can drain it and recharge it many times. You will need a trickle charger to recharge during the day time or you can buy one of those solar rechargers to recharge during the day light hours. If you go that route it should last hours, most deep cycle have an amp hour rating on them and you should be able to do the math and see exactly how long they should last. People get hours of use out of these battery for trolling motors and led lights should use way less power that a trolling motor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max-Paul Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 Didnt see where in TX you are all located. Some parts dont get as cold as other parts do. If you all are located in the colder parts, keep this in mind. A drained wet battery can freeze and split the case, spilling acid all over the place. Best bet would be LED lights that dont need an inverter. Second best bet has also been mentioned. And that is to used LEDs and get an inverter that is not rated for much more wattage than what is needed for the LEDs. And Dont know how many amps all of your LEDs will draw and how much they will be on during the night. So, dont know if 100W of solar panels will be enough to fully recharge the battery. I agree with the usage of a Deep Cycle battery versus a car battery for the same reasons mentioned before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gc75067 Posted November 20, 2013 Author Share Posted November 20, 2013 Didnt see where in TX you are all located. Some parts dont get as cold as other parts do. If you all are located in the colder parts, keep this in mind. A drained wet battery can freeze and split the case, spilling acid all over the place. Best bet would be LED lights that dont need an inverter. Second best bet has also been mentioned. And that is to used LEDs and get an inverter that is not rated for much more wattage than what is needed for the LEDs. And Dont know how many amps all of your LEDs will draw and how much they will be on during the night. So, dont know if 100W of solar panels will be enough to fully recharge the battery. I agree with the usage of a Deep Cycle battery versus a car battery for the same reasons mentioned before. thanks for the replies guys.. was thinking the same thing or at least close to the same thing on the battery. i used to know several people that competed in car stereo competitions and they all used the red/blue/yellow top batteries because they could handle the stereo systems running for quite a while without the vehicles running. we are in the warm part of texas. probably wont get too cold but i could mention that they take the battery indoors when they are done.. sounds like this will be for either a small parade or hay rides. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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