Hi Folks,
We don't exhibit at many twilight hour shows in MI summer, but are regulars to at least two that close 9pm, with large crowds continuing past 10pm. In addition, we make jewelry and after having seen wholesale displays, and a craft booth at Allen Park Street Fair last year, we've tried to find out more about designing multiple "within-canopy" (via clamps) LED light sources to use not only in the late evening, but throughout a given day. We've looked all over the net but we're not electricians, so the technical jargon throws us a curve ball that we can't hit.
At Allen Park last year, one of our neighbors had such a scheme. When we asked about it, they showed us the clamping architecture for the lights and said that if went to Lowe's, we might pay $150 for a "power converter," which they said they charged up after hours (i.e., at their hotel) and provided the LED strips a power source during the day.
When we search the web, we can find a bunch of well-known name brand "jump starter" / "emergency power supply" within the same product description (e.g., Stanley). At Amazon, most of the reviews focus on jump starting cars "and jee whiz, I jumped 5 cars in a row before I had to charge," 5 stars. Product descriptions are sprinkled with amps and milliamps, but nothing with regard to the number of hours of sustained power to a low consumption device, such as LEDs, USBs, etc. Nor has a web search turned up a design, if we might call it that, to clamp strip LEDs to canopy under-structure, powered by either a "converter," a "jumper," "emergency" power suppy, or a "portable power supply."
If you're an electrical whiz in this biz and know what we're asking about, could you please help us out?
[And while we're waiting for a response, we're going to call Eminem's agent and see if we can sell the line above for one of his jams.]
Comments
I use mine for night time only, depending on the sun for outdoor shows, i can easily run 2 led 60 watt replacement ( 13 watts used) for 2 hours without a noticeable dimness.. I will experiment to see how long I can run these before I loose the light, but I am out of town for a week now and can not run this test.
My guess is it would run 4 of those bulbs for at least the 2 hours i have used it for...
i do not need it to power anything big, but I do need a power supply at some point to recharge. I can also recharge this in my car if I have a distance to drive...
Here's the link to the discussion for an LED booth lighting set-up
http://www.artfairinsiders.com/forum/topics/lighting-setup-from-a-deep
The small power stations will not power anything big for very long. You need to determine what lights you want to use before deciding on the battery. I have a couple of power stations, but they wil not power a booth lighting system of any significant size
Liza, how well does it do for you? How many lights for how long?
yup, XP2260 that's my model
I'm not certain this is the same model that Liza mentioned, but Amazon has Schumacher XP2260 Instant Portable Power Source (regularly $175 for $99) with Free Shipping. It weighs about 11 lbs.
Mark, where did you get these lights? I have been looking at Lowes, Home Depot, and some local lighting stores, but have had little luck finding the right LED lights. I was about to give up and order from ProPanel since they had the right lights.
You have to decide on how much light you need first. Then, based on the wattage, you have to size the battery system based on power consumption and amount of time you want the system to run
I built a nine LED floodlight booth system for approx the same price as the ProPanel system which used six lights which were not as bright and runs eight hours easily. The small power stations will not support a full booth light system of any significant amount of wattage. But if you just want to power some LED case lighting in the 0.5 to 1watt range, you might be able to pull this off
the marine batteries are very heavy,
I do shows by myself and can not lift the battery, so I got a schumacher power station at the auto parts store,
it works great. I do not know how long the power will last with the led's but certainly would get you from dusk until 10 PM... and it charges your cell phones and computers.. it has 110 plugs, usb ports, it can pump up a tire, and run lights or jump your car.
Best of all, I ca lift it no problem, it is clean, no battery juice or grunge...
I love it,
they cost about $139..
worth every penny, and i use it at the camp ground .. run fans in my van while i sleep on those hot muggy summer show weekends...
Thanks, Leslie! We're not panel users but the battery link (http://www.propanels.com/lighting/battery/) really gave us the information we need to put together a workable system. And Brian and Mark's input really helped as well. Give me a couple months and I'll try to post some photos of our ultimate set up. Just the info we needed. Hope to meet you if you're running around any Michigan shows this summer.
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next