Here I show a comparrison between LED, CFL, and incandescent 40 watt “equivilent” 120v AC light bulbs. I am using a simple “home brew” solar powered AC system for the test. This was done to simulate an “off grid” situation. Use of 12v bulbs (without the energy loss of the inverter) would be another interesting test but this test was done to test the efficiency of the AC bulbs used in this fashion.
25 thoughts on “Simple home solar energy system— with 120v AC Light Bulb comparrision”
Leave a Comment
Simple home solar energy system— with 120v AC Light Bulb comparrision
Here I show a comparrison between LED, CFL, and incandescent 40 watt “equivilent” 120v AC light bulbs. I am using a simple “home brew” solar powered AC system for the test. This was done to simulate an “off grid” situation. Use of 12v bulbs (without the energy loss of the inverter) would be another interesting test but this test was done to test the efficiency of the AC bulbs used in this fashion.
25 thoughts on “Simple home solar energy system— with 120v AC Light Bulb comparrision”
-
Guys, making your own home energy does not have to be hard (I used to think it did). I’ll give you some advice right now. Search a alternative home energy known as Xobotano Home Energy (do a search on google). Seriously, Xobotano Home Energy has save a large amount of my money. I probably shouldn’t even be mentioning it because I don’t want a bunch of other folks out there running the same “game” but whatever, I am in a great mood today so I will share the wealth haha.
-
Hot: /watch?v=3fI1SuxbV6I
Check this: /watch?v=2tNfinipTW0 -
Hi Lidmotor! thanks a lot for your demo 🙂
May I ask you if you know about to produce oneself solar cells and in cheap way by preference?
Cheer. -
I live in Japan and I found them in an electronics shop in a market here. They aren’t seeling anymore at the shop.
They are Teknos LE-04W bulbs. I found a few on the the net, but the link is very long. Amazon had some.
I have other lights similar to Lights of America and they act like that too in series. 2 in series goes up to a bout 500ma, but in parallel it’s about 700ma. My set up might be different though. You could try other bulbs you have.
Anyways, love your work~! -
Thanks. I’ll see if I can find those 4W 250lm LED bulbs.
-
Have you tried putting LEDs in series with the French Flipflop? Depending on the bulbs I got some interesting results. I found some cheap Chinese 4W 250lm LEDs which gave me some nice light. 1 is 400ma fully lit. 2 are 800ma fully lit (not sure why) 3 in series dropped lm slightly and goes back to 400ma (not sure why) but nice light. Can light 3 rooms of my house reasonably well on 400ma.
Anyway, I’ve followed your work for a long time and you have inspired me and helped me a lot.
Thank you~! -
Dear Lidmotor,
I have been following your vids for over 4 years or more, I think. I have never written before, but I just wanted to say a big thank you to you. I knew pretty much nothing about electronics when I started, but I have replicated some of your work and others and feel that, even though I still don’t quite understand it all, I have come a long way.
I would like to say that I’ve been playing around a lot with the French inverter and found a few interesting things… Cont… -
Yes. I have been watching his videos.
-
Sounds like fun Rusty. Though I have not made any real “gains” as in … “overunity” I stumbled into Lasersabres circuit, essentially several months ago (very similar anyway). Essentially, an SSG light. I managed to illuminate about 100 LEDs off the circuit and played with it extensively, so much, that… I was able to measure overunity. But, then, I took a closer look. Much care is needed in respecting the limits of a DMM in +3kHz. They can lie. ’nuff said tho.
-
Thanks for that info. I have similar things. That French flip flop inverter that I made awhile back does a pretty good job also with small draw items. This big 750 watt inverter is what I need to run big stuff though like my 120v electric drill and such. It will power up my small ac refridgerator that I have on the sailboat while I am using the diesel inboard to get around when there is no wind. Usually when I go to Catalina Island I have to power so I run the fridge on the way.
-
Lid, have you checked out kdkinens lastest radiant circuit. Interestingly low amp draw it seems.
-
Similar to a lot of sorts of tests I do. I have found, thus far, watt for watt.. my best two options are a fast switching mode inverter, the type you stuff in a cigarette lighter. On sale for $10. It consumes 140 mA plugged in, just at idle. It consumes 140 mA plugged in, while powering a 2 watt AC LED bulb. Running a close second to that is a XEE2vids CT transformer variant of the joule thief, but operating off of a 3.6V 4000 mA/h Lithium cell. It powers the same bulb at an adjustable .1-.4A.
-
again,
we can venture to other possibilities … I think going back to Joule Ringer 1 is still my bestb bet as I can expand using toroid and charge back a little when the load is off
please try the Xee2 mode using transformer koule Ringer 1 but like you said heat issues
on the transistortotoalas
-
Some things are designed to run on 120vac (like a small microwave oven) and that forces us to use the inverter. You are right though that there are many things that can simply use a 12 battery as the source of power. LED lighting is perfect for that.
-
(similar to what you and @piratetwinbeard were discussing)
-
Thanks for your tireless devotion & sharing – big fan of your vids! I haven’t sacrificed an LED bulb yet – wonder if they can be run DC only (sans AC setup) – bypassing the need for the inverter. Other than most appliances & larger industrial tools, I’ve not seen much that can’t be recharged/run off of 24vDC or less (laptops/tablets, cell phones, mp3 players, cordless tools, etc.) This & inspiration from your joule ringer shed vid makes me think of a permanent solar DC only home circuit!
-
Thanks. I felt that I better take a look at the lumens also. If I could get six of those LED to work like you are doing on 1 amp then we really have something with the Lasersaber system. The transformer is the key as much as the circuit.
-
Hi Mart. I have several small inverters but I just grabbed this one to do the video with. Incandescent bulbs also make pretty good ballast resistors. Remember? Long ago when we were working on that light project and you found that out?
-
Yep. There are better ways to do this. This was just a demo of a few things.
-
Thanks. There are much better inverters but this one fitsin my budget and does what I need it to do.
-
I hate it when that sound goes off.
-
Those are valid points. Thanks for pointing them out.
-
for example, go under a mercury vapor bulb (aqua greenish blue colored steetlight) and observe the surrounding (grass, tree bark, yellow pavement), then try with metal-halide, (better CRI) and look at the surroundings more natural and real looking. same comparison can be done with similar light output, price and color temp bulbs. it seems as “warm white” CzFL’s take a more pinkish hue.
-
well as i see it there is only one major downside of incandescent bulbs, that’s them being power hogs (less than 3% of energy turned into light) other tech greatly, but the light quality (CRI), especially of CFL’s, is poor. i can tell the difference between cfl and normal bulbs, under fluorescent lighting, things and stuff just don’t look natural, while under the wide wavelength output from standard bulbs shows beeter the color detail of things.
-
the cfl put out XXX lumens in all directions, while the led is directional, and puts out light in one direction, so the same amount of light but focused, and the mcd meter reads more.
Guys, making your own home energy does not have to be hard (I used to think it did). I’ll give you some advice right now. Search a alternative home energy known as Xobotano Home Energy (do a search on google). Seriously, Xobotano Home Energy has save a large amount of my money. I probably shouldn’t even be mentioning it because I don’t want a bunch of other folks out there running the same “game” but whatever, I am in a great mood today so I will share the wealth haha.
Hot: /watch?v=3fI1SuxbV6I
Check this: /watch?v=2tNfinipTW0
Hi Lidmotor! thanks a lot for your demo 🙂
May I ask you if you know about to produce oneself solar cells and in cheap way by preference?
Cheer.
I live in Japan and I found them in an electronics shop in a market here. They aren’t seeling anymore at the shop.
They are Teknos LE-04W bulbs. I found a few on the the net, but the link is very long. Amazon had some.
I have other lights similar to Lights of America and they act like that too in series. 2 in series goes up to a bout 500ma, but in parallel it’s about 700ma. My set up might be different though. You could try other bulbs you have.
Anyways, love your work~!
Thanks. I’ll see if I can find those 4W 250lm LED bulbs.
Have you tried putting LEDs in series with the French Flipflop? Depending on the bulbs I got some interesting results. I found some cheap Chinese 4W 250lm LEDs which gave me some nice light. 1 is 400ma fully lit. 2 are 800ma fully lit (not sure why) 3 in series dropped lm slightly and goes back to 400ma (not sure why) but nice light. Can light 3 rooms of my house reasonably well on 400ma.
Anyway, I’ve followed your work for a long time and you have inspired me and helped me a lot.
Thank you~!
Dear Lidmotor,
I have been following your vids for over 4 years or more, I think. I have never written before, but I just wanted to say a big thank you to you. I knew pretty much nothing about electronics when I started, but I have replicated some of your work and others and feel that, even though I still don’t quite understand it all, I have come a long way.
I would like to say that I’ve been playing around a lot with the French inverter and found a few interesting things… Cont…
Yes.  I have been watching his videos.
Sounds like fun Rusty. Though I have not made any real “gains” as in … “overunity” I stumbled into Lasersabres circuit, essentially several months ago (very similar anyway). Essentially, an SSG light. I managed to illuminate about 100 LEDs off the circuit and played with it extensively, so much, that… I was able to measure overunity. But, then, I took a closer look. Much care is needed in respecting the limits of a DMM in +3kHz. They can lie. ’nuff said tho.
Thanks for that info. I have similar things. That French flip flop inverter that I made awhile back does a pretty good job also with small draw items. This big 750 watt inverter is what I need to run big stuff though like my 120v electric drill and such. It will power up my small ac refridgerator that I have on the sailboat while I am using the diesel inboard to get around when there is no wind. Usually when I go to Catalina Island I have to power so I run the fridge on the way.
Lid, have you checked out kdkinens lastest radiant circuit. Interestingly low amp draw it seems.
Similar to a lot of sorts of tests I do. I have found, thus far, watt for watt.. my best two options are a fast switching mode inverter, the type you stuff in a cigarette lighter. On sale for $10. It consumes 140 mA plugged in, just at idle. It consumes 140 mA plugged in, while powering a 2 watt AC LED bulb. Running a close second to that is a XEE2vids CT transformer variant of the joule thief, but operating off of a 3.6V 4000 mA/h Lithium cell. It powers the same bulb at an adjustable .1-.4A.
again,
we can venture to other possibilities … I think going back to Joule Ringer 1 is still my bestb bet as I can expand using toroid and charge back a little when the load is off
please try the Xee2 mode using transformer koule Ringer 1 but like you said heat issues
on the transistor
totoalas
Some things are designed to run on 120vac (like a small microwave oven) and that forces us to use the inverter. You are right though that there are many things that can simply use a 12 battery as the source of power. LED lighting is perfect for that.
(similar to what you and @piratetwinbeard were discussing)
Thanks for your tireless devotion & sharing – big fan of your vids! I haven’t sacrificed an LED bulb yet – wonder if they can be run DC only (sans AC setup) – bypassing the need for the inverter. Other than most appliances & larger industrial tools, I’ve not seen much that can’t be recharged/run off of 24vDC or less (laptops/tablets, cell phones, mp3 players, cordless tools, etc.) This & inspiration from your joule ringer shed vid makes me think of a permanent solar DC only home circuit!
Thanks. I felt that I better take a look at the lumens also. If I could get six of those LED to work like you are doing on 1 amp then we really have something with the Lasersaber system. The transformer is the key as much as the circuit.
Hi Mart. I have several small inverters but I just grabbed this one to do the video with. Incandescent bulbs also make pretty good ballast resistors. Remember? Long ago when we were working on that light project and you found that out?
Yep. There are better ways to do this. This was just a demo of a few things.
Thanks. There are much better inverters but this one fitsin my budget and does what I need it to do.
I hate it when that sound goes off. 
Those are valid points. Thanks for pointing them out.
for example, go under a mercury vapor bulb (aqua greenish blue colored steetlight) and observe the surrounding (grass, tree bark, yellow pavement), then try with metal-halide, (better CRI) and look at the surroundings more natural and real looking. same comparison can be done with similar light output, price and color temp bulbs. it seems as “warm white” CzFL’s take a more pinkish hue.
well as i see it there is only one major downside of incandescent bulbs, that’s them being power hogs (less than 3% of energy turned into light) other tech greatly, but the light quality (CRI), especially of CFL’s, is poor. i can tell the difference between cfl and normal bulbs, under fluorescent lighting, things and stuff just don’t look natural, while under the wide wavelength output from standard bulbs shows beeter the color detail of things.
the cfl put out XXX lumens in all directions, while the led is directional, and puts out light in one direction, so the same amount of light but focused, and the mcd meter reads more.