Powering a garage/shed without connecting to mains power

[IR35FanClub]

3 Questions?

What light level do you want? Camping torch, 60w light bulb (sorry 11W CFL) or Arc flood lamps?
How much area do you want to cover the whole garage or a piece of equipment you are using?
How long for? 1 hours 5 hours?

A wind up hanging camping LED lamp for £10 will give you enough light to not bump into things for 10 minutes or more if you wind longer.
A plug in regargable LED work lamp (the type for looking at car engines) will cost £10 and give enough light for a single machine, and last an hour or two.
A larger mains rechargable system with separate powerpack and LED or CFL floods can give a few hours use - the type builders use for working on site (try screwfix for starters).
That or stick to a couple of low voltage CFLs and get a Leisure battery which you can get from Caravan suppliers and wire it up yourself instead of buying a kit.


Forget solar - it will cost too much to get enough juice for the winter when you need it most. If you live 30 degrees nearer the equator I might recommend it. It will also get knicked if it's on a single storey garage away from the house.


The other option is to connect a DC generator to an old standmounted pushbike, get the gearing right and make you warm up routine 20 minutes on the bike. The number coming up on the machine in my gym says I'm sticking out 200w+ for the time I'm on it. OVer 300w if you push hard. That should give you enough juice to last the rest of your workout esaily. You can get old car batteries for next to nothing (or minus £5 if you are replacing one and would have to pay a disposal fee) and then google "how to recondition car batteries" for stationary use. Although not as good as a leisure battery - they work much more ecomonically when cost is taken into account. (Your car alarm and immobiliser are powered by them 24x7).

If you want to get nerdy,work out what light levels you need, what power the required lamps use, how many hours and then get your watt hours. Then size your batteries. And work out how fast you want to charge them and size your charger (or solar) based on this. It you want arc lamps and solar - good luck.

[SantaClaus]

Sounds like it would be easier to move the shed to your garden!

[Scrag Meister]

I'm sure that I heard recently that a thing called a portable generator had been invented, it was portable and could generate electricity for a small amount of petrol.

[Paddy]

White Laser Lighting. no wires



Laser-based lighting (left) and incandescent lighting (right)

[Ignis Fatuus]

Capacity is usually rated at a given current draw / discharge rate. Car batteries are designed for short high current bursts i.e. starter motors, rather than being deeply discharged at a low current, which will tend to knacker them after a few cycles.

In general discharge at or below the rated current should give you access to the rated capacity of the battery.

You want a "Leisure Battery" as used in motorhomes. Widely available, Halfords sell them.

Though TBH if you just want low-level local illumination, a 5W LED should do it. 12V 5W is < 0.5 A. An 80Ah battery, even estimating at 50% for safety, would give you more than 80 hours light. You wouldn't have to carry it over every day.

Actually a decent Lithium Ion phone battery connected to a 3.6V LED would give you a few hours light for very little carrying weight.

[BolshieBastard]

A question for the electrical types here... if you have a garage shed which cannot practically/affordably be hooked up to the mains, is it feasible to add enough power to have lighting? e.g. a car battery hooked up to a solar panel, that kind of thing, and either low-voltage lighting or perhaps using an inverter?

I'd quite like to use the garage at our new house as a gym but it's over the road, has no windows and I don't want to have to leave the door open for the world to watch... plus in the winter months indoor lighting is a must anyway.

All kinds of Heath Robinson approaches are welcome, ideas on costings are helpful

You need one of these

[sasguru]

I can't comprehend a contractor living somewhere with his garage in a block over the road. How common.

True. But then there's a difference between contractors and itinerant IT jobbers.

[d000hg]

I'm sure that I heard recently that a thing called a portable generator had been invented, it was portable and could generate electricity for a small amount of petrol.

Isn't that a bit noisy and fumey? I don't want to put it outside and I don't want to be in a closed room with a petrol engine running... I've heard that can be rather dangerous

It does sound like caravan equipment is what I'm after though. Should even be able to run a radio/TV off it somehow I assume?

[Ignis Fatuus]

Isn't that a bit noisy and fumey? I don't want to put it outside and I don't want to be in a closed room with a petrol engine running... I've heard that can be rather dangerous

It does sound like caravan equipment is what I'm after though. Should even be able to run a radio/TV off it somehow I assume?

Bit of scope creep there, from the original lighting requirement. Maybe you would want a heater, coffee machine, and fridge? And how about a dishwasher too?

[d000hg]

A hi-fi was mentioned early on. I'm just thinking what the feasible limits would be, based on the caravan comparison.

The minimum I need is to light one smallish room (a single garage) to a similar brightness of a normal room. So probably the equivalent of an old 100W filament lamp. Even with modern lamps we're probably not getting below 20W and I assume that should dwarf the requirements for a radio/CD player.
TV was a bit of a joke, I'd just use my iPad... WiFi should reach from the house!