Penlight and 12v power generator

[Briggs 2.0]

I thought I'd share a couple of bits of kit I've been using recently.

This is a neat little LED torch. It cost £5 from Maplin, and I noticed Screwfix sell them too. There's a lot of light from one AA battery and the pen clip is handy for fixing to clothing if you need two hands free.



The second bit of kit is something I've been using to power my electrical gadgets when off-grid. This is a Clansman battery and hand-recharge pack. There are several hand rechargers out there, most made from a flimsy plastic that produce very little useable power whereas this beast has a 4.0Amp/Hr battery and the hand recharger can fully recharge the cell in about three hours. As you can see it's not made from a flimsy plastic!

"Whoa!" I hear all you ex-army types shouting, "The Clansman generates 24volts!". That's right, it does. The silver gizmo that fits perfectly on the battery, converts 24v to 12v plus it converts 26v to 12v, and 22v to 12v so it always produces a stable 12.0 volts whether the 24 volt battery is fully charged or depleted.

Attach a regular 12v to 240v inverter and you've got ample backup power for small to medium size electrical items. I can run my laptop for hours and recharge an iPhone in about 30mins. I have been using a 150 watt inverter with 240v and USB outlets. It's not going to provide enough power to run an electric cooker but in a grid-down situation, I will be able to keep my internet router powered plus the 3G femtocell so we have uninterurpted internet and phone coverage, providing our ISP is still up of course. It is also capable of powering my HF/UHF radio kit plus anything else that is 240v (via inverter) or 12v directly. Basically, any essential electrical items that use 12 volts can be kept running. I've not tried it yet but it would be perfectly capable of running a 12 volt water filter for hours on end. Not bad eh?

I'm working on assembling a tidy professional looking box to attach to the side of the battery with a variety of power sockets for USB, 12v car adaptor and if I can make it fit, a 240v outlet. When I've got that sorted I'll post up a photo of the finished item along with a parts list.

The Clansman recharger with one battery cost about £38 from eBay and spare rechargable batteries are about a tenner. The 24v to 12v inverter was £10 from eBay.

[Yorkshire Andy]

See my inverter project there are pics somewhere on here

Will search for it on my PC tonight if you can't locate it

[FEISTY]

I thought I'd share a couple of bits of kit I've been using recently.

This is a neat little LED torch. It cost £5 from Maplin, and I noticed Screwfix sell them too. There's a lot of light from one AA battery and the pen clip is handy for fixing to clothing if you need two hands free.



The second bit of kit is something I've been using to power my electrical gadgets when off-grid. This is a Clansman battery and hand-recharge pack. There are several hand rechargers out there, most made from a flimsy plastic that produce very little useable power whereas this beast has a 4.0Amp/Hr battery and the hand recharger can fully recharge the cell in about three hours. As you can see it's not made from a flimsy plastic!

"Whoa!" I hear all you ex-army types shouting, "The Clansman generates 24volts!". That's right, it does. The silver gizmo that fits perfectly on the battery, converts 24v to 12v plus it converts 26v to 12v, and 22v to 12v so it always produces a stable 12.0 volts whether the 24 volt battery is fully charged or depleted.

Attach a regular 12v to 240v inverter and you've got ample backup power for small to medium size electrical items. I can run my laptop for hours and recharge an iPhone in about 30mins. I have been using a 150 watt inverter with 240v and USB outlets. It's not going to provide enough power to run an electric cooker but in a grid-down situation, I will be able to keep my internet router powered plus the 3G femtocell so we have uninterurpted internet and phone coverage, providing our ISP is still up of course. It is also capable of powering my HF/UHF radio kit plus anything else that is 240v (via inverter) or 12v directly. Basically, any essential electrical items that use 12 volts can be kept running. I've not tried it yet but it would be perfectly capable of running a 12 volt water filter for hours on end. Not bad eh?

I'm working on assembling a tidy professional looking box to attach to the side of the battery with a variety of power sockets for USB, 12v car adaptor and if I can make it fit, a 240v outlet. When I've got that sorted I'll post up a photo of the finished item along with a parts list.

The Clansman recharger with one battery cost about £38 from eBay and spare rechargable batteries are about a tenner. The 24v to 12v inverter was £10 from eBay.

If only I really understood all this. Am I right in thinking that if you had no mains power or you were just off-grid, it would take you 3 hours of cranking that thing by hand to re-charge a battery (hopefully something with a bit more oomph than a AA) and if you want to plug something in, you have to adapt it? Please tell me it's more efficient than that. If I was cold, wet and hungry, I don't think I'd have the energy. I've come to the conclusion that, if I want to set up some solar or other electrical off-grid power, I will have to employ a professional to set it up. If it was up to me, I'd have the whole roof covered in solar panels, a turbine in the garden, a multi-fuel burner instead of our gas fire and a variety of other methods of cooking, lighting and power (paraffin lamps and stove, etc). Unfortunately, it's not just me, but I'm working on it. If only there was a prepper-minded electrician out there who could advise us on the cheapest legal and safe ways to go off-grid without compromising on convenience or the appearance of your home. Being still able to take long showers, one after the other, without the water going cold and allowing us to keep the home running (lights, computers, TVs, cooker, dishwasher, etc, etc) would be perfect. It's sad that it is so expensive to get alternative power generation fitted. Relying on mains electricity is like putting all our eggs in one basket and it makes me feel really uncomfortable.

[ForgeCorvus]

Fiesty: Not a battery, the battery.
The big battery used by the army to power the Clansman radio (which is a massive backpack mounted beast, not a dinky little walkie-talkie).
I think Briggs uses it like a 'Leisure Battery' in a camper rather then as a generator

That said.Briggs, isn't there a conversion kit to make the Clansman crank pedal-powered ?

[Briggs 2.0]

@Feisty

The hand crank fits on top of the battery. The battery (without any cranking) has enough power stored to recharge an iPhone about 20 times before you would ever need to turn the cranking handle. I use this when off-grid to recharge phones and tablets but it's also in readiness for a power-outage at home and we will then use it to keep our communications up by powering the internet router HF radio, plus some emergency lighting. It's best used for anything that is 12V but by using an inverter it can run 240V equipment.

@Forgecorvus

Yes, it can be pedal powered by fitting a sprocket or hand cranked as in the photo. I don't have the sprocket though. There is a light on the cranker that illuminates when the handle is being turned at the right speed to generate 24V to recharge the main battery.

[FEISTY]

Hi Guys. Thanks for the explanation. I'm still unsure how exactly you could connect up electrical items to it, but I guess that's not covered in Batteries 101 . So it's basically a big re-chargeable battery. Connected up to an exercise bike would be perfect - that would get us fit . Can the battery be plugged in to re-charge pre SHTF. I would not be able to spend the time hand-cranking it even in the best of situations. Priorities would change in other circumstances. This is really cheap for what it is (if that's a standard price) if it lasts forever. Do you have to keep some charge in it at all times (seem to remember something about not letting car batteries run down - in the olden days - or it would shorten their life)? I think, unless you're used to tinkering about with stuff like this, it's a bit of a mystery to most folk how to cobble it all together to get something that works efficiently. It's always, for low cost, something extra in the arsenal. You can always rely on me to ask the questions other people avoid in case they look stupid .

[ForgeCorvus]

Feisty: The only stupid questions are the ones you don't ask

I think this

I'm working on assembling a tidy professional looking box to attach to the side of the battery with a variety of power sockets for USB, 12v car adaptor and if I can make it fit, a 240v outlet. When I've got that sorted I'll post up a photo of the finished item along with a parts list.

Means that he is wiring it up with a range of power sockets to plug gear into, but ATM its not rigged that way.

Briggs: I'd be interested in the answer to Feisty's question about charging from 240v supply

[Auxiliary]

@briggs 2.0, your post on the clansman hand generator was such that you've actually inspired me to buy one. I'm planning on buying a power inverter as we'll with a uk mains outlet on it to make connection to mains based devices easy.

Could I bee so cheeky as to ask your opinion on a couple of points though?

First, there are a load of 24v to 230v power inverters on eBay for about £30. The output wattage of these devices seems to vary widely though. For running low power devices like a lamp / tablet / phone / radio / router (not all at the same time) would 150 watt output be enough? Something I have read suggests I should double this to 300 watt as not to overload the inverter. Your thoughts appreciated!

Second, I was originally planning on connecting the inverter to the battery in much the same way as shown in your picture. When the clansman arrived though I realised there were also positive and negative terminals on the top of the crank unit. Do you know if it's possible to draw battery power from the top of the crank unit? Or must the inverter always be connected direct to the battery terminals?

Apologies if any of these are stupid questions, power isn't one of my key skills!

[cpslashm]

FWIW if you can afford it, get a pure sine wave inverter. Electronics can get fussy with the cheaper type.

[Yorkshire Andy]

be aware that an inverter draws a large current from a 12v battery.......

my 1000w inverter draws about 50amps at 900w load....