[Loch-ruadh] electricity

Sluggy! slugmusk at linuxlegend.com
Wed Feb 6 09:11:48 PST 2002

Jane Sitton wrote:

> <snip snip snip>
> Non-heating devices like <snip> a lamp,

> Don't think for a minute that a lamp is non-heating.

hehehe when I said non-heating, I meant that one should probably not use
a battery/inverter system as described to run electric skillets,
toasters, space heaters, blow driers and other such appliances that are
*designed* specifically to produce copious amounts of heat. They do so
by drawing huge amounts of power. A blow drier is likely rated at 1500
watts or so. This is nearly four times the rated capacity of the basic
inverter that I've described.

Watts are funny when you get into the details. Although things
electrical are rated in watts, the watt is a unit of energy that can be
directly converted to BTUs or calories or any other unit of heat that
you might choose and 1 watt is actually a lot of power. A 100W light
bulb draws 100 watts of energy. In a standard incandescent light bulb,
this electrical energy is used to heat a metal filament until it is
white hot, thus giving off a certain amount of light as well as a lot of
heat. In fact, most of the energy used in a standard light bulb is
wasted in heat and it is that heat that makes the bulb wear out. This is
why flourescent replacements are getting so popular. Same amount of
light for a fraction of the heat and thus, a lower wattage bulb.

My doggies are very happy about this waste, as a 500 watt floodlight
keeps the garage warm for them. A 500W bulb is not a particularly
efficient heater, but with no moving parts, it is less susceptible to
damage or failure than a space heater in the same room would be. I had a
250W heater bulb, but it proved very delicate.

> Logan found a [solar charger] at, I think, Harbor Freight Tools, for around
> $50.  We were able to run a fan with it.  Looks really, really out of place
> at an event, though, and you can't really hide it, as it needs to be in the
> sunlight.  But works well.  He can tell you more about it than I can,
> though.  Feel free to ask him about it.

According to Timothy's post, he was able to use a deep cycle battery all
week at last GW without recharging it, so the added expense of a solar
charger would probably not be justified for a frugal one week outting.
If a person wanted to use more electrical devices or were on a longer
outting (Gwenllian?), they might want to consider one. The solar panel
can recharge the battery during the day and you can use powered devices
at night.



"No dignified person would voluntarily submit to it; the people who do
submit to it are usually defective to begin with and come out of the
process moderately deranged, if not actively insane." - Dave Barry, on
running for president

More information about the Loch-Ruadh mailing list