Using 12v LED Downlights to Thwart Load-shedding

[The_Ogre]

So while cleaning out old junk in my garage, I fount one 12v LED downlight that I bought some time back. I actually bought 10 or 20 with the view of installing them in my previous house.

I bought a mini-UPS for my router -9v,12,15v,24v for R499 from OneDealADay) only to find that my router alone draws 2A at 12v and this thing only provides 1A. So I thought of getting some other use out of it, which is why I dug around in the garage.

So I hooked the downlight up to the mini-UPS and it works brilliantly, LED's are nominal at 5v, but I put that bad boy on at 12v and it's super bright. Now, my house is full of downlighters and I'm now thinking of drilling more holes and putting in a few of these 12v jobbies as a backup and buy a couple more of these mini-UPS's.

I want it to appear as natural as possible, in that, if someone turns on a specific button on my Sonoff light switches, the backup LED's will illuminate. I'll have to do research on how I will achieve that because all the relays in a Sonoff lightswitch has an AC live connected to it.

I need a way to turn these things on automatically as well, so I'll need to get either a NO relay to close the circuit when the grid fails, or a thyristor and use a zero cross as input to an ESP32 or ESP8266. I've got a shitload of these things laying in a cupboard, just itching to be used.

This is the mini UPS I bought while drunk https://onedealaday.co.za/deals/pow...yCwjZDtFBtjRqj8hLeAnLiHdKsWBm0KxoC8P0QAvD_BwE

What are your thoughts, boys and gals?

 

[upup]

No, rather use a small cheap battery charger, that can handle the amps, with a decent battery for backup, then you may use your transistors to start it, just make sure you label the 12 volt down light fitting as 12V or a colour.

 

[The_Ogre]

No, rather use a small cheap battery charger, that can handle the amps, with a decent battery for backup, then you may use your transistors to start it, just make sure you label the 12 volt down light fitting as 12V or a colour.

What's your reason for not wanting to go with that UPS thing? It uses 18650 Lithium batteries. Buying a 12v equivalent will cost more than double the price. And the charger will add more to the cost of things.

 

[krieg]

What's your reason for not wanting to go with that UPS thing? It uses 18650 Lithium batteries. Buying a 12v equivalent will cost more than double the price. And the charger will add more to the cost of things.

Are you sure about the amps and not looking at the USB output? That battery should work with an average router.

As for your downlights you don't mention the wattage so it's difficult to calculate a battery size. If you are looking at putting a lot of downlights I would also go for a single big battery feeding the lights. That UPS is basically a 7aH battery which gives you about 96wH, if the lights consume 5 watts each you can run 5 lights for two hours before the battery is half. This is not taking into account the length of wire needed between the UPS and the lights. Also I wouldn't feel comfortable putting any transformer in a roof.

 

[dunkyd]

Read up a bit more before throwing cash at things !