Need help-wall plug to battery conversion?

I have a 12” long LED accent light I bought on clearance a few years back. Had no idea what to use it for but couldn’t pass up the deal. Well, now I want to use it as the lighting for my wall replicator.

I could plug it into my standard US 120V outlet (reads a little lover with the voltmeter), but I would love to power it via batteries if I could. Anyone know how to convert a 120V plug-in light strip to battery power? Is it as simple as cutting off the plug and attaching to some strong batteries and accepting the lower light output? Or will the LEDs require full spec’ed voltage to operate at all? Or is there just no feasible way to do it?

Is there a Transformer at the end of the plug?

If you bypass the step-down transformer + rectifier, shouldn't be a problem.


Pics of the item will help.

Will post pix from home tonight. I looked for it on-line but it was a close-out clearance item at Menard's and they no longer have it listed on the web site.

There is a rocker switch on the LED bar. The plug-in wire emerges from the LED bar and runs uninterrupted all the way down to the 2 prong plug.

OK,this is the lighting unit I am using.

It looks from the picture that it is just a normal plug not a transformer at the end. A transformer is a plug that converts AC to DC or DC to AC power. Your house runs on AC 120 Volts outlets. A transformer is usually a black box of various sizes with a plug and will have a label on it stating mA and Hz.

You might have to buy a transformer for DC to AC to hook up a battery to it. The hook up will be battery to transformer to LED fixture.

I hope this helps

Inside of the fixture is where you'll find the AC to DC and voltage regulator components. The question is how much electronics experience do you have (or how brave you're feeling).

It is likely that the voltage is stepped down inside the fixture from 120v to somewhere around 12v, maybe less. One way to check (I'm not responsible for you, etc...) is to open the fixture and check the voltage as it exits the regulator circuit on it's way to the LEDs.

Once you have that number, then you know what you'll need for battery power.

To give you an example of what to expect: A white LED typically uses 3v to 5v, so let's go with 4v. If the 9 LEDs are wired in parallel, then the circuit will put out 4v. If the LEDs are hooked up in series, then the circuit will put out 36v. (I'm leaning towards parallel/4v.)

The reason they built the lights this way is because they're linkable. When linked they pass the 120v on to the next strip. If they set them up with a single wall wart to drop the voltage and power them all, then they'd have to sell every one with that item, rather than individually cheaper built in circuits.

I hope this breaks it down a bit. If you have more questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

I'm glad I refreshed before I submitted my post, because I would have basically been repeating everything monkeyracing just said...so there's two votes for that plan.

Thanks all. This has been very helpful. As I get to installing it I will update my Ready Room blog.

The circuit should have everything you need already to limit voltage to the specific LED so all you need to do is use a multimeter to measure the voltage coming out of the inverter and match batteries to it (Non rechargeable AA are 1.5v per battery for example, rechargeable are between 1.2v-1.4v) You'll get more bang for your buck using multiple AA batteries vs say 9v & larger cell batteries, rechargeable AA generally have at least 1400-2400 mhA where a 9v only has about 400-600 mhA

Hey there, I am facing the same problem, I want to convert one of those christmas reindeer with the moving head from socket power to a battery to run it. I am new to electrical work so I dont have any idea what I am doing, can anyone help?
Amy

Tricky. It depends on if and where the power gets converted from 110v to whatever the item uses. If the item uses a wall wart (black, plug in power supply) the output specs should be listed on it. Otherwise you'll probably need to dig around inside of it to see if it has an internal adapter.

If the lights on the deer are incandescent, then you're probably out of luck. They'll be running at full voltage.

In any case, your local hobby shop would be a good resource. They're usually chock full of geeks who know a bunch about electronics. Plus, they're a great source for all sorts of batteries, chargers, radios controllers, LED controllers, etc. electronics shops, especially ones focused on commercial business are very handy, too.

Also, because there's always more, lurk around some robotics forums. Those guys are cool!

Jim

If it is like the one my parents have then you are out of luck. On theirs the AC directly drives the motor and lights. I guess you could get a car battery and one of those converters that let you plug a TV in to you car cigarette lighter and wire that converter directly to the battery. If you are desperate.

Sent from my Etch-A-Sketch

Great thanks guys! Ill check into it at a shop lol have to go there anyways to try and get a resin kit to encase my tarantula lol As for the deer project, i successfully transformed it into an animatronic hellhound, have two more on the go with significant improvements and am designing an animatronic zombie deer. Love to hear anyone's suggestions and feedback!
Amy

Just had another thought regarding RC stuff. The head motor could be replaced with a servo. Many more possibilities for control and they run on 6v.

this is embarrassing to ask, lol im an arts major so I dont know the first thing about engineering or electrical work, but what exactly is a servo? lol *sheepish grin*

A servo, in RC terms, is a controllable motor/gearbox combined in a small, plastic case. A 3 wire plug comes out one side of it. The wires are for power + and -, and for a control signal. The plug goes to a receiver, which accepts signals from a radio.

The output side of the servo is a splined shaft, that generally rotates a little over 180 degrees.

To operate a servo, in any sort of radio controlled car, plane, Earth destroying robot, you need a few basics.

- Radio transmitter & receiver. Cheap 27mhz AM radios can be found used for super cheap these days. Like $10 cheap. 2.4ghz I'd the current standard, but generally costs more.

- Battery. The simplest thing would be to find a 6v battery pack, say 4 AA, as servos are happiest at that voltage. In RC terms this is called a receiver pack. A plug in adapter would work well, too. These will plug into the 'bat' connection on the receiver.

- Servos can run anywhere from $10 to $...a bunch. For a simple project that won't need boatloads of power, the $10 job will do.

I think that covers it. As always, if you need more, just ask.

wow ok thats not too bad at all, youve been a huge help to me, thank you