Welcome to this week’s casual kōrero thread!

This post will be pinned in this community so you can always find it, and will stay for about a week until replaced by the next one.

It’s for talking about anything that doesn’t justify a full post. For example:

  • Something interesting that happened to you
  • Something humourous that happened to you
  • Something frustrating that happened to you
  • A quick question
  • A request for recommendations
  • Pictures of your pet
  • A picture of a cloud that kind of looks like a hippo
  • Anything else, there are no rules (except the rule)

So how’s it going?

  • eagleeyedtiger@lemmy.nzEnglish
    4·
    2 months ago

    A bit of a long shot, but can anyone recommend a battery powered inverter that uses pure sine wave, that isn’t painfully expensive?

    I’m trying to power some outdoor festoon lighting that uses LED bulbs, the original plan was to use the Ryobi battery topper so I could use my existing batteries. But after a little research I found out it uses modified sine wave, which apparently isn’t great for LED lighting (runs inefficiently and generates more heat, thus reducing lifespan). Not sure if my search skills are lacking or is really nothing in that range

    • NoRamyunForYou@lemmy.nz
      4·
      2 months ago

      I can’t be of any help but those Ryobi ones look quite interesting. Didn’t know they existed. Though at 150W, you’d be constantly changing out batteries!

      Does your lighting plus straight an AC wall outlet?

      • eagleeyedtiger@lemmy.nzEnglish
        4·
        2 months ago

        Yeah it plugs into a standard wall outlet.

        I guess it would depend on what you’re using it for, the max is 150W. Seems like a good way to utilise their batteries as power banks in an emergency, especially if you’re already in their ecosystem. They do have up to 9ah batteries. I have multiple 4ah batteries which I believed should have run the lights for a few hours, if only it was suitable

        • NoRamyunForYou@lemmy.nz
          4·
          2 months ago

          just from having a think about it, your basically going DC (from the battery) to AC from the inverter back to DC via some inverter incorporated into the Festoon lights right? Do you already have the lights?, Or are there versions of the light that use DC?

          • eagleeyedtiger@lemmy.nzEnglish
            3·
            2 months ago

            Already have them unfortunately, but I did learn after the fact that running them on DC would be the most efficient.

            Mainly I don’t want to go through the hassle of getting an outlet installed outside as we’d only ever run them for an hour or two if we were outside when it’s dark. Something portable I could just plug in when we wanted to use them was the idea