I have several emergency lights over the stairs etc, which light up when the mains fails.

But if they only last 4 hours, and the power trips when i'm asleep at midnight, and fire breaks out at 6 a.m. or i need to get up, they will be flat.

So recommendations for emergency lights with longer lasting batteries please?

George

In article ,
George Miles wrote:
I have several emergency lights over the stairs etc, which light up when
the mains fails.

But if they only last 4 hours, and the power trips when i'm asleep at
midnight, and fire breaks out at 6 a.m. or i need to get up, they will
be flat.

So recommendations for emergency lights with longer lasting batteries
please?

Alter them so they only come on when the circuit is switched on. Just like
a normal light. Unless you leave lights on 24/7.

--
*The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article , George
Miles wrote:
I have several emergency lights over the stairs etc, which light up when
the mains fails.

But if they only last 4 hours, and the power trips when i'm asleep at
midnight, and fire breaks out at 6 a.m. or i need to get up, they will
be flat.

So recommendations for emergency lights with longer lasting batteries
please?

George

you probably won't find any. The standard specification for emergency
lights is 3 hours.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

Dave Plowman wrote:

George Miles wrote:

recommendations for emergency lights with longer lasting batteries
please?

Alter them so they only come on when the circuit is switched on.

I've not seen emergency lights that work that way

Either they are non-montained, so they charge when the circuit is on,
and light up from battery when the circuit is off, until the battery
runs out.

Or they are maintained, so they are on (from mains) when the circuit is
on, and remain on (from battery) when the circuit is off.

Some are convertible between maintained and non-maintained mode by
removing an internal wire link, I have used this type in a dark cupboard
in conjunction with a "wardrobe door" switch, wire N/C contact of the
switch where the wire link was and it will believe there's a power cut
and come on whenever I open the door.

But I've never seen any that will stay off when the mains power goes
off, ready to be turned on from the battery when wanted ...

"charles" wrote in message
...

In article ,
George
Miles wrote:
I have several emergency lights over the stairs etc, which light up when
the mains fails.

But if they only last 4 hours, and the power trips when i'm asleep at
midnight, and fire breaks out at 6 a.m. or i need to get up, they will
be flat.

So recommendations for emergency lights with longer lasting batteries
please?

George

you probably won't find any. The standard specification for emergency
lights is 3 hours.

yup

that's what ours here are rated for

the PP's scenario is in the realms of fantasy

the use case is that it's the fire that burns out the electrical circuits
that causes the emergency lights to be required

2 * unconnected multi year events, both occurring on the same night is not
catered for

On Tuesday, 20 October 2020 12:45:04 UTC+1, George Miles wrote:
I have several emergency lights over the stairs etc, which
light up when the mains fails.
But if they only last 4 hours, and the power trips when i'm
asleep at midnight, and fire breaks out at 6 a.m. or i need
to get up, they will be flat.
So recommendations for emergency lights with longer lasting
batteries please?

You could just double up the nicad batteries in the LED ones.

Or fit a buzzer so that if the power goes off during the night you get woken up and can stay awake for the rest of the night.

Or fit one with a DP relay to the smoke detector so the mains is removed AND the LEDs are connected ONLY during a fire alarm.

Owain

wrote:

You could just double up the nicad batteries in the LED ones.

I thought multiple batteries in parallel generally leads to uneven
charging, hence circulating currents within the batteries?

In article ,
Andy Burns wrote:
Dave Plowman wrote:

George Miles wrote:

recommendations for emergency lights with longer lasting batteries
please?

Alter them so they only come on when the circuit is switched on.

I've not seen emergency lights that work that way

Either they are non-montained, so they charge when the circuit is on,
and light up from battery when the circuit is off, until the battery
runs out.

Or they are maintained, so they are on (from mains) when the circuit is
on, and remain on (from battery) when the circuit is off.

Some are convertible between maintained and non-maintained mode by
removing an internal wire link, I have used this type in a dark cupboard
in conjunction with a "wardrobe door" switch, wire N/C contact of the
switch where the wire link was and it will believe there's a power cut
and come on whenever I open the door.

But I've never seen any that will stay off when the mains power goes
off, ready to be turned on from the battery when wanted ...

I'd say it not that difficult to mod one?

As the OP says, an emergency light which runs itself flat when not needed
seems a bit pointless to me in a domestic environment. In commercial
premises you'd likely evacuate in event of a power cut, so a different
requirement.

--
*I'm really easy to get along with once people learn to worship me

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

Andy Burns formulated the question :
I thought multiple batteries in parallel generally leads to uneven charging,
hence circulating currents within the batteries?

No. The possible problem is unmatched batteries - all should be the
same age, voltage and capacity.

It is even more of a problem where they are used in series.

On 20/10/2020 12:45, George Miles wrote:
I have several emergency lights over the stairs etc, which light up when the mains fails.

But if they only last 4 hours, and the power trips when i'm asleep at midnight, and fire breaks out at 6 a.m. or i need to get up, they will be flat.

So recommendations for emergency lights with longer lasting batteries please?

George

take a chance...

On 20/10/2020 14:11, tim... wrote:


"charles" wrote in message
...

In article ,
George
Â* Miles wrote:
I have several emergency lights over the stairs etc, which light up when
the mains fails.

But if they only last 4 hours, and the power trips when i'm asleep at
midnight, and fire breaks out at 6 a.m. or i need to get up,Â* they will
be flat.

So recommendations for emergency lights with longer lasting batteries
please?

George

you probably won't find any. The standard specification for emergency
lights is 3 hours.

yup

that's what ours here are rated for

the PP's scenario is in the realms of fantasy

Why?

Has said in previous posts a lot of his guests use candles.




--
Adam

In article , ARW
wrote:
On 20/10/2020 14:11, tim... wrote:


"charles" wrote in message
...

In article ,
George Miles wrote:
I have several emergency lights over the stairs etc, which light up
when the mains fails.

But if they only last 4 hours, and the power trips when i'm asleep at
midnight, and fire breaks out at 6 a.m. or i need to get up, they
will be flat.

So recommendations for emergency lights with longer lasting batteries
please?

George

you probably won't find any. The standard specification for emergency
lights is 3 hours.

yup

that's what ours here are rated for

the PP's scenario is in the realms of fantasy

Why?

Has said in previous posts a lot of his guests use candles.

I have a collection of electric candles (originally bought for stage use),
but they're quite fun for carol singing.




--

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

Do they need to be on when people are asleep in bed. I'm sure there used to
be motion sensing emergency lights on sale.
Brian

--

This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"George Miles" wrote in message
...
I have several emergency lights over the stairs etc, which light up when
the mains fails.

But if they only last 4 hours, and the power trips when i'm asleep at
midnight, and fire breaks out at 6 a.m. or i need to get up, they will be
flat.

So recommendations for emergency lights with longer lasting batteries
please?

George

I am sure Altai used to sell emergency lights with built in PIRs that only
came on both with power off and pir seeing movement.
CPC used to have them, please tell me I'm not dreaming.
Brian

--

This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"tim..." wrote in message
...


"charles" wrote in message
...

In article ,
George
Miles wrote:
I have several emergency lights over the stairs etc, which light up when
the mains fails.

But if they only last 4 hours, and the power trips when i'm asleep at
midnight, and fire breaks out at 6 a.m. or i need to get up, they will
be flat.

So recommendations for emergency lights with longer lasting batteries
please?

George

you probably won't find any. The standard specification for emergency
lights is 3 hours.

yup

that's what ours here are rated for

the PP's scenario is in the realms of fantasy

the use case is that it's the fire that burns out the electrical circuits
that causes the emergency lights to be required

2 * unconnected multi year events, both occurring on the same night is not
catered for

On 20/10/2020 12:45, George Miles wrote:
I have several emergency lights over the stairs etc, which light up
when the mains fails.

But if they only last 4 hours, and the power trips when i'm asleep at
midnight, and fire breaks out at 6 a.m. or i need to get up, they
will be flat.

So recommendations for emergency lights with longer lasting batteries
please?

Emergency lights are specified to last about 3+ hours runtime.
(more than long enough to allow an emergency evacuation)

You would be much better off with an LED torch by your bedside. A simple
modification to bridge the switch with a ~1M resistor or two means you
can even find it in total darkness (and see by it once dark adapted).

I have a couple of emergency lights - one in the kitchen and one in the
dining room since those are the places where being suddenly plunged into
total darkness could be most annoying. I was able to increase the
batteries in them from 1.3Ah to 4.5Ah after a bit of careful measurement
but that was more because it looked like the physical enclosures had
been originally designed to take the larger batteries.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

George Miles posted
I have several emergency lights over the stairs etc, which light up
when the mains fails.

But if they only last 4 hours, and the power trips when i'm asleep at
midnight,

.... and if the emergency lights all coming on doesn't wake anybody up,
and if nobody who wakes up during the night notices that the emergency
lights have come on ...

and fire breaks out at 6 a.m. or i need to get up,

Eh?

they will be flat.

So recommendations for emergency lights with longer lasting batteries please?

If you're going to be that unlucky, you might as well not bother with
emergency lights in the first place.

--
Algernon

On Wed, 21 Oct 2020 09:43:52 +0100, Martin Brown wrote:

You would be much better off with an LED torch by your bedside. A simple
modification to bridge the switch with a ~1M resistor or two means you
can even find it in total darkness (and see by it once dark adapted).

Think I'd prefer passive luminous tape. Wonderinmg what happens after
a period of time with that low load on the battery. I suspect the low
glow will still be present but all you get when you switch the torch
on will be a brief pulse of light or a very short runtime. The dim
glow lulls you into a false sense of security that the batery is OK.

I have a couple of emergency lights - one in the kitchen and one in the
dining room since those are the places where being suddenly plunged into
total darkness could be most annoying.

One next to the CU is a good idea as well. I don't think the
management would pass having a normal emergency light in the living
room, kitchen maybe. The little battery powered motion sensor lights
are a very good solution for both of those locations and can be used
as a torch to break out the proper backup systems.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 20/10/2020 12:45, George Miles wrote:

I have several emergency lights over the stairs etc, which light up
when the mains fails.

But if they only last 4 hours, and the power trips when i'm asleep at
midnight, and fire breaks out at 6 a.m. or i need to get up, they
will be flat.

So recommendations for emergency lights with longer lasting batteries
please?

You could increase the capacity of the supplied batteries for longer run
time. Or install a UPS to feed the light - so on power failure the UPS
will supply mains to the light and it will stay off. When the UPS runs
out of juice it will drop mains to the light and it will take over!

(Having said that, you are dealing with two unlikely events power
failure and a fire. You would have to be particularly unlucky to get
both to happen within a timing window that would cause a problem (i.e.
the fire needs to be more than 3hr after the mains failure, but not
before daybreak)


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On 20/10/2020 12:45, George Miles wrote:
I have several emergency lights over the stairs etc, which light up when the mains fails.

But if they only last 4 hours, and the power trips when i'm asleep at midnight, and fire breaks out at 6 a.m. or i need to get up, they will be flat.

So recommendations for emergency lights with longer lasting batteries please?

George

Change the bulbs in them to LED.

Mike

In article , Muddymike
wrote:
On 20/10/2020 12:45, George Miles wrote:
I have several emergency lights over the stairs etc, which light up
when the mains fails.

But if they only last 4 hours, and the power trips when i'm asleep at
midnight, and fire breaks out at 6 a.m. or i need to get up, they will
be flat.

So recommendations for emergency lights with longer lasting batteries
please?

George

Change the bulbs in them to LED.

Mike

Ones you buy nowadays have LEDs - the size of battery has, consequentlyt,
been reduced - and the price.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

"charles" wrote in message
...
In article , Muddymike
wrote:
On 20/10/2020 12:45, George Miles wrote:
I have several emergency lights over the stairs etc, which light up
when the mains fails.

But if they only last 4 hours, and the power trips when i'm asleep at
midnight, and fire breaks out at 6 a.m. or i need to get up, they will
be flat.

So recommendations for emergency lights with longer lasting batteries
please?

George

Change the bulbs in them to LED.

Mike

Ones you buy nowadays have LEDs - the size of battery has, consequentlyt,
been reduced -

and the price.

seems a pointless move, as for the majority of uses the cost of installation
is likely to swamp the unit price

In article , tim...
wrote:


"charles" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Muddymike wrote:
On 20/10/2020 12:45, George Miles wrote:
I have several emergency lights over the stairs etc, which light up
when the mains fails.

But if they only last 4 hours, and the power trips when i'm asleep
at midnight, and fire breaks out at 6 a.m. or i need to get up,
they will be flat.

So recommendations for emergency lights with longer lasting
batteries please?

George

Change the bulbs in them to LED.

Mike

Ones you buy nowadays have LEDs - the size of battery has,
consequentlyt, been reduced -

and the price.

seems a pointless move, as for the majority of uses the cost of
installation is likely to swamp the unit price


So, who is going to make incandescent 'bulbs' just for emergency lights?

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

charles wrote:

So, who is going to make incandescent 'bulbs' just for emergency lights?

I though (pre-LED) they mainly used 12" T5 tubes?

In article ,
Andy Burns wrote:
charles wrote:

So, who is going to make incandescent 'bulbs' just for emergency lights?

I though (pre-LED) they mainly used 12" T5 tubes?

I've fitted some with lamps, but even small tubes are going out of
production,

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

On Tuesday, 3 November 2020 19:23:17 UTC, Andy Burns wrote:
So, who is going to make incandescent 'bulbs' just for emergency lights?
I though (pre-LED) they mainly used 12" T5 tubes?

I had a very old one that used 2 x torch bulbs. Don't remember the rating.

Owain

"charles" wrote in message
...
In article , tim...
wrote:


"charles" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Muddymike wrote:
On 20/10/2020 12:45, George Miles wrote:
I have several emergency lights over the stairs etc, which light up
when the mains fails.

But if they only last 4 hours, and the power trips when i'm asleep
at midnight, and fire breaks out at 6 a.m. or i need to get up,
they will be flat.

So recommendations for emergency lights with longer lasting
batteries please?

George

Change the bulbs in them to LED.

Mike

Ones you buy nowadays have LEDs - the size of battery has,
consequentlyt, been reduced -

and the price.

seems a pointless move, as for the majority of uses the cost of
installation is likely to swamp the unit price


So, who is going to make incandescent 'bulbs' just for emergency lights?

I meant deliberately putting smaller batteries in

And one of the things about these bespoke LED products is that they tend to
be sealed for life

which means that in 25 years when the bulbs die, you have to get the
electrician in to do a complete re-install

So much better if it had standard fittings and you manually put LED bulbs in
there yourself

"charles" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Andy Burns wrote:
charles wrote:

So, who is going to make incandescent 'bulbs' just for emergency
lights?

I though (pre-LED) they mainly used 12" T5 tubes?

I've fitted some with lamps, but even small tubes are going out of
production,

replacement LEDs with the same fitting are usually available

In article , tim...
wrote:


"charles" wrote in message
...
In article , tim...
wrote:


"charles" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Muddymike wrote:
On 20/10/2020 12:45, George Miles wrote:
I have several emergency lights over the stairs etc, which light
up when the mains fails.

But if they only last 4 hours, and the power trips when i'm
asleep at midnight, and fire breaks out at 6 a.m. or i need to
get up, they will be flat.

So recommendations for emergency lights with longer lasting
batteries please?

George

Change the bulbs in them to LED.

Mike

Ones you buy nowadays have LEDs - the size of battery has,
consequentlyt, been reduced -

and the price.

seems a pointless move, as for the majority of uses the cost of
installation is likely to swamp the unit price


So, who is going to make incandescent 'bulbs' just for emergency lights?

I meant deliberately putting smaller batteries in

And one of the things about these bespoke LED products is that they tend
to be sealed for life

which means that in 25 years when the bulbs die, you have to get the
electrician in to do a complete re-install

So much better if it had standard fittings and you manually put LED bulbs
in there yourself


But they are standard fittings - modern standards

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

In article ,
tim... wrote:


"charles" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Andy Burns wrote:
charles wrote:

So, who is going to make incandescent 'bulbs' just for emergency
lights?

I though (pre-LED) they mainly used 12" T5 tubes?

I've fitted some with lamps, but even small tubes are going out of
production,

replacement LEDs with the same fitting are usually available

Plenty for large fluorescents - I have a few here, but haven't seen any for
the small tubes.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

On 20/10/2020 17:58, ARW wrote:
On 20/10/2020 14:11, tim... wrote:


"charles" wrote in message
...

In article ,
George
Â* Miles wrote:
I have several emergency lights over the stairs etc, which light up
when
the mains fails.

But if they only last 4 hours, and the power trips when i'm asleep at
midnight, and fire breaks out at 6 a.m. or i need to get up,Â* they will
be flat.

So recommendations for emergency lights with longer lasting batteries
please?

George

you probably won't find any. The standard specification for emergency
lights is 3 hours.

yup

that's what ours here are rated for

the PP's scenario is in the realms of fantasy

Why?

Has said in previous posts a lot of his guests use candles.




for illumination, or ... ?