Just thinking out loud hear. Power went out last nite. Flashlight proving to be bare minimum. How about running a string of LED lights off the car battery? Easy to unfurl in hallways and rooms as needed.
Any electrical engineers in here? Bad idea?
Power was out? The upper crust across the bay in Aldershot were beside ouselves because the cable was down.
Coleman makes everything from small rechargeable LED lamps to death ray models. Much more convenient and portable than some ghetto car battery/rope light set-up.
http://www.colemancanada.ca/Products/0703/battery-operated
The first lantern shows 4 light sections. Each section provides 90 min. of light per charge. Approximate run time is 75 hrs. My brain doesn't process that type of information very well. I did not read further.
OK, now, you know how sometimes you'll see a wire/male plug hanging out of car grille? That's probably block heater. Forget about that. Instead imagine wire/female plug attached straight to battery. You'll have a string of lights (think Xmas) pulled thru house with connector wire to car.
I don't want to think about recharging battery packs or storing batteries and then wondering if/when (ice storm) hydro comes back on.
Can't be done! Sorry....
Or... no.. wait.. I mean...
Ah, I get it. You don't want to have to worry about maintaining a battery that just sits around most of the time unused.
Then ya, any 12V LED lights would work, to power off your car, and they'd probably last for days on a charge.
These flashlights ARE awesome.That sounds like a lot of effort to go through for short duration lighting - here's another idea: Costco has small metal LED flashlights that produce 250 lumens (they are super bright!) Sold on a card of 3 for about $20 including batteries. Why not buy a few of these, and place them so they are pointing at the ceiling? Should provide adequate emergency light for any room. As an added bonus, they have a strobe feature if you wanna have a dance party during the blackout.