Light options

[ylexot]

If I were building a new house, I'd have it wired with a big power supply providing DC voltage (probably 5V USB plugs and 12V car plugs) throughout and use that to drive LEDs and/or EL wire and panels. Most of the expense of the LED bulbs is the circuitry to convert 110VAC into a DC voltage for the LEDs. You could also use the DC voltage to power most electronics if you have a clean enough power supply. DC really is a much better system, but AC is just needed to distribute the power.

 

[GWguy]

If I were building a new house, I'd have it wired with a big power supply providing DC voltage (probably 5V USB plugs and 12V car plugs) throughout and use that to drive LEDs and/or EL wire and panels. Most of the expense of the LED bulbs is the circuitry to convert 110VAC into a DC voltage for the LEDs. You could also use the DC voltage to power most electronics if you have a clean enough power supply. DC really is a much better system, but AC is just needed to distribute the power.

I've always wanted to do the same thing, but run the 12v wiring to a separate panel connected to batteries charged by solar cells.

The argument for using AC vs DC was waged at the very beginning of the electrical emergence. If I recall, Edison wanted to use DC but was overruled. AC can deliver power over greater distances with little loss using simple transformers, whereas DC has high line loss over distance and you need expensive DC/DC inverters to convert the voltage.

 

[Gilligan]

The argument for using AC vs DC was waged at the very beginning of the electrical emergence. If I recall, Edison wanted to use DC but was overruled. AC can deliver power over greater distances with little loss using simple transformers, whereas DC has high line loss over distance and you need expensive DC/DC inverters to convert the voltage.

Exactly. But when I still lived in 7D at the end of Brown Rd some 30 years ago, the 'open' DC battery vat and all the wiring from it to the other buildings was still in place on that property. Pretty cool. I understand it was not supplanted by AC line power until around 1948.

 

[ylexot]

I've always wanted to do the same thing, but run the 12v wiring to a separate panel connected to batteries charged by solar cells.

The argument for using AC vs DC was waged at the very beginning of the electrical emergence. If I recall, Edison wanted to use DC but was overruled. AC can deliver power over greater distances with little loss using simple transformers, whereas DC has high line loss over distance and you need expensive DC/DC inverters to convert the voltage.

Tesla was the DC proponent. Edison was for AC.

 

[GWguy]

Tesla was the DC proponent. Edison was for AC.

Right. I knew Edison was involved, just didn't remember exactly, and too lazy to look it up...

 

[glhs837]

As I recall, one of the tipping points was that Edison fronted the electric chair, and that had a big part in public opinion. Ah, I was close......

Electric chair - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

two of his workers developed it for New York. And he electrocuted a bunch of animals, ostensibly to show that electrocution was a painless method, but also as a sly way to work against adoption of Westinghouses AC, by showing how dangerous it was.

ylex, you have it backwards. We think of Edison being on the winning side, but not this time, he was the DC guy. George Westinghouse bought Tesla's polyphase AC system patents and.

George Westinghouse - The History of Electricity