Rechargeable lamp, am I crackers, or are they?

[Wombat]

I have one of these:

http://www.machinemart.co.uk/shop/product/details/rwl12-12v-rechargeable-fluorescent-lig?da=1&TC=RV-010813005

Which has been a good and useful servant when I've been working in church bell towers, and trying to find lost bits of steam engines in the garden at night.

It suddenly stopped working, and investigation reveals it consists of a 12v lead acid battery, a little cheap nasty looking bit of circuitry including a weeny transformer and a couple of ICs, and a mains voltage CFL to provide the lumens (plenty of them, and in a nice spread, too).    The bit of circuitry must be dead as its 12v in, 12v out.  The CFL works fine in a fitting at home, and the battery is fine. 

A few seconds Googling reveals 12volt CFLs readily available, so why did they make it with a mains voltage one and some circuitry?  Are 12v CFLs hard to get in China, or something?   Should I just whip out the circuit and rewire the switch to direct wiring from the battery to a new 12volt CFL lamp?  Am I missing some elementary point here?  The 12v CFLs seem equally powerful, so that shouldn't be an issue.

[Feanor]

No, it doesn't sound like you are missing anything.

Looks like the inverter is pooped.
The transformer is weeny because it's operating at a high frequency, not mains 50Hz.

We have some latern-style things ( the kind of thing Hagrid might hold at Hogsmead station ) for camping, and they use LV CFLs.  seem to work fine.

--
R

[Kim]

I concur.  12V CFLs must be more expensive than naff inverter boards in that particular Chinese factory.  Best not thought about too hard, for that way lies insanity.

[Wombat]

Thanks, peoples!  I somehow knew this would involve Kim....

12v CFL to be purchased this evening.

[rogerzilla]

Clarke stuff is mostly landfill.  I was bought a high-spec cordless drill one Christmas, with a spare battery.  It lasted long enough to put up one curtain pole before it crapped out terminally.

[Wombat]

Sadly nobody else makes such a device (Yes, this IS an invitation to be proven wrong, I'd be happy to be shown something else).  It seems to be Clarke or nothing.  All high power torches and the like give a far too concentrated beam, this one has a lovely wide beam spread.  I do have a rather fine mains powered CFL flood, with a 60w lamp, but for where there's no mains, this thing with its decent stand and 5hr endurance, does the biz, and at £35 I'm not complaining its bust after a couple of years of less than sympathetic use.  £7 for a new lamp just ordered, and 15 mins with a soldering iron will sort it.   If the battery craps out, i have friends who sell lead acid batteries, so can get good prices.  I will be making a big LED 540 lumen thing with no optics, to give the widest spread I can, but that will cost far more, and give less light, although somewhat lighter to carry.

[frankly frankie]

work lights are readily available

[Wombat]

Er, no.  I only had a quick look, but are any of them rechargeable, capable of sitting on the ground and aiming a broad spread of light on a work area for 5 hours?  Most of them seemed to be mains powered, or far too limited in scope.  The LED rechargeable one at the top is fairly good, but nowhere near the light spread needed.

The areas I work in often have no electricity, and I need a large area generally illuminated, rather than a concentrated beam in one small area.  A colleague has one of the LED strip ones, and its not bad at all.  I can charge mine from mains or the car, which helps on a long job.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

I have recently got one of these, cordless, Ni-Mh, LED.

It is new and I have hardly used it yet.  The light provided is a bit disapointing compared to my corded worklights but, used quite close up, is adequate.  It's expensive for what it is, IMO and ought to have Li-on batteries.  Once the batteries go that's it.

[Wombat]

I can now report that the inverter circuit is lying on a worktable at home, and the lamp is working just fine!  New 12v CFL purchased, and fitted.  A moment of terror when the bloody thing didn't work, then I checked the polarity of the wiring.  Bloody Chinese idiots had wired the positive to the outside terminal, not the centre one...  Quick bit of wire swapping, and all is well.  12v DC CFLs are unsurprisingly, polarity sensitive.

[Valiant]

The good thing about Clarke is that most of their products do have a lifetime garantee and they do honour them no questions asked.