[VAC] low-drain lighting solution?

[Dan Weeks <theprofileco@xxxxxxx>]

Folks: Some time ago there was a discussion of all kinds of high-tech ways
to achieve low-drain lighting. Here's what I ended up stumbling on. Bought a
florescent reading light,  the kind that clip on the book you're reading,
powered by 4 aa batteries, at Borders. About $35 bucks as I remember. It's
called light voyager, and it's made by phorm. it's bright, it throws a
diffuse light, and it bends every which way, and has a sturdy clip that will
clip on the reading lights over an airstream bed, and lots of other places.
You can also put it in a shirt pocket, and it stands up with the light
shining right in front of you. Anyway, I use this pretty exclusively at
night to task light whatever I'm doing--mostly reading and working at the
computer. I turn the monitor backlight way down, and position the clip light
so it shines on the keyboard. Perfect! Here's the trick: I use ni-cad aa
batteries. A full charge lasts six-8 hours of light. If I were boondocking,
I could power the recharger with an inverter in either the car or the
trailer. Or, there's a spot on the light to plug in 5 v dc from a dc-dc
converter, so you could run the thing directly off the trailer battery. I
think the convenience of being able to take it wherever you go is worth
recharging the ni-cads, though. Just one idea, for what it's worth.
Personally, I like lots of daylight in the day and just enough task light at
night. Since I've turned all my roof vents into skylights, the light voyager
is pretty much the only light I use in here.

Also, re: a/c, I've found that with all the windows and vents open and the
rig in the shade, there's so much ventilation that it's quite liveable.
Above 85 or so I supplement it with a fan and a constantly-refilled glass of
ice water. It is amazing what drinking lots of water and keeping air moving
will do to keep one comfortable (a human evaporative cooler!), even at temps
in the mid-90s, so long as the humidity doesn't go much about 50-60%. A year
of working in the airstream has convinced me that we're conditioned to think
we need a much narrower range of temperature and light to function
comfortably than we really do. This is all by choice--I'm not boondocking,
have 30 amps of power out here, and can run the AC, the furnace, and every
light in the coach simultaneously if I want to. I just am finding I don't
need to, and don't want to.

Dan
'75 Argosy 26