I have a 5.5w UV lamp and need to hook it up to a 14.8v battery. What do I need?

 

I have a 5.5w UV lamp and need to hook it up to a 14.8v battery. What do I need?

Do you have a spec sheet for said lamp? Or a link to where you bought it at, at least?

 

Is it a fluorescent tube with two pins on each end, if so you will need a cfl inverter board, like the ones for caravans.

 

Water purification with UV is energy intensive and requires a multi minute exposure time. A few seconds under UV will NOT sterilize drinking water.

 

Also be sure whatever vessel the water is in is transparent to UV wavelengths that are germicidal. That is usually considered to be UV-C at 254 nm. Unless, of course, you are irradiating through an open top. There are a lot of factors that can interfere, such as dissolved iron salts and so forth. It is risky business on a camping trip. I would not rely on its efficiency.

John

 

Unless the purifier is solely for a small-scale laboratory experiment I suspect you'll need a LOT more than 5.5W do have any useful effect.

 

Two or three drops of regular old clorox bleach is more than sufficient to kill all living microbes in one gallon of water. It tastes like a swimming pool, but will not hurt you if consumed. It is easy to carry and a very small amount can sterilize many gallons of drinking water.

 

my hot tub uses an ozonator, it pulls air through a box with a uv light which ionises the air, which is bubbled through the water in the tub. this works instead of using chlorine to disinfect the water. short wave uv.