Okay bit strange this one.

We have a garage without power running to it – I think we have a covenant saying we can’t have it “wired up”.

Summer is fine as I just run an extension from the house but with winter/wet weather it’s a bit of a faf.

Sooooo ….. Recently I have been using a 1000 lumen bike light to light the garage when I’m tinkering. That and a head torch.

I reckon with some kind of refractor (?) I could better spread the light.

Any suggestions as to what I could use?

Point it a board with tin foil on it?

Look into a home brew 12V solar powered system with old car/truck battery and 12V LED down lighters.

Like it RM 8)

Suitably home brew

You could use some kind of photographic diffuser/shoot through umbrella.

1000 lumen might overheat without some kind of additional cooling.

Have you thought about hooking up a leisure battery to run a load of 12v led light? Probably cost more initially, but you can just bring the battery into the house every now & again to charge it. A leisure battery should power some leds for ages.

you want an even non-shadowy light to work, rather than brightness – paint ceiling white – point the torch up at it so that diffused light comes back down

thats the best of a bad job though if you insist on using the torch. You’d be better off with a couple of cheap 12V flouros and a leisure battery. If you fancy you could add a solar panel but it wouldn’t really pay for itself, you’d hardly ever need to charge the battery.

Could you not put a suitable ip rated socket outside of the house and then run an extention into that. If your worried about water on the extention run it through some old hosepipe and tape up the end right near the plug. .?

Surely you can buy some kind of garage-specific battery powered light? Or maybe even solar powered?

as said above , a bike light will overheat and cut off .

my garage is led lit granted from 16 volt mains adapters. but will work from a li ion battery too
though a good battery would be an 18 volt power tool battery .

6 LEDs on a strip of aluminium with a defuser and it works a treat

also done the same for an outside light above the kitchen window

if you are interested I will post some pics tomorrow

As above solar with a lesiure battery, maybe even a little wind turbine to keep it topped up. Some 12v lights and you will probably get a phone charger working.

Labcraft LED strip and a wee motorbike battery.

Or just fit mains. If you don’t tell anyone they’ll never know.

I’m not supposed to make candles in my flat but one day I will just to spite them!

Solar panel charging an old car battery, connected to 12v CFL lights is how I illuminate the inside of my shed.