To see at nighttime ive been getting by with a 5v USB bulb for a while now. Its adequate and power efficient lighting for sure. But honestly I dont want adequate, I want the luxury of nice bright dimmable lighting.
I bought a cheap string light fixture, a male car cigarette outlet connector, and some 12-24v bulbs.
The string fixture had come with home ac outlet plug, so that needed to be cut off and replaced with a DC comparable outlet plug. Theres a few options but for now I choose a car cigarette plug male. I wired it together and plugged it into the 12v system, the bulb works nicely. Its daytime now so excited to test out and see how much of an improvement it made.
It would be nice to wire up a dimmer and intelligent microcontroller or radio frequency controls. I could get a three way socket adapter to put in a couple more bulbs but that may not be necessary.
For dimmable off-grid lighting, check out the 12v LED puck lights - they’re super efficient and you can wire several in parallel for whole room coverage without much power draw (I use them in my cabin setup with great results)! If you’re looking to expand your power capacity for more lighting, you might want to compare some power stations on gearscouts.com to find the best wh value to complement your solar.