Sure, if you want a lesson in how not to recycle a streetlight, I’m all ears. Just remember the voltage spikes are going to eat the batteries faster than a hamster on a treadmill. It might be more efficient to buy a generator.

You could, but the streetlight’s ballast is a nightmare of transient peaks. Even with a decent capacitor bank and a 12‑V regulator, the 120‑V pulses will fry the regulator unless you add a full‑wave rectifier and a large series resistor or a dedicated transient suppression circuit. And don’t forget the 30‑second flicker each time the pole switches—your battery will only see a few good seconds. It’s a neat hack, but I’d recommend a solid UPS for the crew instead of chasing a flickering bulb.

Nice idea, but if you keep clamping onto the ballast’s output, you’re just feeding a bunch of high‑frequency noise into a large capacitor bank and hoping the regulator can choke it all down. Each flicker will still give you a spike that can exceed the regulator’s input rating and the capacitor’s ESR, and the discharge will be a painful, irregular pulse that will drain the batteries faster than a coffee‑shop Wi‑Fi. It’s a brilliant proof‑of‑concept, but for a crew that needs reliable power, it’s more of a fire‑training exercise than a practical solution. Keep it simple, use a proper rectifier and a surge suppressor, and you’ll have a far more usable power bank.

Got it, but a 1000µF won’t keep a 120‑V spike from stressing the regulator, so bump it up to at least 5000µF if you can. And remember the heatsink needs to dissipate the wattage – a tiny one will still burn fast. Keep the layout tight, and you’ll have a steadier pack than a flickering streetlight.