LED upgrades

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Yes, you can. There are led bulbs that have standard incandescent bulb sockets, so they are a simple replacement. Check out our sponsor, rvledbulbs.com, and see their line of replacement led bulbs. Forum members even get a discount. See http://www.rvforum.net/SMF_forum/index.php/topic,60117.0.html

Yours probably uses what is called a single contact base type of bulb. Here are some of the many available choices of brightness and color.

http://www.rvledbulbs.com/category-s/36.htm


Edit: Fixed incorrect link
 
Note that RV LEDS also sells a replacement fixture with LED's. I used them on my '06 Pursuit and they really improved the looks over the yellowed lenses I had.

Ernie
 
The two wall sconces in the bedroom have a pair of T10-base 921 bulbs in them.  I tried both the cob and flat disk version of LED lights and found that neither was ideal, although the disk was better.  I decided to go with these bulbs:

which are unregulated but do have a bridge rectifier so they are not polarized.  As you can see in the attached photo they don't illuminate the fixture as well as the incandescent bulbs did, but I think they'll be OK (if not, I'll just put the 921s back in).

 

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So it appears that the connector can be unsoldered and installed on the rear of the board?
I'm thinking about replacing the lamps in the ceiling lights in the bedroom, and they're on a dimmer, so the no regulator is nice
 
SCVJeff said:
So it appears that the connector can be unsoldered and installed on the rear of the board?
I'm thinking about replacing the lamps in the ceiling lights in the bedroom, and they're on a dimmer, so the no regulator is nice

I didn't change any connectors around.  I know that the flat disk bulbs are available with a variety of connectors and at least some of them have a connector on the back as opposed to the side.  All the ones I have have the connector on the side--some are G4 bi-pin (used in the ceiling puck lights) and some are wedge base (used for the bedroom sconce lamps).

I'm planning to try cob bulbs for the overhead light in the bedroom--it uses four 921 bulbs which plug in vertically.  I don't have the bulbs yet so can't report on how well they will work.
 
Chris, I've been following this thread closely, because, like others, I would also like to replace some of our coach's lights with LEDs. A couple of questions... Are you satisfied with the brightness of the LEDs you've chosen, and have you done any before/after measurements of power consumption since you've swapped them out? Your work looks great by the way.

Kev
 
Our sponsor, rvledbulbs.com, has a variety of leds available, with different G4 pin configurations and a choice of lumens (brightness) and color temperature (cool white, warm white, etc).
http://www.rvledbulbs.com/category-s/46.htm

I just upgrade the bulb in my porch light to a 300 lumen flat-type led and it is a huge improvement over the cylindrical-shape 200 lumen led I had before. More lumens and ALL the light is directed toward the outside instead of relying on the fixture to reflect it. Both bulbs have a standard single pin bayonet base, ala the 1141 incandescent bulb that was originally in there.
http://www.rvledbulbs.com/category-s/36.htm
 
Kevin Means said:
Chris, I've been following this thread closely, because, like others, I would also like to replace some of our coach's lights with LEDs. A couple of questions... Are you satisfied with the brightness of the LEDs you've chosen, and have you done any before/after measurements of power consumption since you've swapped them out? Your work looks great by the way.

Kev

I'm very satisfied with the new LEDs in the ceiling puck fixtures, the spot/reading lamps, the bathroom vanity, and the fluorescent fixtures over the counter, sink and now in the bathroom/hall ceiling (18" fixture).  I'm less satisfied with the LEDs in the two sconces on the rear wall of the bedroom because they don't illuminate the fixture as well, but I think they'll be OK.  I haven't yet done the large (36") overhead fluorescent fixtures in the main cabin--if the 'white' LEDs turn out to be too much in those fixtures I'm prepared to redo them using 'warm white' LEDs, but I think they'll be OK.  We can get 'warm white' light using the puck lights or 'white' light using the overhead fluorescents, so we'll have a choice.  I'm still investigating the other fixtures I have using 921 bulbs (dimmable bedroom ceiling, dining table, wall sconces in main cabin and bedroom).

I haven't done any before/after power consumption test, other than just adding up the ratings of the bulbs and/or LEDs themselves.
 
cbeierl said:
...  I used some double-stick foam tape to attach the regulator....

In addition to the double stick foam tape I've added a couple of small sheet metal screws through the two mounting holes on the regulator circuit board into the back of the fixture.  I found that when the regulator heated up it tended to come unstuck from the tape.
 
UPDATE on fluorescent upgrades:  Having just returned from a week-long trip I have some good news and some bad news about my fluorescent to LED upgrades.

The good news is that the 12" fixtures that were upgraded with 1 regulator and 4 feet of LED strip worked great and I really like the white light output.

The bad news is that the 18" fluorescent (in the bathroom/hall ceiling) with 6 feet of LED strip proved too much for a single regulator.  Although the regulator is rated at 2A for 12VDC input, which should be fine for 6 feet of LED strip, at the 13-14+ VDC input charging voltages of the RV electrical system it obviously couldn't handle that much current.  The fix was to add a 2nd regulator so that each one was driving only 3 feet of LED strip.  This means that the 3' overhead fixtures which will have 12 feet of LED strip will require 3 regulators (with 4' of LED strip wired to each regulator) rather than the 2 I had originally planned for.
 
Finishing up most of the interior lights I decided to try these cob-style bulbs to replace the remaining 921 wedge bulbs in a couple of wall fixtures, the light over the dinette, and the overhead light on the dimmer in the bedroom.
These are non-regulated, non-polarized (meaning that you may need to turn them around in the socket if they don't light).  They seem to be a pretty good match to the original 921 bulbs.  They also seem to work with the dimmer in the bedroom, although I don't think they get quite as dim as the incandescents did.

As with the other non-regulated bulbs I'll have to see over time how they perform with the charging voltages present on the RV.  Inside the coach I have not yet dealt with the shower fixture (I think it's an 1141 bulb), the footlight festoon bulbs, or the closet lights.  I haven't done anything yet in the cargo bays, but I might experiment with strip lighting there (probably without regulation, since they aren't on that much) instead of putting LED bulbs in the current fixtures.
 
Someone asked about the brightness of the puck LED lights....  they are plenty bright.  When I did my puck lights in the living area I found the 10-LED disks to be almost too bright (no dimmer) so I dropped back to 6-LED disks for the 7 or so accent pucks, and put 10-LEDs in just the "reading" light over the sofa and in the bedroom in front of the closet.  Worked out very well.

I've installed a 16' multi-color LED strip (with remote) on the awning roller for outside use.  At full power white its almost strong enough to read by, and for casual sitting I can drop down to about 1/3 power red lighting to preserve night vision.

Next project in two weeks... I've taken another 16' strip of "warm white" and cut it into several 3' lengths, soldered wires to the power connectors, and these will go into the bays to replace the lights there.  Got that idea from one of John Canfield's upgrades...

The fun never stops!
 
UPDATE #2 on fluorescent upgrades:  I noticed that the ends of the LED strips tended to come away from the back of the fixture on my fluorescent upgrades, so I made one more small addition to hold them in place.  I had some clear flexible plastic sheet lying around (one could probably also use the clear plastic used to bubble-pack items for sale) so I used my paper cutter to cut a bunch of 3/8" x 1.5" strips, punched holes in the ends, and used some small sheet metal screws to attach them as retainers at each end of the paired LED strips.  The first picture shows the strips I made and the second shows them installed in one end of one of the fixtures.
 

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cbeierl said:
UPDATE #2 on fluorescent upgrades:  I noticed that the ends of the LED strips tended to come away from the back of the fixture on my fluorescent upgrades...

Et Tu, Chris?  I have one strip end that had dropsy.  Good solution.
 
cbeierl said:
In addition to the double stick foam tape I've added a couple of small sheet metal screws through the two mounting holes on the regulator circuit board into the back of the fixture.  I found that when the regulator heated up it tended to come unstuck from the tape.

One more regulator mounting addition.  Since I added the mounting screws I decided it would also be best to add a nylon standoff  to go under the board for each screw to make sure I didn't short anything out.  I found these Round Spacer, Nylon, Inch, 1/8" Length, #4 Screw Size, Pack of 100 on Amazon and they work great.
 
I finally got the overhead fluorescent fixtures upgraded using a total of 12' of LED strip for each and I ended up NOT using the voltage regulators for this application.

My primary reason for planning to use the regulators was to ensure that I wasn't overdriving the LED strips with significantly more than 12V DC (due to alternator and/or charger higher voltage).  A secondary reason was that I didn't want the light to change brightness level with differing voltage.

One thing I hadn't considered, however, for the overhead fixtures (and especially for the forward 'lounge' one) was that they have significant wire runs from power to ground (rough estimate of 150' or more of 14 ga. wire for the forward light, due to the dual switches at the door and the galley).  This is enough to cause a sizeable voltage drop at the lights and effectively eliminated my primary reason for using the regulators.

In addition, with just the LED strips, as the voltage drops so does the current draw, but with the regulators in place just the opposite happens--as the voltage drops the regulators draw more current in order to boost the output voltage up.  Since the two overhead fixtures share a common ground lead the situation was worse with both lighted and I was concerned that the voltage could drop below the minimum required by the regulators.

In the end I decided to remove the regulators for these lights.  With one fixture on I measured a 2A current draw (uncompensated for the slight voltage drop caused by the multimeter itself).  With both fixtures lit the current draw for each dropped slightly due to the voltage drop (I failed to note down the precise figure).  I didn't perceive any difference in the brightness of the LEDs with and without the charger on.
 

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Interesting Chris.  I think I measured the voltage on my overhead lights but forgot to note what it was.  Our LED strips are going strong - we've been on the road for about a month with higher voltages when the alternator is running and no issues so far.
 

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