Converting exterior lights to LED

[scottydl]

Mudd, where did you purchase your LED replacements?  And did you replace bulb by bulb, or the entire lighting assembly?

 

[glen54737]

I'm going to replace some of the interior light bulbs with LED replacements i bought on ebay. I will let you know how they work out

 

[fklskv]

   I did all the exterior lights on my 86 mh to led's. I used Truck-lites which are available anywhere they sell truck parts. They are all sealed lights so water is not an issue but you have to use install their pigtail to plug into the back of the lights. No brainer. The only issue you might have is the older flashers demand more power then leds draw so the blinkers might not blink or blink slow so you have to replace the flasher also.
     www.truck-lite.com for lots of good info on leds, candle power, wattages etc......
Frank

 

[FireFighter38]

I was looking at some of the links provided for the replacement bulbs... has anyone replaced their bulb in your RV door light (mine has an orange lens cover on it) to an LED bulb and if so, did it make it much brighter.  Mine doesn't privide a huge ammount of light and I was thinking that maybe an LED bulb might brighten it up a whole bunch. 

Thanks....
Corey

 

[scottydl]

In that context I'm not sure an LED would work too well.  You may just need a higher wattage incandescent bulb.  LED's are more focused and don't generally spread light out, although a cluster of LED's is more visible and penetrate better from a greater distance... if that makes sense.  Hence why LED's are used for taillights and marker lights, but not headlights for instance.  I assume you're referring to the amber/orange exterior porch light?  A friend of mine switched some of his car's interior lighting to LED's and wasn't too happy with the result, because he said it made each fixture into a "spotlight" rather than spreading out the light.

 

[FireFighter38]

In that context I'm not sure an LED would work too well.  You may just need a higher wattage incandescent bulb.  LED's are more focused and don't generally spread light out, although a cluster of LED's is more visible and penetrate better from a greater distance... if that makes sense.  Hence why LED's are used for taillights and marker lights, but not headlights for instance.  I assume you're referring to the amber/orange exterior porch light?  A friend of mine switched some of his car's interior lighting to LED's and wasn't too happy with the result, because he said it made each fixture into a "spotlight" rather than spreading out the light.

Yes, I do mean the extrerior porch light, oops, have to work on my terminology.  I checked out that link you had in your original post of this thread which got me thinking about this because in that link it shows several LED lights that seem multidirectional, light facing out the sides and to the front.  I could definitely see how it could become more of a spotlight though.

 

[Karl]

LEDs come in a variety of viewing angles, ranging from about 6 degrees to more than 30 degrees for clear, non-diffused lenses. Assuming a zero-angle viewing (looking at it straight on), a 6 degree LED will drop off to 50% intensity a mere 3 degrees on either side of the zero angle - very much a spot beam. A 24 degree LED will similarly have a 50% drop off at 12 degrees either side, but there is a simple way around the problem. If you point a number of LEDs backwards into a white-painted box, the light from them will bounce around in the box and mix with each other giving you a more or less homogeneous source of light coming out of the opening of the box. This technique has been used for many years in photographic enlargers, where the light must be almost perfectly even over the surface of the entire negative. You may have to play with the positioning of the LEDs a bit, but that's half the fun!