Location of ground wire for galley/dinette ceiling lights?

[Dougie Brown]

Are you sure the dimmer won't work if you only send the positive wire through it, along with grounding the negative?  I.E. let the lights use their existing ground wire?

Yes, it's a PWM, not an actual dimmer, and it requires both pos & neg inputs and outputs to work. First thing I tried when it arrived although I already knew the outcome.

John, the load resistor rating was 6 ohms. I just happened to have it in a drawer.  Regarding ignoring or not minding the brightness variations, I'm (un)fortunately not yet old enough not to care! As I mentioned above, the inadequate resistor put out 9.25 volts whilst in parallel which over-dimmed the lights. Subsequent testing with the new "dimmer" showed that 10.5 volts was a satisfactory balance between reducing the heat enough but not reducing the brightness too much. So the issue of boondocking versus shore power voltage fluctuations was important enough for us to go for the dimmer option despite the accompanying difficulties.

Anyways - whilst looking for fish sticks today, I stumbled across a 48"x3/8" flexible drill bit designed for - yep - making routes for electrical cables! It's awesome (and $7.99 -v- $24.99 for the fish stick)!! So, the installation is complete (lots of polystyrene but not too much blood....) and it's sweet. 8) Definitely worth the effort so as always, thanks for all the assistance.

Dougie.

 

[Gary RV_Wizard]

Not really, the +12v to the fixtures will vary from 12.6 up to over 14 with the engine running.

Since batteries discharge, it's more like 11.5v-14.5v, which will produce light anywhere from dull yellow to bright white. Dougie probably won't want to dim it at all if the voltage is much at all under 12.6.  But your mileage may vary...

 

[John Canfield]

...Anyways - whilst looking for fish sticks today, I stumbled across a 48"x3/8" flexible drill bit designed for - yep - making routes for electrical cables! It's awesome (and $7.99 -v- $24.99 for the fish stick)!! So, the installation is complete (lots of polystyrene but not too much blood....) and it's sweet. 8) Definitely worth the effort so as always, thanks for all the assistance.

Everytime I see one of those long flexible bits it's all I can do to keep my hand away from grabbing one off the rack. At our old stick house in Florida I watched our alarm installer use one of those in an inside corner and somehow steer it into the attic, I was impressed.

Glad you got 'er done.

 

[Dougie Brown]

Everytime I see one of those long flexible bits it's all I can do to keep my hand away from grabbing one off the rack.

Life's short enough as it is. Listen to your inner self. Grab it by the price tag. ?

 

[Dougie Brown]

One small irritation now is the high-pitched whine which emanates from the lights, at its loudest about the mid-way setting and disappearing when completely undimmed.  That's the disadvantage of wave modulation.

 

[John Canfield]

Try a 470 uf electrolytic cap across the +- on the LED strips.