Over the past couple years I have replaced all of the interior and exterior bulbs in my camper with LED's from LED Trailer Lights That is, except for the fluorescent fixture above the dinette... I just hadn't found a suitable replacement that offered good brightness, mounted in the same location, and covered the holes that removing the flouro' lamp would leave in my ceiling.
Well a few weeks ago I came across some "puck" style LED lights at IKEA and I realized that I can have my cake at eat it too... the extra-bright (but 2 Amp draw) fluorescent for use during meals and the LEDS for energy efficient lighting at other times. I soldered together a simple PWM dimmer circuit which allows me to control the brightness and current (from ~50mA to 450mA). The dimmer/off knob is located in easy reach of my son's bunk so he can use it as a night-light.
I didn't want to drill any more holes (for mounting or wiring) in my ceiling so I made a lightweight mounting panel from a piece of 13mm Sintra. This panel is sandwiched between the flouro' fixture and the ceiling.
The lamps look good, provide plenty of warm light and can be swiveled a few degrees in their mounts to put the light where you want it.
I can select fluorescent, the LED's, or both. In this photo you can see the dimmer/off knob mounted in the end panel of the fluorescent fixture.
Cheers
-Mark
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Very nice Job, and really thinking outside of the so called box. I think as time goes on, we will see lots of new Mods for LED Lights.
We also have replaced all of our inside Motorhome Lights to the 36 LED Light Boards. They are Brighter than the 1141 OEM Lights. We also replaced all of our Storage Compartment Lights as well, wiht thhe same ones.
For us, anyways, we will not replace the outside Running Lights on ojur Motorhome, as to us its just not woth the cost.
We also replaced both of our OEM CRT TV's, with two very low wattage LED TV's.
Between the LED Lights and the LED TV's, its made a "Huge Differance" in how long our Battery Bank now lass. And how long we can now go between Battery Recharges.
We sore of though alone the same lines as you, about using Puck Lights. But instead we used the 5 LED Puck Lights that use 3 AAA Battries in each. We use one on each side of our Bed, instead of using the 12 Volt LED Lights.
The 5 LED Puck Lights, puts out more than enough light to easliy read by, or for doing anything else where we have them.
The reasoning behind this, is why use more of the Motorhomes Battery Bank, if we didn't have to. The 3 AAA Battries in each Puck Light lasts a very very long time. We use them as our night lights while in bed, and it saves on our Battery Bank.
We have since bought even more of the 3 AAA Puck Lights on Sale, and have put them in different location in our Motorhome. As I already had a bunch of Rechargable AAA Battries anyways.
We find that the use of the AAA Puck Lights, really helps to make our Battery Bank last us even longer between Recharges. For us, thats really important, as we moslty do all Boondocking.
Sintra (also known as Komatex or foamed-PVC) is readily available at most plastic suppliers and sign-shops. It is cheap, attractive, lightweight, and easy to work with.
Great job Mark. Did you remove the transformer in order to run right of the batteries or did you hook up to run from the inverter in that huge power system.
Jim
'01 Dodge 3500 CTD, Lance 1121, Air Bags, Rancho 9000, All Wheels Under Power When Needed, A Few Engine Mods For Increased HP
Burning Grease, 800 ft/lbs. of torque from something you throw away.
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