Did the LED replacement lights (round two update)

scrubjaysnest wrote:

Gdetrailer wrote:

scrubjaysnest wrote:
A word of warning here. LED's get a lot hooter then one think. Stay away from cheap ones as they are a fire risk. We had some, 36 leds with only 4 current limiting resistors. The leds were encased in epoxey. After a few hours of use the resistors started over heating and smoking.

SMD's are better as they usually have a thin aluminum heat sink in the board.
If you go with the raised LED's look for a heat sink on one leg of each LED lead. We have one of this style that is 5 years old now. It was also $70 as a double with 72 LED's

For us two 24 SMD bright white give plenty of light for reading and less heat then the 5 year old one.

Wrong "assumption" on your part.

Typically LEDs will get "WARM" and not "HOT".. If they are getting HOT then YOU picked LEDS which can not get along with YOUR CONVERTER OUTPUT VOLTAGE.

Typically when a resistor is used with a 12V LED it is designed for pretty close to 12.00V.. It will have a small voltage range like 10-14V that it can operate..

But your converter can reach 14.4-15V..

Right now you are saying, no big deal, that isn't much of a difference in voltage.. right?

Wrong.

LEDs are very sensitive to SMALL changes in voltage and those small changes CAN make a LED draw a higher current very quickly..

One tenth of a volt over the max design voltage can easily cause a LED to draw double the current it was designed for..

At a min, when looking for 12V LEDs which are going to used in a RV you should pay attention to the voltage range it is to operate at. You want one that will at least work at about 16V to be on the safe side..

To be safer you CAN buy LEDs with built in switching regulators, these types have a very wide voltage range, often 9V-30V. The draw back is they are more expensive than resistor types and often can cause interference with your TV and radios reception.

Here is a pic of the LED; converter was off, it's also a WFCO8955PEC which never goes above 13.6 volts.


No assumption on the temps I placed a nuc grade thermometer directly to the LEDs. The cheap ones were a lot hotter on the LED itself then the better regulated one.

As I stated, YOU made a bad choice in LEDs.. The ones in your pix are JUNK to start with.. They are horribly INEFFICIENT low fractional watt LEDs and are dirt cheap.. and as you discovered not reliable.

That light looks suspiciously like a Harbor freight free flashlight!



The BETTER Leds are SMD surface mount LEDs like 1/4W SMD 5050 or even better yet 1/2W SMD 5730 like THESE

The ones in your pix have no real heatsink other than the wire leads.. The SMD LEDS have a pad on the underside that is designed to make contact with a metal heatsink to keep the LEDs at a safe temp..

As you found out, being cheap does not ALWAYS work out..

Gdetrailer wrote:

scrubjaysnest wrote:
A word of warning here. LED's get a lot hooter then one think. Stay away from cheap ones as they are a fire risk. We had some, 36 leds with only 4 current limiting resistors. The leds were encased in epoxey. After a few hours of use the resistors started over heating and smoking.

SMD's are better as they usually have a thin aluminum heat sink in the board.
If you go with the raised LED's look for a heat sink on one leg of each LED lead. We have one of this style that is 5 years old now. It was also $70 as a double with 72 LED's

For us two 24 SMD bright white give plenty of light for reading and less heat then the 5 year old one.

Wrong "assumption" on your part.

Typically LEDs will get "WARM" and not "HOT".. If they are getting HOT then YOU picked LEDS which can not get along with YOUR CONVERTER OUTPUT VOLTAGE.

Typically when a resistor is used with a 12V LED it is designed for pretty close to 12.00V.. It will have a small voltage range like 10-14V that it can operate..

But your converter can reach 14.4-15V..

Right now you are saying, no big deal, that isn't much of a difference in voltage.. right?

Wrong.

LEDs are very sensitive to SMALL changes in voltage and those small changes CAN make a LED draw a higher current very quickly..

One tenth of a volt over the max design voltage can easily cause a LED to draw double the current it was designed for..

At a min, when looking for 12V LEDs which are going to used in a RV you should pay attention to the voltage range it is to operate at. You want one that will at least work at about 16V to be on the safe side..

To be safer you CAN buy LEDs with built in switching regulators, these types have a very wide voltage range, often 9V-30V. The draw back is they are more expensive than resistor types and often can cause interference with your TV and radios reception.

Here is a pic of the LED; converter was off, it's also a WFCO8955PEC which never goes above 13.6 volts.


No assumption on the temps I placed a nuc grade thermometer directly to the LEDs. The cheap ones were a lot hotter on the LED itself then the better regulated one.

As you know I put in 48 smd panel leds 7000k and was not satisfied. I bought 27 led smd 4000k bulbs. I just finished putting them in. They are almost identical to the incandescent bulbs in color just a little brighter. I think they were wrong on on the 4000k. They have a cool white that is suppose to be inbetween. The panels were xenon white and the bulbs look like a incandescent bulb.

I used THESE from Rigid Industries after reading about the eBay junk a few years ago. It seems that there are a lot more options now than there were 6 years ago when I did mine. I've had no issues with these panels though, either heat or durability.

scrubjaysnest wrote:
A word of warning here. LED's get a lot hooter then one think. Stay away from cheap ones as they are a fire risk. We had some, 36 leds with only 4 current limiting resistors. The leds were encased in epoxey. After a few hours of use the resistors started over heating and smoking.

SMD's are better as they usually have a thin aluminum heat sink in the board.
If you go with the raised LED's look for a heat sink on one leg of each LED lead. We have one of this style that is 5 years old now. It was also $70 as a double with 72 LED's

For us two 24 SMD bright white give plenty of light for reading and less heat then the 5 year old one.

Wrong "assumption" on your part.

Typically LEDs will get "WARM" and not "HOT".. If they are getting HOT then YOU picked LEDS which can not get along with YOUR CONVERTER OUTPUT VOLTAGE.

Typically when a resistor is used with a 12V LED it is designed for pretty close to 12.00V.. It will have a small voltage range like 10-14V that it can operate..

But your converter can reach 14.4-15V..

Right now you are saying, no big deal, that isn't much of a difference in voltage.. right?

Wrong.

LEDs are very sensitive to SMALL changes in voltage and those small changes CAN make a LED draw a higher current very quickly..

One tenth of a volt over the max design voltage can easily cause a LED to draw double the current it was designed for..

At a min, when looking for 12V LEDs which are going to used in a RV you should pay attention to the voltage range it is to operate at. You want one that will at least work at about 16V to be on the safe side..

To be safer you CAN buy LEDs with built in switching regulators, these types have a very wide voltage range, often 9V-30V. The draw back is they are more expensive than resistor types and often can cause interference with your TV and radios reception.

Ivylog wrote:
Hopefully on Ebay for $2.48

$1.50 each American seller ebay.

SoundGuy wrote:

colliehauler wrote:
I changed out all the regular bulbs with 48 LED panels. I bought 7000k LED's and it was bright white. I took them all out and will order the warm white 4000k.

4000K is hardly "warm white". Incandescent bulbs are in the 2600K to 2800K range, a "warm white" LED equivalent should be no colder than ~ 3200K if you want to avoid that "daylight" look. I swapped all my 921 incandescent bulbs with these equivalent 921 LED bulbs, sourced here.



Each bulb has 24 5050 SMD chips rated at ~ 15 lumens apiece so they're nice and bright, relatively warm compared to the incandescent bulbs they replaced, and don't interfere with the radio. I've been using these for a year now and have had zero issues with any of them. JMO, but I sure wouldn't be using wafers that have to somehow be secured to the fixture as they'll eventually fall out of position, just as many who have used them have discovered.

The incandescent bulbs were to yellow. If these 4000 are still to bright I will try your suggestion.

gbopp wrote:
Thanks for sharing.
Where did you get your LED's?

Ebay 10 panels 48LED for $15 and free shipping.

Each panel has 48 LED SMDs

It took 17 panels to replace the bulbs. That would be 816 LED'S.

colliehauler wrote:
I changed out all the regular bulbs with 48 LED panels. I bought 7000k LED's and it was bright white. I took them all out and will order the warm white 4000k. When I had the regular bulbs lit up the converter fan would kick on they used so much power. Hope to avoid the heat as well.

I put the 7000k LED'S in a older trailer that had a dark interior and they don't seem to be as harsh. The older RV has blue interior and the colors don't seem as washed out with the 7000K LED's.

Don't buy new LEDs, you can buy lighting "gels" that are specifically made for the purpose of correcting the color temp of LEDs.

For blueish LEDs from 7000K up you can buy a filter gel that can bring that down to 3200K

Lee filters #622 can do that. If you want a bit higher in color temp you can buy a Lee filter that does not filter down as much so you can customize the light to what you like..

LEE LED CTO FILTER (choose LED Conversion Tungsten white light on cool LEDS)

You can find them on Amazon and yeah a bit pricy but you will get a very large sheet of filter material that should do all of your fixtures plus more..

This way you don't need to buy new LEDs then have to throw out the ones you don't like..

We have had the cheap ebay LEDs for years now, one was on a power supply continuously for months as a test and nothing bad happened. They are the same basic 48 LED panel that is very popular on the forum. We also use 9 LED cob and a 120 LED cob, they haven't died or burnt the trailer down either.