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.
