Halibut214 wrote:
The word, "warm", never came to mind with the LED lighting in my new rig. I might say, "blinding", and was seriously thinking of getting rid of them being one of my first projects. Maybe all I need to do is tame them as you have done. Thanks
ronfisherman wrote:
Nice upgrade.
I did my fixtures several years ago. Strips would not stay in place. Found that LED's were getting too hot. After trying several different adhesives. I checked how hot LED's were getting. Found that temperature of LED's was over 165°F. That's when I started checking voltages. I was seening as high as 14.3 volts at the fixtures. Installed Buck Voltage Regulators on each fixture. Voltage at fixtures is now at 12 volts. LED's now stay below 125°F.
There are other ways to control voltage at fixtures. But these are small and fit in fixture. They do not affect any of the other electronics I have in RV.
On the ebay webpage, I selected the warm-white LEDs. They are still bright, but at least not so white or even blue like others can be. Yes Ron, adjusting brightness (voltage) can be done by adding regulators and/or other components, but I found it easiest to simply shut down circuits and let the dead ones be the heat sink for the hot ones. The length of LEDs is a thick copper strip, very good for heat dissipation. The fewer circuits activated, the less power used. I tried to get by with the 5-dead-circuit bedroom fixture in all places, but was concerned it would not offer enough lighting. I guess a 45% reduction was too aggressive for every fixture inside.
I did not mention this before, but I added a high wattage potentiometer (POT) into the fixture over the dining table, used as a dimmer. It works good, not great. It was not easy to implement, and does not have linear dimming action at the highest intensity level. The first 1/32 of a turn goes from full intensity to half. Then it dims nicely thereafter. I experimented with many and this was as good as I could find considering size, heat, and sensitivity. It's huge as well, barely fitting inside. The adjusting stem is at a slight angle because of that.
I cannot recommend doing this modification for I believe most people would have negative comments over the results.
