LED light and 12v Voltage? UPDATE-OOPS!/Got Kohrees too.

Some LED's are well designed and 13,14, 15, 16 volts wont' bother them
Others are **** in the design department
Some are even worse.

My RV came with an LED to light up the grab handle. Nice and looked good save the design was ****.. It burned out very fast.. I replaced it and .. Same result. it burned out fast too. (NOTE I replaced just the LED)

I then measured the resistor that limited current to the led 150 ohms. should have been 450 by my calculation. Replaced both the LED and the Resistor. 14 years later it still worked.

14.7 can kill an led DAMHIK

The reviews are from happy RVers. Maybe nobody with 14.7 volts!

https://www.princessauto.com/en/detail/11-5-8-x-5-in-led-interior-vehicle-light/A-p8488702e

LED lighting for RVs is still in it's infancy.

I have built LED emitters that stay cool and blast out high noon amounts of light on 2-watts consumed. The problem is the sizes of the heat-sink and 3.7 volt regulator. Properly built there just aren"t any reasons for these lamps not to work for decades. According to friends a 5 mm red emitter I set up on the coast in 1981 is still 24/7. That's 39 years. It's mounted on a service drop box.

the el chepo LED lights use a resistor to set the current to the LED. Problem One. LED's should be driven by a constant current. When the voltage goes up, with only a resistor to control current, current goes up. Then LED junction voltage goes down, further increasing current. You end up with thermal runaway, LED's can get hot enough to melt the solder joint or just fail.

Good LED lights are more expensive, driven by constant current and generally say input voltage of 10-24V or more. Down side is the poor designed ones last a long time but put our RF that can interfere with radio.

14.7V is more than enough to kill the cheap LED lights.

It's possible the LEDs you purchased will not tolerate the higher voltages. I have 18" ceiling LEDs in our MH and they have seen as high as 15.4 volts with no issues. You may want to ask the voltage question with your next purchase. eh?

Richard

Did the LED manufacturer give you a range of acceptable voltages? Usually on the package or in the “instructions.”