Re: 4 way LED dinette light

Scooze me,

PWM control is wasteful?

You must have something like the one in the photo below. Often called a pancake or dome light. I don't think you'll find an LED "bulb" that you can install to get multi-level lighting or another similar pancake light.

If you are the handy type, here's what I would suggest. If you remove one of these pancake lights, you'll find a roughly cut hole around 1" or so and up to 8 screw holes. Then buy a few round LED "puck" lights as in the next two photos. The ones in the photos are ones I recently bought on ebay (around $10 each). They have plastic lenses and are very light. I bought 4.5" diameter ones.

Then install the new lights where the existing holes are. I would install 3 lights and that way you can wire up switches so you get 1/3, 2/3 or all on using 2 switches (1 sw. controls 1 light, 2nd switch controls 2 lights. You could mount the new switches on the ceiling near the new lights. The pancake light there now will have unswitched 12 volts DC.

With the recessed puck lights, you'll get less glare and they will be visually more appealing. Luan plywood is easy to cut with a utility knife. If you were to install the puck lights, you could perhaps install 4 total - 2 to replace the pancake light and one farther back from the centerline of the table, closer to the table edge.

Another option would be to replace the pancake light with something like the last photo which is 12 volts. If you can find one with two or more lamps in it, you can get multi-level lighting. The one in the pic is halogen though and you'd have to get some LED lights (ebay) and you could even add another LED array/lamp or 2. You'd have to install a switch somewhere.

I'm sorry, I should have more precise. The light is oval in shape with a light area on each end. The switch is in a band between the two. My old light was off, one side on, the other side on or both sides on. I liked it because my wife could have light on one side of the dinette to read a book and I could have the other side darker to make it easier to read my tablet or laptop.

Additional: SOME Led designs can be dimmed by simply lowering the DC voltage to the LED.. not all will work that way however. That dimmer is way easier to build, but it also is more wasteful of power.

sleepy wrote:
Questions:

Are all LED lights dimmable?

If so, could you possible just replace your switch to a conventional three way switch?

LEDs may or may not be dimmable, depends on how they are designed.

Normally the "Dimmers" are PWM controllers (This is pulse width Modulator) what it does is chop the 12 volt DC into a rectangular wave

For example, you turn on the led for say 1/100th of a second then turn it off for 10/100ths That is going to be very dim.

or you turn it on for 50 out of 100,, Half brilliance

Or you turn it on for 75 out of 100, 3/4

And of course you mess up any ham radio operators, kill AM radio, interfere with Television and Sat reception. and generally make hash out of the radio spectrum.. But that's how they work.

Source on the last: Mr. Gordon West.

Smaller than a pack of cigarettes. The dial is continuously adjustable not click click click. Find a place to hide it under the table.

There is no "piece of cake" solution to modify your existing fixture.

A three way click click click switch needs three adequately sized resistors chosen and added inline from each switch terminal to the LED.

Home dimmers and dimmable LED's are a color of a different horse...

Dimming affects the LED driver that drops voltage from 120 vac to whatever DC voltage the lamp demands. The word affect means the wrong type of dimming gizmo can fry the "driver". You do not have this issue to begin with.

Yes, you do mean 3 levels of light - low, med., high? Was it the lamp and/or the type of light fixture? Maybe you only really need high and low?

Looking at the Northwood site, you have a "standard" pancake style light over the dinette table. I could be wrong and would have to searching, is that they are available with two switches in them so you can get high and low levels. I couldn't find any interior pics of your old truck camper.

What about contacting Lance to see what you can get now?

My suggestion would be to remove the pancake light and replace it with something else. I removed all of the pancake lights in our 2014 TT and replaced them with light fixtures from Kaper II. I can't seem to find a website of theirs with their RV lights on it. RV dealers have them on display I've noticed. I used one of their lights that is the same size as pancake lights and left no holes showing.

You could install some LED "puck" lights. I've installed 10 of them in our new TT. You can get them in various lumen ratings. These are very shallow and fit easily in many locations. A ceiling would be easy. You could install the quantity you want to get multi-level lighting and the lighting level you want. I bought ours on ebay and they are only about $10 each now.

If you want good lighting over your dinette table for task lighting (including reading), from a lighting design perspective, a light in the center of the table is not the best location. You'll get less glare and less annoying shadows if the lights are centered above the edges of the table on each side. You could for example, install one or two puck lights on each side of the table for high level lighting and replace the existing pancake light for low level.

You should be able to install light switches on the ceiling fairly easily. Personally, I can't stand having to reach up to a pancake light to switch them. I've added wall switches throughout our TT now. You *should* be able to fish low voltage wiring across the ceiling and down the adjacent side wall without too much difficulty.

I guess with the correct type of LED lights, you could also just use an LED dimmer.

Moved to Tech Forum

Wayne
Moderator

I keep watching for an answer so that I might understand your question. (It's me... not your question)

Are you saying that you had a LED light that was switched:

1) off
2) on low
3) on medium
4) on high
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I have changed out all of my screw based incadesent and CFB bulbs that are in use more than a couple of hours per day at home for:

Cree LED bulbs (their color accuracy is 93 where most other LEDs in the same cataagory are on 80 color correct.) I have them in 40 W, 60 W, and 100 W equivalant.

They are all dimmable.

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Questions:

Are all LED lights dimmable?

If so, could you possible just replace your switch to a conventional three way switch?

I don't think so... at home our three way lamps with the dimmable Cree LED bulb replacements only work in one position... full on

Have you considered installing a dimmer switch in place of your on/off switch in your new camper's light fixture

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There will be some one on here that will know (and some few that will make good or wild guess's...)

Let's hope we get good answers

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It occurs to me to add an inline dimmer... since I like about the same amout of light most of the time... and use the lamps on/off swich to activate or shut down the light at the dimmed setting.

You have asked a good question as we progress up the technology road.

Sleepy