LED Bulbs

[JoyandCon]

Thinking of converting interior bulbs to LED's. Any recommendations?

[WA7NDD]

I replaced all eleven yellow, dim incandescent lights in the MH with $8 each LED. I did not select warm, I bought the brightest LED I could find and they are great. Those that say there is little difference, did not do the research. There is a huge difference, you get a bright white light.

I liked the LED's so much that I went to Home Depot and changed my home outside 40 watt incandescent lights to 60 watt LED's on sale for $6.97, now back to $10. I had a total of 480 watts of lights turned on by the security light detector. I even replaced the security flood lamps with LED flood lamps, $27. Now the security detector turns on all the same lights only at 100 Watts of power, and just as bright as they were before.

[4x4van]

Nice write-up and nice results. I'm wanting to do my workbench at home with LEDs, and am considering the new 5630 LEDs. They are supposed to produce 85 lumens per watt (vs 65 for your 3014 units, 55 for the 5050s, and 44 for the 3528s). The strips I used inside were the 3528 (600 per 5m), and the panels I used were 48-5050, so the 5630 should be fantastic as a workbench worklight! The color of yours looks to be more of a pure/bright white than warm, more in the 4500-5500K range (warm is usually down around 3500K). Personally, I like that bright/pure. I don't care for the yellow "warm" nor the blueish "cool". Your 3-LED "nightlight" idea is great, as well! Very cool!

[ron_dittmer]

tenbear wrote:
Thanks Ron. Very interesting.
I was wondering how the new 3014 LEDs compared to the old 3528 and 5050 LEDs. It seems the new LEDs draw more current but are substantially brighter than the 3528s.

From what I read and understood, the newer LEDs draw less current per lumen produced. I added more LEDs than most people would consider enough.

One thing I have in the back of my mind. It takes but a minute to cut a 3-LED circuit off each strip while installed in the fixtures. If done, in our case the lights would actually be more balanced to the fixture with darker sides and lit centers. So later, if my wife and I jointly agree that the fixtures are just too bright, I could get it done one 3-LED segment at a time quite uneventfully, even during a trip. Very easy to take away but work to add. With every 3-LED circuit removed, the power will drop by about 1/3 of a watt.

[tenbear]

Thanks Ron. Very interesting.
I was wondering how the new 3014 LEDs compared to the old 3528 and 5050 LEDs. It seems the new LEDs draw more current but are substantially brighter than the 3528s.

[ron_dittmer]

tenbear wrote:
Looks real good Ron. Have you had a chance to measure the current drawn by one light?

No I have not measured a completed fixture. To get current-draw (wattage) figures from my place of work, I only brought in one 11 segment (33 LEDs) strip and one 1 segment (3 LEDs) strip.

Amperage measured at 12 volts....
The 33 LED strip calculated to 4.17 watts
The 3 LED strip calculated to 0.312 watts
Remember there are two 33 LED strips per fixture

The engineer and I found it strange that the 33 LED strip was so much more than 11 times the 3 LED strip. It is hard to determine why so much a difference. We'd would accept some variation, but not 20%. I am thinking of bringing to work my surplus material for more measurements but taking measurements would require cutting my surplus strip into 33 LED samples.

If considering the 3 LED sample, each fixture would be rated at 6.8 watts, not 8.3 watts. It is around half that of the florescent lights, maybe even 20% better yet. I also feel that if you wanted to reduce the strips from 33 LEDs to 27 LEDs, the lights would still illuminate effectively, especially with lighter colored interiors. I max'd out with 33 LED strips because of our dark cherry cabinet finish. A little more light seemed the better idea.

Apparently it is as vague as fuel economy. I accepted that I won't really know how much power consumption was reduced, just happy it is a lot less along with more light, a warmer color tone, and also now having the integrated night-lights.

[tenbear]

Looks real good Ron. Have you had a chance to measure the current drawn by one light?

[ron_dittmer]

Okay, I completed my LED conversion over the weekend. Here it is in a nutshell.

The original florescent light fixture with everything florescent removed. It all pretty much just snapped out.


The LED strips installed. I selected the angled surfaces for they had a flat surface to bond to, and to direct the light outward


Note the 3-way switch in the center/off position. Also note the tiny 3-LED circuit. The main circuit has 66 LEDS, 33 per strip.
Note the other long surfaces had raised lettering which did not offer a flat surface to bond the strips to.
I sure hope the strong adhesive backing will permanently hold them in place.


Here the light is turned on. The camera adjusted the exposure. It shows how the light gets dispersed.


Here is a picture I had taken for comparison. A florescent light is forward and a completed LED light farther back.
The blue tone florescent appears to be just as bright, but it really is a little less.


Here, all fixtures have the main 66 LED lights on.
The room is actually a lot brighter. The camera adjusted the exposure.


Here, only the 3 LED night lights are on.
The camera adjusted the lighting. It actually has a nice soft glow throughout


I am disappointed in that the camera could not capture "True" lighting. Full-On appears much darker than actuality. Night-Light shows it much brighter than actuality. Sorry about that.

Here is the sealed LED porch light. I made a reflector from some industrial aluminum foil, not for food handling, very very stiff. I cut and shaped it to fit behind the bulb and around the sides of the fixture. You can see how the light bulb has a larger illumination. It seems to be a softer light, I think because the LED bulb is frosted and sealed.


Cost as follows.

- $12.05 on Ebay for a 5 meter length of LEDs in a reel. Because I made the strips as long as possible and having the night lights too, I was one strip short. I bought a second reel to have enough. Only one reel is required if having 27 LEDs per strip, assuming 9 fixtures.

- $8.42 for 20 3-way switches purchased off Ebay, though I only needed 9

So theoretically one can convert 10 fixtures for $12, straight & simple florescent to LED. That is a real bargain. I tripled the investment to just over $30 to have a little extra light and to have the night-light feature. I do have a lot of leftover material on-hand in case something fails later. You do need to have fairly good soldering skills and a lot of patience. It took me an entire day to convert 9 fixtures with the night-light option added.

- $30 per pair of sealed & frosted LED bulbs. I used 5 in our rig.... Shower, Closet, Outdoor Storage, Porch, & Sanicon.

One final project is my range hood light. I could use some left-over strips up inside the hood cavity, but favor changing the socket and use that 6th spare sealed bulb. I could mount that bulb directionally downward toward the stove to be more effective.

[wbwood]

Don't get the ones I bought...lol

[ron_dittmer]

I received the LED strings & 3-way switches & initially completed one fixture. I really liked it so I did all 9 in our motor home. Now we have more light using less power, and each has a mood/night light as well. The light is white, not yellow like the picture above shows. We like it better than the florescent blue we always had. The LEDs brighten up our interior with the dark cherry cabinets. It was an all day project to get all 9 fixtures converted.

Pictures will follow as soon as I get some time for it.

[ron_dittmer]

I removed the light fixture over the kitchen sink and removed all of the florescent electrical content simply by unclipping and unsnapping things off. I did have to use a soldering iron to remove the circuit board because of the way the on/off switch pierced through it from behind. Everything could easily be reassembled back to "original" if my lighting conversion is not satisfactory.



Though the reel of LEDs have not yet arrived, I got a jump start on this because I am locating a replacement switch from a single click to a double click. Center being "off", one direction being full lighting. The other being only a tiny strip of LEDs for mood/night lighting.

Here are the dimensions I need to find a physically same size replacement 3-way switch. They are sold very cheap on ebay, 10 for $6.00 but unfortunately they are not stating dimensions.

ENGLISH DIMENSIONS
Switch Body - 0.73" x 0.48"
Switch Escutcheon Plate - 0.82" x 0.59"
White Switch Plate Opening (for body) - 0.75" x 0.51"
Lens Opening (for escutcheon plate) - 0.835" x 0.60"

METRIC DIMENSIONS
Switch Body - 18.5mm x 12mm
Switch Escutcheon Plate - 21mm x 15mm
White Switch Plate Opening (for body) - 19mm x 13mm
Lens Opening (for escutcheon plate) - 21.2mm x 15.2mm

[socalrick]

This is some good information. Thanks to all, I'll be looking to replace my lights. Currently only have a single coach battery for now, need to cut down on my curent useage as well.

[ron_dittmer]

tpi wrote:

ron.dittmer wrote:
My motor home has florescent light bulbs throughout. I had looked into LED replacement bulbs for them, but I lost interest because of cost and wiring changes.

Thats my feeling on the fluorescent also. As long as the fixtures work properly there is not much point in changing them. The F15T8 lamps are far more efficient than incandescents. I did switch out the lamps to tri phosphor lamps which have more pleasing color rendering than the standard thin lite lamps.

I highly recommend RV LEDs though when replacing incandescent. I've used garden variety LEDs from ledtrailerlights.com and all have performed reliably and at brightness near or beyond the incandescents. Those high lumen Samsung lamps look interesting, but all of mine are working properly.

Well I will be testing the waters converting my florescent fixtures to LED. My goal is to do it right and do it cheap. After much research, I ordered a 5 meter reel of adhesive-backed LED lighting that can be cut to length. Here is the reel, I selected the lower soft-white color.


Our rig has 9 two-bulb florescent fixtures. I determined the reel will supply enough for all. I hope to achieve the following.
- reduce power consumption from 16 watts to 5.4 watts per fixture
- change from the florescent blue color to a soft warm white tone
- offer the same light intensity of 800 lumens per fixture
- utilizing the original fixtures means all mountings and screw holes are unchanged with no scars in the ceiling or elsewhere
- total investment for all 9 fixtures will be only $12.05

I removed one of my fixtures and examined it closely. The conversion will involve significant modification but our fixtures are constructed to handle the modification well. Everything florescent including sockets, unclip out making it clean to install the LED light strips and wire them up. The new LED strips are 12v so it will be a simple soldering of 2 red and 2 black wires to the switch, and then from there to the rig's wire tail with wire nuts. I will need to experiment to determine the best surface within the fixture to stick on the 2 LED strips (one per florescent bulb position). Our fixtures provide 3 surface options, straight down, 45 degree outward, and 45 degree inward.

My LED selection HERE was based on THIS information which I summerized below.
- the LED number is the physical size of the LED ex: 5050 = 5mm x 5mm
- older LED technology (5050 and 3528) consume more power
- older LED 5050 chips have 3 leds inside it, 3528 has only one
- newer technology LEDs 3020 and 3014 offer more lumens with less power

After I get the reel and convert one fixture, I'll supply a few pics of the process and the results.

[Dakzuki]

I converted to LEDs and am very happy. The ones I put in the ceiling are indistinguishable from the OE halogens.

[JoyandCon]

Thanks to everyone for their responses. Will have to digest all of them. Then do a little experimenting, as many of you did.

Thanks again.