LED light bulbs

[dtgunner7]

OK!!! I know this has been addressed before but, I need to know there you guys and girls are getting your LED light bulbs from. Any help would be great..

[MrWizard]

In the bathroom I've used them at the bottom of the cabinets as night lights and in four years I've already replaced them twice as 60+% of the LEDs stop working... in aprox 3600 hours of use.
I bought the connectors for the strip lights and was going to use them as replacements for my florescent bulbs but I'm holding off as there is l.p.only a 50% savings of LED over florescent

How did you fasten the strips to the bathroom cabinet
In my fixtures I used the self stick strip on the back, with a dab of super glue at each end
I think using any kind of sticky tape, insulates the strip and reduces the heat transfer to the fixture, heat kills LED's,
I'm using the fixture to heat sink the strip...they are self stick for a reason
Mine have only been IN use about six months, but we full time, so that's six months of everyday use, every LED in each strip, is still working

[bluwtr49]

I've been struggling with replacing the 10 W halogens in our puck lights trying to find the right combination of brightness and color.

The biggest problem I had is that the small round LED's that will fit in the puck are only about 1/2 the brightness of the halogen bulb. Granted they are cheap but I couldn't accept the loss of brightness.

Fortunately, on this coach, the PO had replaced many with a 10 LED unit that are not too yellow and not too white. While these are OK in the living room and dining room. Not so good in the bathroom and bedroom.

I finally found these that work perfect in areas where a brighter, whiter light is beneficial.

Elite

Not cheap but at 210 lumens vs 190 for Halogen and 90 or so for the typical led light, are great. The Bathroom, toilet room, and bedroom lighting is much improved. Because there is no line-of-sight between the living area and the bathroom you can not see the color difference until you actually enter the room. I still have the indirect rope lighting in the ceiling if low light is desired.

I'm also using them under the counters and above the coach/recliner where the brighter light is a boon for reading or working.

In reality, so much depends on the type of lights that you have. Some are much easier to convert than others. I think pucks are the hardest due to lack of space.

Still have not figured out the Chandelier which as a bunch of globe 120 V lights but the rest is falling into place.

[dtgunner7]

Thanks for infor. I have looked at a lot of web sites in past several hours....

[Ivylog]

I replaced 36 ceiling halogen bulbs with China/Ebay/LEDs five years ago for less than $100. Today it would cost less than $60 and they decreased a 36 amp draw (not that you would run all of them at once) to 4 amps. As half times I've had to replace two of the 36 in recent years. It would be nice to buy American, but they are made in China so go ahead and buy from an American re-seller for twice the price.
While you can save even more by buying them 10 at a time BUT I would buy a couple first and see how you like them... I like warm white with as many 5050 LED chips as you can buy. I do have some concerns about the longevity for the LED strip lights. In the bathroom I've used them at the bottom of the cabinets as night lights and in four years I've already replaced them twice as 60+% of the LEDs stop working... in aprox 3600 hours of use.
I bought the connectors for the strip lights and was going to use them as replacements for my florescent bulbs but I'm holding off as there is only a 50% savings of LED over florescent. I did use four of 48 LED panels in one that stopped working and so far they are working OK.

[Campfire_Time]

Bought 15 flat panel bulbs with 48 leds from Ebay for about $21. We're going into our 3rd season with them and they are working great.

[Oasisbob]

Ebay chinese cheapies. Bought a few spares. I have had no troubles. I have seen them at Batteries Plus recently. Ebay chinese units took some time to ship.

[FIRE_UP]

dtgunner7 wrote:
OK!!! I know this has been addressed before but, I need to know there you guys and girls are getting your LED light bulbs from. Any help would be great..

Well,
I'll throw this into the lions den. I've purchased all my LEDs for not only the coach but, other vehicles too, from a website called:

www.superbrightleds.com

Yep, the price is a tad higher than getting many of them on ebay or, way higher than direct from China but, mine have always arrived in 2-3 days and, in all I've purchased, (been using that web site for at least a decade now) I've never had any one of their products go bad. And, they have an outstandingly informative site. They have great explanations of how to choose the correct bulb, base, lumens, color and a lot more.

And, from what I've seen at many RV parts and repair centers that sell LED replacement bulbs, superbrightleds.com is not all that high in price. Heck, even at Quartzsite each year, about 99.99% of the LED bulbs sold there are almost the exact same price as superbrightleds.com.
Scott

[Fresno_Tundra_D]

We have also had good service and quality from m4products.com

[MrWizard]

I don't have any of the typical 12v RV incandescent fixtures

We have recessed thin line 12v florescent fixtures
Actually did have
I cut the wires to the ballast, and installed led strip lighting from a five meter roll bought from Amazon
I did this to six fixtures...works great so far

3 strips in a 2 tube 30w fixture now uses 15w
2 strips same size fixture now uses 10w
2 strips in the smaller 18w fixture ( 2 *9w tubes) now uses 7 watts
A very nice power reduction/savings
And I no longer have to buy expensive replacement tubes

[downtheroad]

I have done a fair amount of research on the LED thing. From what I have found, most if not all are made in Asia (China) anyway...

Some are sold directly from there (like on ebay) others are sold by U.S. outfits but sources from China...

[rgatijnet1]

LED light fixtures for the coach exterior have come from The Big Rig Chrome Shop. They were high quality and have had no burnouts in almost five years for my clearance lights. I also got the sealed type so I no longer have to worry about water leaking around the lens and shorting out the bulb or getting inside the coach.
For internal lights I just got 15' rolls of 5050 LED lights and cut them to length for my fluorescent light fixtures. This took a little soldering but I have had zero problems with them almost five years later.

[TucsonJim]

I replaced all 41 (three different types) incandescent bulbs in my RV with LED bulbs from Amazon for less than $200. They had excellent color and brightness and I couldn't tell the difference from the incandescent bulbs. If you want specifics, send me a PM with the bulb number you have, and I'll give you the replacement I used it they are the same.

[mmccray100]

I've had good service from http://www.m4products.com/ for the bulbs. I re-fitted all my fluorescent myself with products from Amazon. You can get replacement LED Tubes to replace yourself, but they're expensive especially if you have as many fluorescents as I do (9 2-tube fixtures).

I can send you the info on the Amazon parts if you like. It's really rather easy, and there are How-to videos on uTube.

Mike

[pconroy328]

It's all over the map. Some of us (me too) are getting them from eBay (with mixed results).

I went with cheapies from eBay to get a sense of light color and output. I had low expectations on longevity but wanted to invest $1 finding things out instead of $11.