Whole trailer LED retrofit

[Caboose66]

All,
For anyone considering doing an LED lamp retrofit in your unit, I will tell you... It can be easy, relatively inexpensive and worthwhile.

We don't do much boondocking or running off our battery, but I did get tired of the heat generated from the typical 12V incandescent lamps in our RVs. I also liked the idea of using less power overall and the long life of LED lamps.

I looked through numerous threads in this and other forums and finally pulled the trigger on a bunch of LED lamps on EBay. I bought 20 each of the pillar type with 25 LED elements and the paddle type with 24 LED elements for about $1.82 each in bulk, shipped directly from the manufacturer/distributor in China.

I just replaced all of my standard lamps this morning (26 total). It was an easy job but remember, as many have said in threads like these, the lamps are polarity sensitive so if the lamp doesn't work when you first plug it in, flip it over and try again. Fortunately, all of the paddle types (which only have the LED elements on one side) worked the first time. If it hadn't worked, I could have just bent each wire to the opposite side of the base to reverse the way you insert the lamp. You may have to wiggle the lamp a bit to engage the wire elements with the terminal. Also, the pillar types went in fairly easily but the paddle types were a little tougher to push in. As someone else recommended grasp the base of the paddle type when inserting otherwise you will bend the plastic.

The LEDs may be just a hair dimmer than the regular ones, but not much. I got the warm white which are 3000-3500K color temperature. Those are the ones that most resemble the normal incandescent in their light quality and what I have been installing thoughout my house. The bluish-white ones (higher color temperature) may be a bit brighter, but I don't like the look as much.

Finally, when I used to enter the trailer and turn on 1 or 2 lights (3-4 bulbs), the inverter fan would come on. I had read someone else that did an LED retrofit say that they turned on ALL of their interior lights after replacing with LEDs and the inverter fan never came on. I had to see for myself and, to my surprise, I had the same experience. 26 or 27 lamps and the inverter fan never came on... Unbelievable!!

I will look up the link to the ones I purchased and post it in this thread. I am afraid to switch to EBay and lose everything I've typed...;).

In short I totally recommend this mod - particularly if you want to reduce your power consumption and/or production of extra heat in the trailer.

Dean

[Caboose66]

Based on my experience, if you ordered in the next few days, you would have them by the time you have to leave. The cost difference over local sourced is huge. I'm all for supporting the local brick and mortars but not at 10x the price or more. Considering the way the way the wholesale cost of LEDs has come down and the fact that there is significant subsidization of that technology in some areas (California included?), I would expect retail prices to be MUCH lower than what I am seeing.

Dean

[Huntindog]

jmcgsd wrote:

Caboose66 wrote:
I ordered on Sunday, 5/4 and received in my mailbox on Saturday, 5/17... so just shy of two weeks. Worth the wait for the cost savings.

Thanks. I'm getting ready to leave 6/11 for the summer so I guess I better go with a local source even though they will cost more.

That's gonna get really spendy.

I would suggest that you just do the lights that you use the most. And order the rest from the ebay people.

[jmcgsd]

Caboose66 wrote:
I ordered on Sunday, 5/4 and received in my mailbox on Saturday, 5/17... so just shy of two weeks. Worth the wait for the cost savings.

Thanks. I'm getting ready to leave 6/11 for the summer so I guess I better go with a local source even though they will cost more.

[Caboose66]

AlbertaNewbie wrote:
Did similar with wedge leds from ebay, 34 for 25 bucks. Went with cool white as the warm white make me feel lothargic. best part about it is i dont worry about the kids leaving the lights on anymore, and with only 26 bulbs i have a few spares should the quality not hold out.

One of the best mods ive done other than solar.

Yeah, it's kind of a funny thing - the way different people are affected differently and prefer the different color temperatures. I really prefer the 3000-3500K temp (warm white) and that's what I have in all the LEDs I've installed in my house. The cool white reminds me too much of the compact fluorescent - but that's just me and what I've gotten used to, I suppose.

If you prefer the cooler white, you actually have an advantage when shopping for replacement LEDs. It seems like that color temperature range is a little easier to find. I had to search a little harder to find the ones I was looking for.

Dean

[Caboose66]

I ordered on Sunday, 5/4 and received in my mailbox on Saturday, 5/17... so just shy of two weeks. Worth the wait for the cost savings.

[consumeratlarge]

I put some in our RV, and my wife didn't like them. So I ordered the square panel type with several adapters included. You have to put on the right adapter, then stick it on the fixture with the adhesive mounting tape. I used 4 blobs of glue, since the tape was not very good. My wife now likes them, since they are very bright. We use battery and solar, so LED's are great. Personally, I could go with the less bright bulb shaped ones, but these bright panels use around 25% of what we were using, based on only 1 test.

[jmcgsd]

How long did you wait for delivery from the eBay seller?

[AlbertaNewbie]

Did similar with wedge leds from ebay, 34 for 25 bucks. Went with cool white as the warm white make me feel lothargic. best part about it is i dont worry about the kids leaving the lights on anymore, and with only 26 bulbs i have a few spares should the quality not hold out.

One of the best mods ive done other than solar.

[dtappy3353]

left Arizona City a week ago Thursday for Portland, OR. 50-65 degrees the last few days. We are very cold, it's raining lots and very damp.

Next week promises mid 70 temps.

Boy do we miss the sun and heat. When we left, temps were averaging 95 during daytime. Now it's significantly hotter.

On the subject of LED's. We changed entire 5'ver over about two months ago. Like to boondock. Were shocked at how nice the light was and little drain on battery.

[TucsonJim]

Hi Dean.

Yep, after about 5-6 bulbs were turned on for any period of time, the converter fan would kick on. We had 6 LED lights already installed by the manufacturer, so we used those most of the time.

The replacement bulbs were very similar in color to the original incandescent bulbs. The first two bulbs we experimented with were very cold or blue in color. I didn't like them in the interior, but they were perfect in the FW basement.

All in all, we had three different incandescent bulbs installed. Two 1076 in glass fixtures over the center island. Four 1383 reading lamps, with two over the sofa and two over the bed. And finally, 38 921 bulbs in the typical RV light pucks.

My wife was reading one night and reached up to turn off the reading lamp when she was done. She accidently grazed the bulb and burned her finger. When I replace this 1383 bulbs with LEDs, you can leave them on for an extended period, and they do not get hot to the touch.

We purchased all our bulbs through Amazon too.

As for the heat in Tucson, we're outta here in a couple of weeks for a four month journey around the country, and hopefully, we'll encounter cooler temps.

[Caboose66]

Oh... And by the way... I just realized that I was saying "inverter" everywhere in my posts. I meant to say "CONverter"...:o

[Caboose66]

Jim, I'm curious, did you find the same thing with the inverter? With 44 lamps, I would suspect that your inverter fan kicked in, but wondering how many lights (and bulbs) you turned on before that happened.

Great mod, huh? Did you get the warm white as well or the bright white. What was your experience with the brightness compared to the old incandescents?

Also.. In Tucson, I bet you will appreciate the lack of heat output from the LEDs.

Dean

[TucsonJim]

I just replaced all of them in our FW last night. I had 44 incandescent bulbs to replace! :E I do a lot of boon docking, so hopefully, this will help with battery longevity.

[Caboose66]

Paddle type LED

Turret type LED