Overhead light switch is warm

[Bob Landry]

Sometime back, DW brought to my attention that the wall switch for the overhead lights was hot to the touch. When I pulled the switch to check it, the wire and connectors were vary discolored from the heat and the connectors plugged onto the switch were badly burned. I cut the wire back, crimped on new connectors and replaced the switch.
I felt the switch during the last trip and it was also beginning to feel warm but I havn't pulled it to look at it yet.
I don't know what the current draw with the 921 bulbs, but I need to research that and add up the draw for the 10 bulbs and see if Keystone used wire for that run that was too small for the load. It wouldn't surprise me.
Just wondering if anyone else has run into this. I would recommend felling your wall switch for heat. Mine got hot enough to have caused a fire if I had not caught it.

[sourdough]

Are the 921s LED? If not, you might want to consider just swapping them. The draw from the LEDs will be much less than a regular 921. Getting into the gauge of wire, how it's ran, how many ??s are wired to it might get a little "busy".

[JRTJH]

According to one source, the 921 bulb draws 1.2 amps at 12 VDC. With 10 of them on one circuit, you could be at around 12 amps. Most "small DC off/on switches" are rated at 10 amps, so the switch "could be" overloaded..... Here's one chart for checking bulb specifications: https://www.rvledbulbs.com/v/vspfiles/assets/images/datasheets/performancechart12vincandescentbulbs.pdf

I'd suspect that Keystone, when designing the trailer does the same with electrical load that they do with tire load.... Weigh the trailer, deduct the tongue weight and what's left, divide by 4 to get the tire load. That doesn't account for "side loading" nor for any of a number of other conditions, many of which could lead to an "overloaded tire" at a specific wheel location.

Same with electrical load, if they "calculate" that the "average" camper would only turn on half the lights at any "given time", so they calculate the load at 10 total bulbs, only 5 turned on, so only 6 amps of use for the "average"... Even though we all know that in some situations, all of them would be turned on, thereby overloading the switch and possibly the wiring, depending on how long the wire run actually might be.

As sourdough said, convert to LED's and solve the problem without the hassles of trying to figure out what the heck Keystone did or how they did it.....

[denverpilot]

LED ditto here. There was a great series of posts here on what to look for on eBay and even with postal marks from China, they were all here in two days.

Watch out for color temperature when buying online. Many are "bright white" which is very white and somewhat blue. If you like the yellow color of incandescents, make sure to get lower color temperature number.

[sourdough]

Warm white will be like the incandescents, cool white is white with a slight tint of blue...sort of and the 5050s are larger and brighter than the cool white 3528s. I've used them all and like the cool white 3528s everywhere except over the island and counters where I cook which is where I placed the 5050s.

[audio1der]

Just another reason to swap to LED.
I converted every bulb in our 3220 for under $40 from eBay vendors. I bought extras as they were so cheap, but have yet to see one fail (after 3 full seasons). The current draw is now super low which makes dry camping (or any camping with kids) not an excercise in frustration constantly turning lights off in rooms without people :p