LED lighting

[Mark and Bev]

First of all, I would like to say hello to you all. My wife and I are new to the forum and to fifth wheel camping. We have a 290S Cougar and love it. We do a lot of dry camping and I'm thinking of changing my 921 bulbs in the light fixtures to LED bulbs. I was wondering if anyone else has done this and wether it was worth the expense and if so, where did you get the bulbs and what kind did you use? Thanks for any input you can give me.
Mark

[SteveC7010]

First of all, I would like to say hello to you all. My wife and I are new to the forum and to fifth wheel camping. We have a 290S Cougar and love it. We do a lot of dry camping and I'm thinking of changing my 921 bulbs in the light fixtures to LED bulbs. I was wondering if anyone else has done this and whether it was worth the expense and if so, where did you get the bulbs and what kind did you use? Thanks for any input you can give me.
Mark

Mark, there are already several extensive threads on LED lighting and battery conservation. If you use the Search function and search on LED's (just as I typed it), you will find a whole bunch of info that you are looking for ready to read.

And welcome to the forum!

[Festus2]

Mark:
Doing a forum search as Steve suggested is a great way to get started. I have just about completed the switchover and purchased all of my LED's off EBay. The lights are made in China and vary in price around $3.00 - $4.00 - often for a pair. Shipping is often free or minimal charges. The lights I have tried are the Wedge and Festoon sockets. Some lights came with 3 "adapters" for different kinds of sockets. I ordered different types to experiment with them and they vary in shape and number of LED modules or clusters from 9-24. Look for replacements for the 921 . Seems like the designation "T10" also works -- all the ones I ordered had that as part of the part no.
For the difference in price, I wouldn't recommended buying them here in N.America but that depends on the depth of your pocketbook and your attitude towards buying "Chinese".
Good luck in your search.

[larrym]

Sorry for hijacking this thread, but what are "921 lights"? I looked on eBay at lights designated as T10, they're similar to my ceiling lighting in my kitchen, but can someone put up a part number of picture of one you would use in your 5er, along with that adapter? Thanks ;)

[SteveC7010]

Sorry for hijacking this thread, but what are "921 lights"? I looked on eBay at lights designated as T10, they're similar to my ceiling lighting in my kitchen, but can someone put up a part number of picture of one you would use in your 5er, along with that adapter? Thanks ;)

Larry,

I just googled "921 bulb" and got over 1.3 MILLION hits. You might have similar luck.

In short, a 921 bulb is pretty much the standard incandescent bulb found in most of the light fixtures in our RV's:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21jwBKKfufL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

The LED replacement for a 921 uses what is commonly known as the T10 base. This is one version:
http://thumbs2.ebaystatic.com/m/mPej-9Aj4qKmEkcmILOpu5Q/80.jpg

The ones that have been discussed here several times as having decent light output (lumens) looks like this:
http://thmb.inkfrog.com/thumbn/dxy_dxy/PB1210-3601A.jpg

And the Ebay auction for it can be found at:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/170548003095?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

It comes with several different adapters: festoon, BA15, & T10.

[ktmracer]

I've tried a variety of LED lights before settling on ones that worked best for us. Choices vary from the low cost Chinese imports that don't have any voltage regulation to more expensive units with voltage regulation. Trying a variety I observed the following.

1) the imports w/o any voltage regulation generally are not near as bright or as efficient at units with built in regulation and the latest high output LED's. The upside is they are much less expensive, are easy to mount, and don't have any RFI problems. The downside is generally much lower light output and possible issues when on when your charger is in boost mode. Mine got hot enough when my PD charge was in boost mode to cause the adhesive to turn black and shrivel up and have them fall off the fixture. I tried attaching with high temp silicone sealant which worked much better. However I found that eventually the light output started to drop and they were much dimmer than new. I also had one vendor's LED's actually get hot enough to melt the solder and they fell off the circuit board, this happened with 13.2V.

2) The ones sold by internet storefronts built with built in regulators are much more expensive, and in some cases caused significant RF interference with radio and TV. And some of these units were no brighter than the cheap imports, just way more expensive.

I found the latest units to be much brighter, even higher light output than the standard 921 bulb. However, the brightest units, have the regulator etc. on the back of the board and are harder to mount, I again used silcone rubber to mount them to the existing bracket on my lights. With the regulator light output is more constant and isn't affected by converter voltage. They also seem to run noticeably cooler, but they are still pretty warm to the touch.

And then ther is the decision on color temp. Warm white (approx 3000K) are closer to the spectrum of normal incandesents than the cool white or daylight (5000-7000K). Personally we like the warm white, the others give a blueish cast we didn't like. However, bright warm white units are much harder to find, especially in the low cost ebay chinese imports. The daylight units are noticeably brighter.

We ended up using ones with a built in regulator that I verified didn't give any noticeable RFI in a high output warm white. cost was about 2.5-3x the chinese units I tried. Gets spendy in a hurry!

In Laws want to upgrade there trailer, my suggestion was to wait until spring, I'll bet prices will continue to drop, light output will continue to rise, and quality and choices will improve.

Decide which color temp you want then order a few of different varieties from different sources to see which ones best fit you needs. With lots of boondocking, we found it worthwhile even with the high costs. we can turn on enough lights to be bright and comfortable and be drawing between 0.75 and 1.5A. typical draw per unit is 100-200ma depending on LED's and power regulation, roughly 1/10 the power of a standard 921 bulb.

[slopijom]

Hello, im replying about your led lights thread. i just starting replacing my bulbs with leds. i first bought some "cheap" leds, but wasnt happy with them. I recently bought the revolution wedge leds from tweetys.com. they come in two lumens:160 and 250. they sell for $27.79 and $28.35 a piece. Expensive, but im very happy with the light they emit. slight blue tint, but really brightens up the camper compared to the yellow ones the camper comes with. and no heat. I use the 250 lumen for the overhead and kitchen lighting and the 160's for beds and hall...even tho they are expensive, i should be able to use those lights in the next couple of campers i buy. they have a 60,000 hour life. They are a lil hard to push in(wiggle from side to side) but they will fit and wont have to worry bout falling out. I advise you to buy one set and try them...Or buy the "cheaper" ones first and see if you like them..Good luck and enjoy your camper
Harry

[Mark and Bev]

Thanks for all your input and advice on my lighting question. Since Winter is rapidly approaching and our camper has been put to bed, I'm going to wait until Spring before I make the switchover. Maybe there will be advances in technology and more uniformity in the product. Until then we're left dreaming of nicer days ahead.....