LED Lighting Conversion

[Greggd]

For those of you interested in converting your Thin Light Fluorescents to usable LED fixtures you might want to visit the following web sight . http://www.prudentrver.com . They have been providing worthwhile conversion kits for some time now . They also provide some good understandable information regarding lighting in general .
Greggde

[Greggd]

While , fooling around this evening adjusting the LED Light Direction in the main cabin I got to thinking about a number of recents posts regarding the changing out of your T8 Fluorescents and realized that I hadn't seen any mention of the great bulbs that are available from http://www.starlightsinc.com here in California . They are the company that make the Motion Sensor Porch lights and now offer a very well thought out LED Fluorescent T8 exchange Tube that with a little wiring makes for the best replacement
to date . These replacement tubes are an adjustable 160 degree T8 replacement that provide 800 plus Lumens of 4500 Kelvin light at a mere 623 Milliamps . This approximates the color spectrum closely to our existing fluorescents that came in theSportsMobiles . I apologize as I thought that I had included this information at the time of my Porch Light changeout but apparently did not !
Greggd

P.S. I took one of my tubes out and photographed it this evening for any of you that are interested ,
they are on page one of my Gallery .

[tobanz]

Originally Posted by Greggd

While , fooling around this evening adjusting the LED Light Direction in the main cabin I got to thinking about a number of recents posts regarding the changing out of your F8 Fluorescents and realized that I hadn't seen any mention of the great bulbs that are available from http://www.starlightsinc.com here in California .

I've been meaning to post pictures, but haven't gotten around it. I swapped out all of the florescent lights in my van a while back for the Starlights LEDs (http://www.starlightsinc.com/shop/pc/vi ... dcategory=). I swapped the main lights in the penthouse (T8) and the smaller lights above the sink and counter (T5). I really like them. The install was fast - just clip a couple of wires. I'm really impressed with the light. It is a whiter light than the florescents, but not so white that it hurts your eyes after a while. The light output is super even. And as Greggd mentioned, on the bigger T8s the angle is adjustable. On the lights at the top of the penthouse I don't know that it really matters though.

I think it would be cheaper to go with some superbrightleds and wire it all together, but I liked the idea of using the stock fixtures. I also left in the ballast so I can go back to florescent lights if I ever need to for some reason.

[witoke]

If you look at the amazing chart put together by kzinti2 it appears that the lumen per watt efficiency of fluorescent tubes is so close to that of the LED's as to make no difference. This was my understanding of the relative efficiency of the three types of light as well (fluoro v. incandescent v. LED). So where are the current savings coming from with these conversions?

Swopping out incandescents can make a huge difference as even small bulbs draw a fair amount of current but it doesn't seem that the same applies to fluorescents. I have a few high-output LED fixtures on flashlights and bicycle lights and interestingly enough they get quite hot in use. Hotter than fluorescents get. This suggests some loss of efficiency surely.

We must have an EE on here who can make all this clear...

[WVvan]

I'm not a EE but I'm guessing some of the efficiencies are in the directional nature of LEDs. The light from the florescent tube is projected 360 degrees so how much of the florescence's light is being wasted by brightening the inside of the fixture and not getting reflected downward.

[Ford_6L_E350]

The efficiency of the fluorescent tube maybe high. I'm betting the cheap fixtures use/lose as much power in the ballast as the tube consume. I know my fluorescent fixtures used as much power as the incadescent fixtures used to.

All the incadescent and all but one fluorescent fixture have been converted to LEDs. The last fluorescent fixture never gets used, so why bother spending the money?

Mike

[Greggd]

When I took delivery of our Van I started changing out as many of the Incandescents and Fluorescents lights as possible because the technology showed a more efficient means of providing light from a somewhat limited power source and I would do it again in a heartbeat . I had to wait for the technology for the replacement of the Fluorescents a little longer but the wait has been worth it . I had my youngest son who is a Master Electrician check amperage draw on every light source in the SportsMobile before and after the changouts and was amazed at the difference's in the actual power drain on the house battery . The chart that is shown in the above post does not reflect correctly the amperage consumed by the T8 Fluorescent bulbs based on an actual Amp Meter readings done over the last three years .
Greggd

[rockbender]

Just a quick FYI for anyone with an older top - I ordered LED Festoon bulbs based on John and Dana's info but realized after I received them that they were a bit too long to fit in my stock late 80's era fixture. These were 41xx series bulbs and I'm guessing that I would have been better served by the 37xx bulbs which are slightly shorter (41 vs 37 mm I'd guess - that 4mm is about all I really needed).

I ended up just trimming part of the clip back with some tin snips as I didn't feel like shipping the bulbs back or trying to sell them and get the right part. This worked out totally fine and the LED light is awesome! Thanks for the great writeups!

[jage]

Too bad, I need a longer bulb to complete my LED conversion!

Florescents, in home use anyway, draw something like the equivalent 6 hours lit time just to turn on. So while they are efficent once on, they are not efficient to light in the first place. How does that translate to the van? No idea.

But I do worry (did) that the ballast in the fixture will waste the same amount with LED bulbs as with florescent bulbs. Anyone know how that works?

It's so easy to change and reuse the switch and housing that I don't know why anyone handy with a phillips wouldn't do that. Choosing the LED bulbs is the hard part.

[tobanz]

Jage:

I bypassed the ballast when I wired in my LED tubes. I'm clipping them into the florescent fixture, but they aren't powered that way. They have a separate connector that gets wired in directly to the 12 volt. So the ballast shouldn't draw anything since it is disconnected.

Toban.