Replacing lights with LED lights

[gr8white]

Where is a good place to buy these lights? Will I have to replace the whole light fixture or just the bulbs? I have an 1800 watt inverter and it doesn't last long at all with 2 interstate marine batteries. Someone suggested this before to me but I am not sure where or what to buy for my 86 Dolphin. Thanks!

[5Toyota]

M R WAITER IS MAYBE AN AUTHERTY ON THAT

[stamar]

I have an 85 and I've started linking the led sources in my signature,

But to answer your question ebay.

Waiter and I both used the same interior lights. He actually replaced the fixtures of his marker lights and used the same smd panels for his brake and tail lights...

While I just replaced all the bulbs from the same source.

I based most of my buys on the things he did whether his ideas were good or bad were the first full led toyhomes I know of

I have all of the lights except the headlights the front turn signals and the back up lights

My ideas used no soldering and ordering mostly from ebay china.

Get at least two to four interior lights and the full marker light set... tail brake parking light.

Really its cheap, best money spent.

you even have a generator which makes your gas go farther. but even that gas is needlessly wasted when you could be charging your batteries more for free.

ive already found better deals than the ones i bought but the ones i got are still pretty good and i actually have them in service.

and several of us now have the warm white 36 smd leds for the interior lights and they work so great i wouldnt experiment with other ones. i have 3 different kinds and they are the best ones i have, the cool white and the blue ones they have arent as bright at all.

[waiter]

I replaced all the lights in my coach, exterior running lights, and tail/brake lights. (also the License plate light)

The majority of problems I've had with lights is the socket assembly. So I opted to hard wire the LEDs rather than use the bulb socket type LEDs. A little more work, but IMHO, worth the extra effort.

Coach Interior LEDs

Running light LEDs

Tail Light LEDs

Good luck with it.

John Mc

88 Dolphin 4 Auto

[stamar]

i must say that i used 3 different interior lights but the ones he and i used in common are the best ones to use. I have so many lights i decided to have different colors.

ive found 194 t10 lights for the marker and license plate for 10 for 5$ in red amber or white... or pink or green on ebay. If I had to do it again thats what id get but the ones i got work fine too.

[zero]

I replaced all the lights in my coach, exterior running lights, and tail/brake lights. (also the License plate light)

The majority of problems I've had with lights is the socket assembly. So I opted to hard wire the LEDs rather than use the bulb socket type LEDs. A little more work, but IMHO, worth the extra effort.

Coach Interior LEDs

Running light LEDs

Tail Light LEDs

Good luck with it.

John Mc

88 Dolphin 4 Auto

I've burned out three LEDs so far - but my problem was the type of light socket. I buy LEDs in 12 volt with conventional E (Edison) bases just like most household 120 VAC bulbs are. Problem is - in our cabin this wired for 12 volts DC and 120 volts AC. Very easy to grab a 12 volt DC LED bulb and thread it into a 120 VAC socket - and "poof."

Two amazing things I've found with LEDs. One - they are not subject to "high cycle" death. A conventional filament bulb or a CFL can suffer short lifes if turned on and off a lot. The cycles kill them. Not LEDs. Two - LEDs can make some light at almost any voltage. CFLs and conventional filament bulbs have a low threshold where they do nothing. In this respect, LEDs can be a little wierd at times. I have had a few 60-watt equivalent LEDs glow dimly even after the switch was "off." Then, even after unhooking one of the wires to the LED it still glowed dimly. I was of thought that was impossible. I checked between the two terminals even though there was only one wire going to the 12 volt bulb. Voltmeter read around 100 millivolts and that was enough to make it glow dimmly.

[waiter]

Curious about the glow, I'll look at this next time to see if mine do it.

Is it worth running a separate low voltage lighting circuit in the house?

John Mc

88 Dolphin 4 Auto

[zero]

Curious about the glow, I'll look at this next time to see if mine do it.

Is it worth running a separate low voltage lighting circuit in the house?

John Mc

88 Dolphin 4 Auto

The cabin is only intended to run on 12 volts DC. The law required me to add AC for purposes of code-required hard-wired smoke and CO alarms. So, thanks to the ridiculous code requirements – I had to add inverters and an AC system along with the DC – all under one roof. Somehow there seems to be electricity traveling though the air to make the LED glow. That’s my hypothesis for now. If it glows with only one wire hooked to it – how else can it be explained? I worked as an electrician in the past – but never had to seal with DC and AC under one roof ot pass NEC code and also never had to work with LEDs for household lighting. I suspect the inverters that are 40 feet distant from the LED have something to do with this. One inverter is always on. The AC “entrance” panel is attached to the main ground system of two steel rods and a 200 foot well with steel casing and the box neutal is bonded to ground. The “sub-panel” DC box did not have “neutral” bonded to ground. Since it is DC only, there is no real “neutral” but it is used for the negative of the DC circuit.

Here is the LED glowing when it’s not real dark.

Here is it at night.

We originally has a 12 volt CFL which was fine (no glow). Since this is a stairway light that gets turned on an off a lot, I stuck in an LED for longer life. It glowed when “off.” So, first suspected a leak in the switch and removed the switch. Still glowed.

I then checked voltage at the bulb-holder. It read 170 millivolts (around 2/10ths of a volt).

I then opened up the main DC breaker panel and shorted negative to ground in the box but running an amp-meter between box-ground and the neutral bar that has negative wiring. LED stopped glowing and amp-meter showed a .005 of an amp draw. So, contrary to normal NEC code convention for a sub-panel –I used the bonding screw and shorted the negative “neutral” bar to ground. Problem solved – but – I still don’t really know why this happens.

[waiter]

Wierd, I've seen where voltages can get induced into unterminated wires, but this is usually cased by current flowing through nearby wires.

JOhn Mc

88 Dolphin 4 Auto

[zero]

Wierd, I've seen where voltages can get induced into unterminated wires, but this is usually cased by current flowing through nearby wires.

JOhn Mc

88 Dolphin 4 Auto

I've been working with electricity for near 50 years - and before this event - I would of said it was impossible for a light bulb to light with only one wire attached. I guess . . . radio waves are a form of electricity so we DO know electricity can flow through the air. I just never figured enough to make a light glow. But - some LEDs can glow on next-to-nothing currrent.

i still don't know how this really happens. I'm just guessing. In reality though, most of electronics is "guessing" and relying on past behavior of what we call electrons.

[zero]

Wierd, I've seen where voltages can get induced into unterminated wires, but this is usually cased by current flowing through nearby wires.

JOhn Mc

88 Dolphin 4 Auto

No induction here that I can imagine. Just one chunk of 14/2 NM cable from the light switch to the light bulb. One wire is positive (the one that is disconnected). One wire is negative, and the ground that is not used at the light socket (plastic box). No other circuits within 20 feet.

[Totem]

have you opened up the lightbulb assembly?

I just opened one of mine (110 V) it contained among other things capacitors and I believe and inductor.

Have you tried getting the bulb so its glowing and then removing the bulb from the socket? If it still is light that would solve the answer maybe?

[zero]

have you opened up the lightbulb assembly?

I just opened one of mine (110 V) it contained among other things capacitors and I believe and inductor.

Have you tried getting the bulb so its glowing and then removing the bulb from the socket? If it still is light that would solve the answer maybe?

If I unscrew it, it goes out. So it seems the unhooked wire acts as sort of an antenna and picks up just enough current from the air to glow.

When I put the bonding screw into the service panel - when dark - a small spark can be seen as the light goes out. Weird. Something that never would of been noticed if i hadn't used an LED bulb.

I never got around to taking it apart yet. Part # is 1016WH, "cool white", 12 volt and with an Edison #27 mount. It looks like it has maybe 40 little LEDs inside.

[Totem]

is this underneath or nearby a major power line run? You know that you can walk under major transmission lines holding a fluorescent bulb tube and it will glow like a light-saber...

[gr8white]

Thanks guys! I didn't go through this thread in full yet but saw a lot of help and ideas. I will be going through this thread thoroughly shortly. I just got my RV ready for a big holiday road trip and now oil is coming out everywhere. Its a nightmare. I bought the wrong Toyota. Almost everything that can go wrong has gone wrong on this thing. Nightmare. But I just keep plugging away and dumping cash into it.

[Vanman]

jdemaris

Two amazing things I've found with LEDs. One - they are not subject to "high cycle" death. A conventional filament bulb or a CFL can suffer short lifes if turned on and off a lot. The cycles kill them. Not LEDs. Two - LEDs can make some light at almost any voltage. CFLs and conventional filament bulbs have a low threshold where they do nothing. In this respect, LEDs can be a little wierd at times. I have had a few 60-watt equivalent LEDs glow dimly even after the switch was "off." Then, even after unhooking one of the wires to the LED it still glowed dimly. I was of thought that was impossible. I checked between the two terminals even though there was only one wire going to the 12 volt bulb. Voltmeter read around 100 millivolts and that was enough to make it glow dimmly.

I had a similar occurance with the 120 VAC screw-in type LED's I have in my home. The stairway and garage lamps are small LEDs, one in the stairwell, 2 in the center of the garage. I am constantly turning them on/off. This killed the CFL's and the LEDs use a lot less watts. They are are on 2 wall switches on both levels of the house. Suddenly I found the LED in the stairs on dimly when it should be off, the 2 in the garage were off!!!

meter says both switches good but it got a lot dimmer with the garage switch in the up position. I bought a new switch and replacing the top switch did nothing, replacing the bottom switch corrected the problem. Again meter said it was OK so I broke it apart carefully and it looked OK !!?? No overhead AC lines here, underground utilities.

vanman

[Maineah]

Looks to me like you are missing your service ground it's needed to balance the neutral.

[zero]

is this underneath or nearby a major power line run? You know that you can walk under major transmission lines holding a fluorescent bulb tube and it will glow like a light-saber...

Middle of the woods in the Adirondacks and nowhere near any power lines. I wish now I had tried shutting off the inverters on the other side of th cabin to see if they were the cause. They knock out all AM radio reception so I know they are sending various waves into the air.

[zero]

The particular light circuit has no ground. The box is plastic and the light receptacle is also plastic. As I stated earlier - although this is a cabin in the woods - local code demands all buildings meet residential specs. NEC as per NY requires hard-wired smoke alarms. So, just for that reason we had to add AC inside a DC wired building. The electrical inspector insisted we treat the AC breaker panel as the "main entrance panel" even though there IS no "entrance" panel. So the AC box is fully grounded and the neutral bar is bonded to ground. The battery bank has negative going to ground. The DC breaker box is also grounded but was the neutral bar was NOT bonded to ground (by insistance of the inspector). The neutal bar in the DC box is used for 12 volts DC negative. Bonding the neutral bar in the DC panel fixed the problem although the inspector wanted it regarded as a "branch circuit" box and not be bonded.

Looks to me like you are missing your service ground it's needed to balance the neutral.

[waiter]

Gotta love the building inspectors. Especially if a non-union member did the wiring. My favorite story is green bolt heads, One of our jobs was written up because we used a regular bolt for a ground lug, According to the Inspector, its supposed to be green color, I wanted to say; "BS - Show me where it says that". But my experience with Inspection prevailed and we solved the problem by taking a green magic marker, and painting the head of the screw green.

JOhn Mc

88 Dolphin 4 Auto

[Maineah]

There is a lot to be said about single point grounds if you don't want ground loops.

[Maineah]

The particular light circuit has no ground. The box is plastic and the light receptacle is also plastic. As I stated earlier - although this is a cabin in the woods - local code demands all buildings meet residential specs. NEC as per NY requires hard-wired smoke alarms. So, just for that reason we had to add AC inside a DC wired building. The electrical inspector insisted we treat the AC breaker panel as the "main entrance panel" even though there IS no "entrance" panel. So the AC box is fully grounded and the neutral bar is bonded to ground. The battery bank has negative going to ground. The DC breaker box is also grounded but was the neutral bar was NOT bonded to ground (by insistance of the inspector). The neutal bar in the DC box is used for 12 volts DC negative. Bonding the neutral bar in the DC panel fixed the problem although the inspector wanted it regarded as a "branch circuit" box and not be bonded.

If you are making AC with and inverter in the building he is correct that is the service power. If you are picking up power from any where else it's not. Interesting that he allowed the smoke detectors to be powered with the inverter you would be just as well off with 9 volt batteries. There is a cut off some where with DC voltage I retired before I had to deal with high voltage solar panels and there was a big change in the DC stuff about 3 years ago.

[zero]

If you are making AC with and inverter in the building he is correct that is the service power. If you are picking up power from any where else it's not. Interesting that he allowed the smoke detectors to be powered with the inverter you would be just as well off with 9 volt batteries. There is a cut off some where with DC voltage I retired before I had to deal with high voltage solar panels and there was a big change in the DC stuff about 3 years ago.

Battery powered smoke alarms do not meet NY's version of code. Single-family residence requires "hard wired" smoke alarms and not just 9 volt battery backup. I complained about it and still think it's rediculous. After all, the 120 VAC is powered by a battery bank anyway. To be "historically" technical, an "entrance" panel is where power from outside the building "enters" to the inside. In this cabin - that would be the 12 volt DC solar panels on the roof.

These silly hard-wired smoke alarms wound up being pretty expensive. The first HD inverter was a Trace 2400 watt (continuous) mod-wave. No good. It cannot power a smoke alarm or a GFIC outlet. That led to various phone calls to smoke-alarm makers. They used to make special units that ran on any inverter. Not any more. They've been cheapened and now only work with sine-wave inverters. So, had to buy a 2nd "sine wave" inverter just to power smoke alarms. Ramsond Sunray 3000 watt continuous. kept the old one and the AC breaker-box now has two AC inputs. I.e. it has two "main" breakers.

To add insult to injury - these new smoke alarms are time-coded. Once you energize - they go dead in 5 years regardless if used or not. We don't use the cabin in the winter and turn them all off. Doesn't matter. Supposedly they will stop working in exactly 5 years. What a rip off!

This is a two story cabin in the middle of the woods. The buiding code guy (not electric) argued that they no longer allow "cabins" by code terms. The lowest form of building he will allow in that town is a "single family residence." That requires hard-wired smoke alarms, automatic heating system (can't have just a wood stove), and an automatic water system. Our hand-pump was not enough by code. So I built a piston pump that runs with a 1/4 horse DC motor. I also -after the building was erected - had to get an engineer to put his stamp on my hand-drawn plans.

I still do not believe the local code enforcement guy is correct. But it does not matter what I think. He has legal discression to flex the written code either way.

Things are not a easy as they use to be.