I purchased a little fiberglass camper trailer in December and am having fun updating it.
My current project is to make it more electrically efficient so it can boondock longer on its battery power. I'm replacing the lights with LED panels off eBay and building little voltage regulators to protect the cheap LEDs. As an ME, my electronic knowledge is pretty basic, but you can learn anything on the internet. I've also discovered that you can buy just about any electronic component for pennies if you wait for it to be mailed from China.
I'm patient.
All right! Another ER member is going camping!
Prior to our long RV trip in summer 2011, I had converted most of the interior lights in our MH to LED, and I was very pleased. I had experimented with small circular LED panels like the following, at around $1.50 a piece. I bought samples from 3 different vendors, and although they all claimed "warm white", they were too yellowish, and one even a bit greenish. Additionally, I found that none of them put out enough light, which should not be surprising because the output was rated at only 90 lumens at a max current of less than 100mA.
So, I looked up the specs of the incandescent bulb that I was trying to replace, and found out that the common #1073 bulb put out 400 lumens, while consuming 23W. That seemed about right, as 4 of the circular LED panels appeared to be about as bright as the incandescent bulb. But I did not like the color.
So, I bought a sample of the following type, was pleased, and ended up buying 10 more. I paid something like $6/each on ebay. They were rated at 10W and put out 600 lumens. The color was soft white and even less yellowish than the incandescent. It was smaller than a penny. Even though the light output was diffused over a hemisphere (not focused like a LED flashlight), it was still so bright I could not look directly at it!
This LED assembly had an aluminum substrate, which had to be mounted onto a metal backplate for cooling, else the LED would burn up. It took 1A max at a voltage of around 10V. A regulator is a necessity, as the current rises up exponentially with voltage. The LED would be burned out with the 12V battery voltage, which even rises up to 14.4V when under charge.
So, I built a small regulator circuit, which along with the LED was mounted inside the stock light fixture. The circuit has a dimmer knob to control the light intensity. I found out that it was too bright, and set up the circuit such that the current would be no more than 0.6A, even when the user turned the knob to max level.
Thought I would mention this for you to try. You can get it from several Chinese vendors on ebay by searching for "LED 10W warm white".
PS. I have found that one can get 12V CFL fixtures that has the same efficiency as the above LED. However, I think I like the LED color better, plus the LED can be dimmed.
