Interior Lights - Incandescant, LED, or Flourescent

[Pyrofish]

Hi Everybody,

I'm at the planning stages of my first Cargo Trailer build. I'm trying pick out lights, and I thought I was going to go to LEDs. However, as I learn more and more about them, they seem to offer very little light for the money. I saw in a thread from a few months ago, someone bought LEDs in the hopes that he could use them as dome lighting, only to find out they were only good for cabinets. When I looked at that page, they were rated at 35 Lumens.

During my research over the past few days, I see that, as a reference point, a 60watt bulb is about 750 Lumens. I had my eye on a few dome lights on eBay, but I don't see a lumen count on them.

I'm probably being nitpicky about how many amps I'm actually going to use, but I have a pretty big trailer. 20' x 8'6 x 8'high. I don't want to drain my batteries in one rainy night of sitting inside.

Is fluorescent the way to go?

[parnold]

I believe you will find that nothing comes close to LED in low consumption, but may end up costing 5 times more than incandescent lights.

[bdosborn]

Is fluorescent the way to go?

Maybe, it depends on what you want your lighting to do. Right now, linear fluorescent has the highest lumen output per watt compared to LED and incandescent. If you want to light a lot of area without using a lot of amps its hard to beat a fluorescent light. I had bad luck with fluorescent in cold weather; the lamps kept burning out when it got below 40F so make sure you get a good one (not JC Whitney). It's also hard to find a warm white (3500K) lamp in the 12V lights.

LEDs can help you lower your amp draw but you have to be smart about how you use them. They're highly directional so it's hard to light a wide area with LEDs and keep the amp draw as low as a fluorescent. A lot of people aren't happy with the blue color of LEDs but they're coming out with better (more yellow) LEDs all the time.

The old workhorse is incandescent. Easy to get lots of good, white light but an energy hog...

Here's a link to some LED lights I made to give you an idea of some of the color temperatures that are out there:

LEDLightConversion Linky

I made mine a couple of years ago so the LED availability has changed a lot since then...

Bruce

[vtx1029]

I used these as under cabinet lights in our new kitchen and they rock! I run 8 strips in combination with a PWM dimmer and rarely have them all the way turned up. But it could still be costly out fitting a whole trailer with them.

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/36-led-576-lumen-string-light-with-aluminum-alloy-shell-warm-white-light-12v-47300

[Pyrofish]

Thanks for the replies.

I really like what you've done there with the emitters, and that strip light with 576 Lumens is pretty darn nice for the price.

My biggest problem is, I don't know what I'll need light for. My girlfriend is pretty new to this camping thing, and I'm not sure how she'll use the electricity when we're not hooked to shore power. Heck, if it wasn't for her, I'd still be fine with a tent

It doesn't need to be daylight in there, but I do plan multiple lights on multiple switches for the ceiling. Just areas, front, middle, back end so there's less draw.

One thing I didn't know about LED's is that they burn out on 12V.... how often does THAT happen?! Fluorescent is sounding better all the time. I do know how to replace those bulbs

Thanks again for the info guys. Guess it's on to looking at the flourescents... I really didn't want the same stuff that's in my office though

[lonerider]

I'm planning on Rope lights all around the top edge.

[jwhite]

I bought 12 volt lights from this Ebay store and I am very pleased with the lights and the cost and they were shipped fast.
http://stores.ebay.com/BOAT-AND-RV-ACCESSORIES-ITC-INC/Reading-Lights-/
The ones I bought have a dimmer switch,I have 3 all hooked to 1 12volt battery.
I have found that I burn candles more than the lights and they smell good.
I only turn on my lights when I go in the trailer and it's dark or if I need to read something.
I light the candles and turn off the lights and save the battery.

[GeoDrop]

Pyro,

We installed two of these 12v lights that take a simple automotive light bulb. It puts out a lot of light.



FWIW, I had bad luck with 12v fluorescent lights. One I fried (my fault) and the 2nd didn't survive the first road trip.

I used the shell of the flourescent lights and installed two of these LED doodads inside for the galley and man do they put out a lot of light:



http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002Q3VXUK

I would just run wires where you think you'll need lights and figure out when you get there. :-)

[d30gaijin]

I am converting a 6x10 CT and here's what I used, the old standby incandescent. I bought them at the local Camping World store. I don't recall the price but they weren't very expensive. Each has its own on/off switch and each can be used as a single or a dual light depending on which way you flip the switch. With all three going as dual lights they really light up the interior of the 6x10 at night.

Don

[bdosborn]

Here's some LED dome lights.


Spendy but look at the light output and the current draw:

LED Linky

You can get the incandescent versions of these really cheap (like $10 each). How about putting in the incandescent version and replacing the incandescent lamps with LEDs over time? You could figure out which lights you use the most when you camp and start with those first. The LED in the light above gets good reviews over at the big RV site, they're just kind of spendy.

LED Linky

These have voltage regulators built in so they won't burn out when your battery charger goes to 14.4V.

Bruce

[woytovich]

I used these as under cabinet lights in our new kitchen and they rock! I run 8 strips in combination with a PWM dimmer and rarely have them all the way turned up. But it could still be costly out fitting a whole trailer with them.

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/36-led-576-lumen-string-light-with-aluminum-alloy-shell-warm-white-light-12v-47300

I just ordered 2 strips... we'll see how they work in my little 5x8...

[GPW]

Why not use a combination of lights , each suited to specific intent ...??? LEDs are great for general lighting with low current draw, but may not make a good reading light ... Use what you need to do the job !!!

[Shadow Catcher]

I have marine lights that take a 12V G4 bulb that have LED arrays that I purchased from Jamestown Distributors. They work beautifully and are a warm 3200K color temperature.
Our experience with the original MM with cheep LED arrays from China was that I had only one of the LED's in one of the arrays fail leaving not much degradation in light output.

[Pyrofish]

I had no idea you could swap out bulbs for LEDs
That's awesome! That's the best of both worlds. Buy the incandescents, then swap them for LED's where needed.

Thanks! What a helpful group this is

[vtx1029]

I found some more that may work.

700LM

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/10w-3200k-700-lumen-warm-white-led-spot-light-bulb-12v-55324

MR 16 LED replacement bulb
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/mr16-5w-5-led-6000k-450-lumen-light-bulb-dc-12v-70809

Or these (I woudn't expect much being there is no lumen rating)
http://www.dealextreme.com/p/36-led-car-interior-light-white-light-dc-12v-45278

I may have to try these out! They would be blueish but may be a easy way to replace the halogen bulbs currently in my trailer.

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/6w-12-led-300lm-6000k-white-car-brake-turning-backward-signal-light-dc-12v-65675