When I converted my GM PD4106 20 years ago one of my kids faciciously asked me if I had enough lights in the bus. I had 3 flourescents on the ceiling and 6 double bulb 12 volts lights under the cabinets. But now 20 years later the light just isn't adequate anymore. The 12 volts bulbs seem quite dim.
What other kind of lighting are people using that will brighten things up (pun intended).
Fred Mc.
I realize you're talking about your eyes, but when's the last time you replaced the florescent tubes? If they're years old, they really aren't as bright as they used to be.
You might check into LED bulbs if you want to put brighter bulbs in your existing 12V fixtures. Or brighter traditional bulbs, if more heat won't be a problem.
If you look for new fixtures, LED is the way to go these days.
Do LED light fixtures provide as many lumens as other lighting options? Most LED lights I have seen in RVs/bus conversions seem more like night lights than real lighting,
I have 24 volt flourescent lights left over from when my coach was originally built that light up the interior like a baseball stadium. No idea how much power they draw.
Fred,
You described exactly what I have in my coach. I never found it to be dark, nor daylight brite. My wife prefers a low lite condition, no, don't go there...
Actually, when stopped for the evening, I prefer not to draw much attention. When reading, the sidelight lights under the overhead cabinets provide sufficient lighting.
Having said that, Flourscents will degrade like 50% of initial light levels over the years, so you do not have what you once had.
Hey, It is your coach, and do as you like.
Quote from: belfert on September 13, 2009, 12:51:10 AM
Do LED light fixtures provide as many lumens as other lighting options? Most LED lights I have seen in RVs/bus conversions seem more like night lights than real lighting...
It depends on how they are built... If they use a few of the the 3MM (T1) type LEDs youre probably going to get a very narrow beam with only a little light output... This is usually the type you'll get the cheapest. The better ones are using more powerfull LEDs - some single LEDs are putting out more than 100 lumens (as a point of reference, a typical standard 60Watt incandescent bulb puts out about 800 lumens). The other place you'll spend money on in an LED fixture is the way it gives the LEDs power - the most comon for low power LEDs is to use a simple resistor (a few cents each, very cheap), but for high-power LEDs, it's more common to have an active current regulator circuit (maybe a few bucks in parts, each fixture).
For any of those who don't want to believe that LEDs can be bright, brace yourself ;D - the Lumileds Altilon (http://www.philipslumileds.com/products/luxeon-altilon) is used in the Audi R8 for both low-beam and high-beam headlights (http://www.philipslumileds.com/newsandevents/releases/PR121.pdf).... 850 lumens from a single package, with a 5000+ minimum hour lifespan (50K hours if thermally derated), and an efficiency of ~121lumens/Watt (your typical MR16 halogen is between 14-20 lumens per watt).
-Tim
Tim,
Are you saying the Audi R8 headlight is no brighter than a typical standard 60Watt incandescent bulb?
Truck-Lite is making a 7" round headlight that is LED and DOT approved. Something like $400 each. A local Peterbilt dealer has one on display.
fluorescent lights flicker 120 times a second. you are not concscious of it, but it grinds on your nerves.
flouresce is a verb; things which flouresce emit visible light in the presence of ultraviolet light. flourescent lights are in fact black lights coated with flourescent material. they emit nasty quantities of ultraviolet light.
ultraviolet light is processed in a different way than visible light by the eyes. the iris reacts to ultrviolet light and closes down. the eyes see less visible light and the iris opens up. the iris reacts to ultrviolet light ...
the lenses try to focus on things they see with UV, but can't. the lenses focus on things they can see with visible light. the lenses try to focus on things they see with UV...
tired eyes... red eyes...
if you feel like your eyes have been hammered after working under flourescent lights all day - you are right. iris and lens spastically twitching all day long.
the flourescent material in flourescent lights emits more green light than any other color. which is why photographs taken under flourescent lights come out green. said fact depicted well in the movie "Joe versus the volcano"
you need nice bright incandescent lights for reading and doing fine work at night. fooey on some silly hippy notion of being green.
We've got an assortment of lighting in the bus, a couple of regular 110 volt table lamps for the couch area, some zenon undercabinet lighting in the kitchen but the ceiling lighting is all small flouresent tubes that I figured were dimming cause most everything I use is dimming in one way or another lol, yesterday I went to town and bought new tubes for them, what a difference it made, I never realized that as they age they go dimmer. I like light, at my age mood lighting isn't a good thing seeing as how my normal mood is bad.
20 watt halogen puck lights will lighten things up nicely-although they do pull a bit of power. I believe 12vdc fluorescent lights do not flicker. Good Luck, TomC
Oh.... Flourescent lights flicker at 120 hz... Maybe so for house fixtures that run on 120 volt @60 hz....
But 12 volt RV type flicker at 20Kz which is the transistor oscillator rate.
This can mess up IR remote controls to TV's & VCR's and such.
I know this because I had some lights that made me crazy for a while. Everything would be fine until I turned on the lights, Then my remotes didn't work at all. I kept changing batteries and it didn't help. Lights=OFF remotes worked, Lights=On remotes didn't work.
Turned out to be IR saturation. I shielded the IR sensors and all started working again. I put a scope on the power supply for one of the flourescent fixtures and found a chopped 20kz signal.
I just changed all the lighting in my bus to "warm white" LED strips, 5 meters long, from ebay seller "ledclick".
I also just changed out all the fluorescent lighting in my shop to "bright white" 5 meter strips from the same supplier.
It's great! The Led's are bright enough to read and work by- actually better than the fluorescents- they don't buzz, and they take a LOT less power,
In the bus an $8, 12 volt LED dimmer from the same supplier works wonders for mood.
Highly recommended....
I built my own LED arrays. Initially I built them without any resistors but I was firmly castigated for such reckless behaviour so I repented. I use 4 of these (http://www.hiteqelectric.com/proddetail-led.asp?linenumber=419) in series and cluster those strings into arrays of anywhere from 16 to 40 individual LEDs. Then I put either a 10 or 22 ohm resistor in series with the array. Most of our coach lighting is now delivered by those arrays. The balance comes from a variety of commercial LED solutions.
Hi Fred,
Have you tried cleaning the lenses? Cleaning both your light fixture lenses and your eye glasses lenses will brighten your outlook considerably.
Good luck, Sam 4106/MC 8
Boogie, I looked at the LED's you got. Does it come on a roll. How do your install it and how is it powered? It looks interesting but I'm wondering about the mounting, connecting etc.
Fred Mc.
Fred, they come on a 5 meter roll. The stuff is flexible and has 3M adhesive on the back... simple, just peel and stick. At the end of the roll is a black and a red wire- hook to 12 volts DC and that's it. If you can solder, you can cut the roll as short as 3 LEds and there are pads to solder (+) and (-) wires to every 3 LEds, so you can make it any length you need. The proper resistors are part of the construction- the whole 5 meters is basically a multiple repetition of a 3 led circuit.
Very cool (pun intended)
Quote from: gus on September 14, 2009, 10:09:11 PM
Tim,
Are you saying the Audi R8 headlight is no brighter than a typical standard 60Watt incandescent bulb?
:D Lqtm they use more than one ;D.
-T
My fluorescent tube (12Volt) messes with my amp meter. When the light is on it puts 520 amps into my battery bank ??? obviously that is a little off but makes keeping track of my batteries tough. Anyone know what is up with that?
I have gone with the LED lights - I like the ones that have a warm color - easy on power too.
I just purchased LED puck lights from Walmart for $3 each. They use good old aa batteries and last forever, the best part is they have a light sensor - perfect for drawers. Whenever you open the drawer it senses light, turns on... bobs your uncle
Quote from: boogiethecat on September 15, 2009, 09:31:19 AM
I just changed all the lighting in my bus to "warm white" LED strips, 5 meters long, from ebay seller "ledclick".
These certainly aren't going to generate as much light as my four or five 20 watt flourescents. Do these light up an area really brightly, or is it more of a dim light like maybe an airline cabin with the main lights off?
My passengers like to have a light on at night, but it can distract the driver. We've worked around it, but I would like something less harsh for night driving. Would these be a good option for lighting the passenger living area at night while driving?
How long to ship?
They are, in my case, just as bright as fluorescents. And MUCH nicer color temperature to the eye. Actually, the two 10' strips I put in my bus are brighter than my two old 40 watt fluorescents. And those two strips consume 1.8 amps on 12 volts where the fluorescents took slightly over 6 amps!
- once I saw how bright they were and how little power they consumed, I changed my whole shop to them and I couldnt be happier!
Given that you can use the cheap 12 volt dimmers that the seller has, mood lighting is super easy, just turn them down.
It took about a week for them to get here. LEdclick is a good supplier and quite reliable.
Hint, don't use the "bright white" led's for your bus, they are very harsh white- they're great for a work area but not so good for a mood/living area. Use the "warm whites" there...
Cheers
Boogie
Do the warm white LEDs look bluish like some of the CFLs? I bought an outside liight for home and the CFL bulb in it certainly has a blue tint.
These LEDs sound like a great option for me, but will probably have to wait until next year for cost and time reasons.
Boogie, are these the 5 m length with 600 led's?
Fred Mc.
The warm white ones look very nice and not bluish at all.
The bright white ones I got were these
120470431565
The warm white ones I got had 300 leds per strip- it looks like the 600 led ones are just a lot brighter, because they have the same leds but draw more current than the 300 version
Quote from: belfert on September 16, 2009, 10:58:27 AMDo the warm white LEDs look bluish like some of the CFLs? I bought an outside light for home and the CFL bulb in it certainly has a blue tint.
This depends on the way the LED is built (usually a phosphor over a blue or UV led) and the color temperature of the "white" - just being "white" isn't very specific... Kind of like a nice lady saying it's "eggshell white" vs "snow white"... It's still "white" to me but yeah, it's a different shade. Here is a link to a random lighting color temperature (http://www.servicelighting.com/home_color_temperature_selector.cfm?action=select_color_temperature&room_type=Residential&room_name=Bedroom) page I found through Google (so I'm not endorsing them or anything...), and it has a good example of the "Kelvin" color temperature of white.
A warm white is usually around 3500K, a neutral white is around 4200K, and a cool white is around 6500K. For a stage-lighting or effect lighting, where light out put is very critical - a very cool (6000-7000K) light will flood a space with light (but it will probably be pretty harsh). If you are doing a critical task like cooking and craft work, a bright neutral (4000-4200K) light will allow you to focus on the work rather than straining to see what you're doing. For a mood lighting or soft lighting "after dinner conversation over coffee" - or "enough light to see who's in the room but not blinding like a GAP storefront..." :o, a warmer LED is typically more appropriate (2700-3500K).
Note that warmer lights usually have a better Color Rendering Index (CRI) than cooler lights, but the warmer lights usually don't put out as much light as the cooler lights - CRI is a rough way of explaining the relative ability for a person to tell apart different colors under the test-case lighting, using sunlight as a reference (100 CRI). As an example, one manufacturer quotes 65 CRI for 6500K @ 105 lumens, 80 CRI for 4000K @ 85 lumens and 90 CRI for 3000K @ 63 lumens - notice that there is less total light output for lower color temps, but lower CRI for higher color temps...
In the dome light of my pickup, I use four 3-watt warm LEDs from Lumileds, which are around 3500K and they look pretty darn close to the incandescent bulb's color I took out, but at a lower heat output and power draw ;D. No blue hue at all...
-T