Alternate Lighting

[Fred Mc]

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.

[Nusa]

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.

[belfert]

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.

[Gary '79 5C]

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.

[Tim Strommen]

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 - the Lumileds Altilon is used in the Audi R8 for both low-beam and high-beam headlights....  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

[gus]

Tim,

Are you saying the Audi R8 headlight is no brighter than a typical standard 60Watt incandescent bulb?

[belfert]

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.

[kd5kfl]

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.

[cody]

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.

[TomC]

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

[Hartley]

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.

[boogiethecat]

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....

[bobofthenorth]

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 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.   

[Sam 4106]

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

[Fred Mc]

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.