LED Flexible Strip and Rope Lighting Concern

[Gary Hatt - Publisher BCM]

I am considering replacing my Halogen light fixture with LED Flexible Strip and Rope Lighting in my bus. The 50 Halogen lights were the "in" thing when it was converted in 1996.  But I asked one LED lighting expert and he recommended against using flexible strip lighting and going with LED fixtures instead.  He said the strip lighting heats up some and in about two years it will start to yellow and loose effectiveness and the sticky-back tape will start coming off.

A friend of mine in Quartzsite that installed this a couple of years ago confirmed this as he showed me his light strips that were hanging down.

I know a lot of you now have this lighting in your buses, what is  your experience and if you have had problems, what do you recommend?

I realize if I replace my Halogen Lights with LEDs, that I will have to install an additional heater in my bus for winters, but that is besides the point. 

[sledhead]

you can buy led replacement bulbs that will fit in your original  lights but they might be as much $$$ as replacement led lights
just a lot less work

I replaced about 60 bulbs on mine to led like these in2016

https://www.amazon.com/Yuiip-Dustproof-Replacement-Generation-Shockproof/dp/B06WRS71VZ/ref=pd_lpo_vtph_60_tr_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=0MWG5AYMGVN92PPRA5TG

Dave

[chessie4905]

Also available on Ebay. Brightness, price varies, some are pretty cheap.

[richard5933]

I installed LED lights that came in 16-foot rolls in our 4106 and was very happy. There are two things I did to make the install work for us.

First, you can get aluminum strips with frosted plastic covers to mount them in. The aluminum strips help dissipate the heat, and the can be mounted with screws or zip tied to something (we did both as the need arose). The frosted plastic covers helped smooth out the light so that we didn't see all the individual lights.

The other thing we did, which I consider more important, was to buy the slightly more expensive lights that have a separate white light row. They were called RGBW instead of just the RGB. Without the row of white lights there is no way to get a white light that looks natural in my opinion when using these strips.

On the front of our bus we used a hand-held remote to control the lights. In the bedroom we used a wall mounted controller that fit into a low-voltage box and worked by simply touching the color wheel on the color we wanted and the intensity stripe to set the intensity. Worked really well.

(We got everything from Amazon for reasonable prices)

[csrddcd]

Yep, converted ours as sledhead mentioned above and they work great, use way less juice too. Just have to verify which color (how white) you want them. Lower numbers are more yellow higher numbers are more bright white. Watch out for the different watt options too.

[DoubleEagle]

I got close to 50 LED bulbs from M4LED.com to convert all the lights in my Eagle Entertainer - tremendous drop in current requirements, and there was a choice of color tones.

[Oonrahnjay]

I got close to 50 LED bulbs from M4LED.com to convert all the lights in my Eagle Entertainer - tremendous drop in current requirements, and there was a choice of color tones. 

    I got mine from RVLed.com but same thing -- lower current, much less heat output, and good color.  I got the G4 (4 mm spacing on the prong wires) to replace the halogen bulbs in my "puck lights".   Very happy.  Four years old and none burned out in that time.

[buswarrior]

Gary, do you really want to tear into the coach, replacing fixtures?

Just get LED bulbs to match the fixtures and find something else to worry about?

happy coaching!
buswarrior

[bigred]

One of the next things that I need to do is replace the lamps in the wall fixtures with led .These fancied up fixture use three 25w tear drop lamps ea and operate off 120v on a two dimmer set up .No question they provide light but if you have all four of these things going they will put out more heat than the Webasto!!! lol

[Oonrahnjay]

... Just get LED bulbs to match the fixtures and find something else to worry about?
happy coaching!
buswarrior 

     That worked for me - very well.  BH

[sledhead]

I needed the same type but for over the mirror in the washroom and found some like these way way less heat and power usage but still 120 volt

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XZWD17S/ref=sspa_dk_detail_1?psc=1&pd_rd_i=B06XZWD17S&pd_rd_wg=ZSopa&pd_rd_r=QK9JNR997REDJ1SWRBY0&pd_rd_w=i9ULH 

dave