LED Lighting

[youknowwho]

I guess I don't really understand your question.
I was just using the remote as an example but since you want to question things that don't matter, Ipod's have remotes, video cameras have remotes and both plus laptops all run on there own battery power. I have a battery bank and a large inverter in which can be used to operate the other necessary appliances. You obviously think this is stupid. Bottom line is if you don't have a solution don't contribute to the problem.

[WEC4104]

I really am not trying to anger you or attack your idea for the LED lighting, I am just trying to understand the big picture of what you want to accomplish and help you with info.

I have several LED lighting designs installed in my bus, including a 27 LED fixture for task lighting, a 6 foot long bar with LEDs on 4" centers to simulate light rope, several discrete LEDs tucked in various areas and a few installed in the dash to replace conventional bulbs.  All of these are items are hand built with resistor circuits I soldered in place. Bottom line, is I have a bit of familiarity with LED installations for a variety of bus applications, and tried to help answer your questions.

The basic answers to your initial questions were provided.  You can expect rope lighting to provide enough light not to trip over something, but clusters of high output LEDs are recommended for reading. Put enough of them together, and you can achieve whatever output you want.

Going beyond these answers requires additional info, and that is what I have been targeting.  No one can answer how long these lights will run on a hand crank generator, without more info.  You are talking about building something from old drill parts. The first post made no mention of using batteries or capacitors, so basically the lights will go out when you stop cranking.  The store bought flashlights with built in cranks store energy in an internal battery or capacitor to provide extended use after the cranking stops.

So your "How long will they run?" question is as much of a battery size issue as it is the LED power draw. You mentioned possibly having the lighting set up in 3 sections, each with it's own battery and crank system.  Hey, you do whatever you would like to do, but most folks would probably opt for a centralized system with one larger battery. 

Early on, you alluded to the fact that there was a bigger picture you were aiming for. My question about the remote was to try and get a better feel for the other power consumers in your coach. If you have an underlying reason to keep the crank/LED system separate from your existing house battery and inverter, I'm okay with that.

If my previous posts sounded like I was criticizing your idea or attacking you, I apologize.

[TomC]

LED lighting is the next best lighting method that the industry is working very hard to perfect, since the electrical consumption is a fraction of even the curly lights.  But currently, LED bulbs are only putting out around 50 watts of equal light output of an incandescent light.  As proof that there is much research and development, the brightness of LED's are on the average doubling every year.  Personally-I'd wait a couple of years to convert all lighting to LED.  This will work out well for my truck conversion time wise.  Good Luck, TomC

[bobofthenorth]

I've got to echo what Tom just said.  The state of the art of LED lighting right now is that it is in its infancy.  I'm slowly converting our home over to LEDs but you can't just walk into Home Depot and plunk down your coin.  I did run into some low priced 110V candelabra base bulbs in WallyWorld the other day.  They are doing a fine job of lighting up the bathroom vanity now and a moderately good job in the living room fixtures.  I've also got some individual LEDs on order and I'm going to use them to fashion some kind of a replacement for the power hungry halogens that currently light our sunshine ceiling in the kitchen.  There's been a few suggestions of late that unless you mold your own tires out of raw rubber and beat your own rivets out of a lump of SS then you aren't a worthy busnut.  Well I'm here to tell you that there's plenty to keep you busy keeping a "finished" conversion on the road and doing an LED upgrade will consume a chunk of time all by itsownself.

[youknowwho]

I have regular rope lighting in my bus now and even being behind a valance the ones in my bedroom do an amazing job. (I'll post a video later) Just haven't seen the LED ones to know if they are comparable. I know there's a lot of improvements to be made in LED lighting but I need to get my project done in the next few months. As far as the cordless drill generator that may never happen just thought it was a cool reuse of old ones. I do plan on pursuing the hand crank generators though. If I can get 30 minutes of light for 1 minute of cranking that's pretty cool and not much of an inconvenience. I would still keep my bath mirror light as it is but think the rest would be bright enough with proper LED placement and arrangement.

[Lin]

I personally do not like the white light that most LED's have; just like the fluorescent.  You can see if you can get them in soft white which is 2700k - 2800k in color temperature.  That would be the same yellowish tint you get with incandescent and halogens.  We had fluorescent indirect lighting that I wanted to change, looked into LED and thought it would be too expensive for what we needed.  I made strings of sockets and used 14 watt, 2700k compact fluorescent bulbs.  It is a big improvement to my eye.  I may have put too many on the string, but unscrewing a few bulbs is within my skill-set.  Of course, this only works because all the lights are hidden behind a valence.

[WEC4104]

Lin makes a valid point regarding the color of white LEDs.

I originally started out with a 6 foot length of conventional (12V) rope light behind each of my two window valences.  I was very pleased with the lighting effect, as it gave a soft warm light that was perfect for what I wanted.  Unfortunately, the rope lighting had a very short life, and sections of the rope went dark.  It was like a bad string of Christmas lights.

Eventually I decided to replace one of the valences with LEDs.  I picked up a 6 foot length of aluminum U-channel (3/4").  I drilled holes on 4" centers and mounted white LEDs with resistors. I've had that installed for about three years, and it has worked flawlessly.  The only thing I do not care for is the color of the light. It has a cold bluish-white tint, which reminds me of moonlight.  It just isn't as pleasant to the eye for the soft indirect lighting I want.

Eventually I want to build another light bar for the other valence.  When I do, I want to explore a few additional options.  I might try using yellow LEDs, or maybe build the light bar with an alternating yellow-white-yellow-white... pattern.  I also want to check the latest LED technology, as I believe they are introducing some white LEDs with a warmer wavelength.   When I find the right combo for the new light bar, I'll retrofit my first attempt.

I have also found that the cooler white light of the LEDs is just fine in other applications I have installed in the bus.  Some locations the bluish-white looks great, but not in my valences.

[boogiethecat]

You guys don't seem to have paid much attention to my post about the 15' RGB led strips.  I light my entire bedroom with them, they're bright, in fact one strip is brighter than a few hundred watts of incandescents were; you can change the color to whatever you want, and they are amazing.
They kick the ars off of incandescent ropelights ~and~ led ropelights.
  Finally, the time has arrived  where they (Leds) can make things very practical that even last year, weren't...

[youknowwho]

You guys don't seem to have paid much attention to my post about the 15' RGB led strips. 

I did and they are cool as hell but at $10 per foot plus controllers you lost my attention quicker than you gained it.

[Jeremy]

I was also attracted by Boogie's RGB led strips until I saw the price - having said that I am beginning to realise that not all leds are equal, and a lot of cheap ones are not suitable for lighting use. I did some experiments a couple of weeks ago with cheap Christmas-tree type leds and found they do not give anything like enough light to be used for anything other than 'effect'. As attractive as the idea may seem, it's probably worth disregarding all those shops currently selling heavily discounted Christmas lights as a source of cheap leds for your lighting project - which is not to say that suitable, high-power leds cannot be bought cheaply, as I'm sure they can.

On the 'harsh light' issue, I have seen clear perspex (or similar plastic) with a matt surface used to great effect as a diffuser for leds. It's definitely worth experimenting with some scrap pieces of plastic. I first saw this idea used on some led lights sold by Ikea, and have since seen it elsewhere as well.

Jeremy

[NEO/Russ]

Have you seen the 7" LED headlights that Truck-Lite has developed?  They have been used in the military to test them and they are available right now in 24v.  12 volts are coming along soon.  I haven't seen pricing but they brag about lasting 25-30 years of military service.

Quoting: Each headlamp uses ten LUXEON LEDs as its light source. The LED light output is brighter than traditional glass beam headlights, resulting in greater light projection. The LEDs in the headlamp produce a crisper, whiter light output than even the brightest halogen sealed or bulb-replaceable lamps available today. While a typical headlamp may be rated to last 400 hours, Truck-Lite LED Headlamps are expected to exceed that by as much as 50 times. The LUXEON technology used in Truck-Lite's Headlamps will offer improved visibility over conventional incandescent as the color temperature of the assembly is around 5000 degree K, far closer to the sun light than incandescent or halogen lamps.

I have no dog in their hunt, but I want a pair of 12v.'s for my T-2000.

http://www.truck-lite.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/GenericView?pageName=/new/PressReleases_en_US/LEDHeadlamp.html&storeId=10001&langId=-1