I sell LEDs for RVs and Boats. That means my products are LED circuits that have been designed to operate in a 12-volt DC environment. Simple, right?
Well, not always. We just moved into a new (for us) rig. It is a top-of-the-line Teton Homes Fifth Wheel. It is an RV, except they try very hard to hide the fact that part of the system runs on 12-volts DC. The fluorescent lights are 12-volts. Some of the spot lights are 12-volts. The footlights are 12-volts. But most of the other lighting is 120-volt AC. The manufacturer apparently assumed our rig will spend its life plugged into an AC pedestal. Or at least using the invertor to transform the 12-volt DC into AC.
At least there is some 12-volt power in the rig, I know that. But when I went looking for the wires to connect my 12-volt LEDs, I found that in most places they were buried in the walls or ceiling and I did not know just where. In my previous rig, they were generally available in cable runs within the cabinetry.
Replacing the footlights was fairly straight-forward, but installing lights in the pantry presented a problem or no available 12-volt tap.
After thinking about the problem and deciding I did not want to tear into the walls of my rig searching for power, I ordered three 12-volt DC, 5AmpHr, batteries and a 500mA plug-in charger. The batteries are about 2x3x4 inches in size and are sealed. My plan is to place these in the back of the cabinets and run wiring to the LEDs I will install in the pantry. Since I expect to pull maybe 0.25Amps at most when I turn the pantry LEDs on, I am looking at 20 hours or more of usage from a battery before I replace it with a fresh battery and put it on the charger (recharge in 10 hours or less).
I do not plan on pulling this rig around on the road, so the batteries can just sit loose. I would put a restraining strap around them if we were traveling.
So there is more than one way to power an LED. You just have to find it.
Sam Penny, the Prudent RVer
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