LEDs Etc

Whither RV LEDs

LED lighting for RVs is a very small niche market. There are not many RVs (compared to homes and businesses) and the primary selling point is to replace existing light bulbs with something better.

The prudentrver.com has worked with Neutek over the past five years to find the best implementation for RV bulb replacements and to find the best kind of light for RVers. We believe we have done a very credible job and have a product line that many are happy with.

Unfortunately, we are a flea on the end of a dog's tail and are being tossed around like a piece of flotsam in the ocean. There are many who have looked at our product and "knocked" it off, making replications at a cheaper price. Unfortunately, they most often did not understand the fine points of the technology and so miss the mark on product quality, and they do not understand the fine points of the kind of light people in RVs want and need. It is not the blue-white lite that is so easy to make with LEDs, it is a high-CR natural warm white that works in that environment.

At this time we are making re-orders for product we have qualified and purchased in the past, but our suppliers in China (the only source) have upped the minimum order quantity by a factor of 10. Our business is growing, but not that fast. So we are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I am not sure how it will all work out. We are in negotiations and hope to find some way of surviving and still providing what we believe is the best LED lighting out there, but there is the danger that we may not survive. For those who care, just wanted to let you know we are doing our best.

sam, the Prudent RVer

Powering LEDs With AC

I am working on a couple of articles on installing LEDs in an AC (Alternating Current) environment, you know, the 120VAC we find in most domestic homes. The biggest push in the industry is to design LED lamps that work well in that market. The 12VDC market of the RVs is really small potatoes.

LEDs are intrinsically DC devices. They are diodes that want the current to flow in only one direction. To use them efficiently in an AC environment requires specialized circuits.

The problem all started with Thomas Edison. He wanted the electrical grid of the USA to be an AC grid and make use of the generators and such he had invented. Tesla wanted a DC grid, but he lost out. Now we have all our home filled with AC power, and the fixtures are designed to work in that environment.

The simple incandescent light bulb (a 60W for example) has an "Edison" base. This is a screw-in and the usual size is 27mm in diameter. The ground line is connected to the socket surrounding the base, and the power is applied to the contact at the bottom of the base. That electrical power supplies the full 120VAC current to the filament inside the bulb. The flow of current causes the filament to heat up to white hot and emit light.

The 60W incandescent bulb emits about 840 lumens of white light. This much light is required because all the light is coming from a single source, and it must be strong enough to fill a large room space.

In an RV the lights run on 12VDC. There are multiple light bulbs, each of which emits in the range of 150 to 250 lumens. Since these are placed throughout the ceiling and walls of the RV, there is no single source of light. Rather, the light is spread out and each source does not have to be so bright as with a 60W bulb.

We have had very good results if we use linear LED lighting in an RV. This spreads the source of the light even more, and makes for good indirect lighting.

So my forthcoming articles will discuss the pros and cons of using AC power for LED lamps. It can be done, but it tends to be more expensive. But it is very hard to convince people to look for a lighting method that does not use the old-style Edison-base bulbs they always have had.

Sam Penny, the Prudent RVer