LEDs Etc

News on Selling the Business

I completed a deal for Nancy to take over the Plug-n-Play LED business at her BriteLEDIdeas LLC website. I was acting as a dealer for her, but now that her website is up and running, she asked that I stop taking orders for her products.

If you go to www.prudentrver.com you will find links into her website.

In the meantime, Nancy does not want to sell the fLEDescent products and linear lighting. So I am still offering those products on my website. Since she is moving toward ending her relationship with Neutek, I will be checking into some of the newer products from Neutek to offer at prudentrver.com.

Stay tuned for more news.

sam

Selling the LED Business

For the last five and a half years I have sold retail LEDs to the RV market. It started when I met Kelly Walterscheid at Quartzsite and became a dealer, then a distributor for him in the 12v RV LED bulb business.

One of my dealers, Nancy Lesser-Adamo, became my business associate and ran a booth in Yuma during the last two winters at the Arizona Market Place. I have now sold my share of the business to her and she will be carrying the banner forward from here. She is Nancy, the LED Lady, and has an Internet domain called BriteLEDIdeas.com. She is working on getting that website into an Internet store.

In the meantime, I will continue to sell her LED product line at prudentrver.com until she is up and running. I am acting as a dealer for her, and she will be doing the shipping while I get a small commission. She will also take responsibility for all the dealers and for working with Neutek in Mesa, AZ, on the procurement of product to sell.

It has been a good time in the LED business, and I think I have made some contributions on the direction of that market. But now it is time that I try once again to do the retirement thing. I will try to not flunk out again.

sam

Sorry, No Prudent RVer at Gypsy Rally

Some of my health issues have gotten in the way of my being at the Gypsy Rally in Yuma the week of March 5. We will not have a booth in the market, but our booth at the Arizona Market Place in Row B up the street at 4th Ave and 32nd Street is still going strong. Nancy, the LED Lady, is running that show.

I will miss seeing all my friends at the Gypsy Rally, but that is the way of life sometimes. Take care.

Sam Penny, the Prudent RVer

Prudent RVer at the Gypsy Rally in Yuma

The week of March 5 is time for the Gypsy Rally at the Fairgrounds in Yuma, AZ. Alice and I will be manning a booth in the market, and I will be giving a seminar on LEDs in RVs. This has always been a fun rally to attend, and I expect to be fun again.

In the meantime, Nancy the LED Lady will be running the booth at the Arizona Market Place at 4th Ave and 32nd Street. If you are in the area, stop by for a visit and see out latest products.

Sam Penny, the Prudent RVer

PS, I will be autographing and selling my new book, Was a Time When, at the rally. You can read about it at www.WasATimeWhen.com and purchase it on Amazon as a printed book or Kindle book.

Prudent RVer in Yuma

I wish everyone a great holiday season, and if you are looking for a unique present, LEDs make a lot of sense. We are operating our booth at the Arizona Market Place at 4th and 32nd in Yuma again this year. Come by and see us.

Sam Penny

the Prudent RVer

Combos, the Latest in Configurable LED Lights for RVs

PrudentRVer.com has combined the flexibility of the zipLED with the ZDisk of the W9.RV3N products into an even newer more flexible product. We call them "Combos."

PrudentRVer.com began selling zipLED products three years ago. These allow the customer to use different light bases to fit the variety of lightbulb sockets in an RV and connect various lightsticks to those bases to solve lighting problems.

Last year we introduced the least expensive solution on the Internet for replacement of the 921 bulb in RVs. This product incorporated the 6 and 10 LED chip designs of the RV2N and RV3N ZDisks.

This summer, at the Escapade in Gillette, WY, Nancy Lessor-Adamo, the LED Lady, began to experiement with how to attach the ZDisk to a zipLED base and created two new products, the B15.ZD6 and the B15.ZD10. She called these products the "Combos." You can see them at www.PrudentRVer.com.

This combination of technologies allows us to provide 200 lumens of light in a flexible solution to fill B15s and B15d sockets in 12volt systems. The voltage regulation features of the ZDisks provide an even better LED product for your RV or boat. Give it a try.

sam

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

Advertising on My Website - PrudentRVer.com

I recently began to run a couple of google ads on my website www.prudentrver.com. The purpose is to add some interest to the website, and maybe create some income for our efforts.

What is interesting is that some of the ads that google is selecting to display (I provide the space, they provide the ads) are for LED products. Now some would freak out over this because the competition is moving in on us, but I think it is a great idea. Show people who the competition is, then let them go there, then they will realize how much better our product set is. That is my philosophy.

So, if you visit our website and see an ad for someone else's LED, be our guest and go look. If we are not good enough for you to come back, we don't deserve your business.

Sam Penny, the Prudent RVer

Prudent RVer at Gillette WY for the Escapade

We will have a booth at the Escapade in Gillette SY at the Escapade starting 8/28/2011. Look for us and try out one of our latest LED lights. We still have the best product and price.

I will not be there, but Nancy, the LED Lady, will be minding our store. Come by and say hello.

sam

An LED Solution for Rigs With Too Much Lighting

The fifth-wheel RV that I use at my basecamp has sixteen 12-volt fluorescent fixtures, each containing two F15T8 tubes. Each fixture uses 30 watts (2.2 amps) of 12-volt power to produce an effective 1,100 lumens of white fluorescent light.

If all fixtures are turned ON at the same time, the wattage is 480 watts (40 amps) and produces a rated luminosity of 27,480 lumens. But because of the limited light efficiency of fluorescent fixtures, the fluorescents only provide an effective 17,600 lumens (1,100 lumens each).

Oh yes, since the electrical efficiency of the ballast and lights is only about 50%, they are pumping 240 of those watts into heating the air in my rig.

In my humble opinion, that is just too much lighting (and heating) for an RV, even a large one with 400 sq-ft of space.

My sixteen fluorescent fixtures are grouped into four sets of three each and four singles. By turning OFF two of the three fixtures in each group, we could reduce our consumption to 240 watts (20 amps), and still have an effective luminosity of 8,800 lumens. That helps, but the resultant lighting is lumpy: too bright in some sections and dim in other parts of the rig.

So that is still too much lighting for some of the space we live in, and too little elsewhere. The obvious solution is to switch to LEDs to replace the fluorescent -- and that is what I did.

When I switched to LEDs, I intentionally reduced the amount of light from each fixture by disconnecting the ballasts and installing a single MyT.fLED-12 LightStrip in each fixture. Each fixture now provides an effective 480 lumens of light each, so the total lighting is 7,680, nearly what I could get by turning off eight of the fluorescent fixtures. And the light is constant throughout the rig, just as we want it. At the same time I reduced the electrical load for lighting from 480 to 96 watts, (40 amps to 8 amps).

As an added bonus, on warm summer evenings I no longer have to use nearly 750 watts to power the air conditioner to remove the excess heat produced by the fluorescent fixtures with their inefficiencies. That can easily add up to an additional 3kwhr per evening, so I am saving 4.2kwhr per evening.

At a retail cost of $37.20 each, the cost of converting all sixteen fluorescent fixtures is less than $550 with the 10% quantity discount. I get better light without heat or fluorescent radio interference or having to replace fluorescent tubes. And it takes about 5 minutes to convert a fixture. LEDs are a win-win solution.

Sam Penny, the Prudent RVer