Help with camper light ideas (led)

[dw51]

I'm hoping you all can help me devise a led light to work inside a small teardrop camper. Here are my criteria:

1. Good output, of course.
2. Preferrably a floodier light.
3. Be able to run off 12V DC.

I have looked at DX for components and have thought of somehow using 3-4 Cree R2s or Q5s, but haven't found reflectors/lenses that are very floody. Also, is there a driver to run these off of 12v?

I welcome your thoughts and ideas.

 

[VegasF6]

Hiya DW51.
This might be better served in the automotive forum.

One way I would look at doing this would be the "kennan driver" as it used to be known. I think now it is something like "highly efficient blah blah."
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=189547

A possible optic could be one of the triple optics with a diffusing pattern, like for instance DX sku 1914 or maybe 1913.

Or you could just mule them (no reflector or secondary optic) and cover with a diffuser. For instance find an existing dome light that you could retrofit, or even a small fluorescent fixture.

And of course proper heatsinking.

Or, if you didn't want cree's you could consider some led strip lighting, I don't want to keep linking to DX stuff, but that is one source for some. You can get the flexible adhesive style, or there are ridgid as well.

Or just by some of the premade led bulbs.

How bright ya need it?

 

[dw51]

Thanks for the reply. We are going to be using the strip lighting, but want a light to light up the entire cabin area, so it needs to be pretty bright. Thanks for the ideas so far. I don't mind the DX links, as that is probably where I will be getting the stuff if I can.

 

[gillestugan]

My first thought was also the "kennan" PT4105 based driver. It is cheap and very good as long as you keep output current at 800mA or lower. Can be also be dimmed with a potentiometer. You can drive 2 or 3 in series from each driver driver depending on the Vf of the led.

Carclo 10170 is a 80 degree reflector that give an extremely uniform beam when used with a SSC P4. Dont know of any good wide DX lenses, sorry.

 

[ifor powell]

I have a mix of lights in my camper. It came with halogens and not enough of them for my likeing. I have various diffent lights now.

I have a 7 led strips that are low powered taking 0.6-0.7 when all on. They are aranged to give good illumination over all the van with two specificly positiond to illuminate the roof bed and one doing the back boot section. To be honest they normal provide enough illumination by themselves. No drivers they are just direct drive with a suitable resistor for 12V. I have them set up on a double switch circute so I can switch them off from up in the roof bed. These were expensive at somthing like £15 each.

I have 4 sharkoon cold cathod strips (for puting in pimped up PC cases) these were very cheap at £6 for a pair. All 4 on takes 1.5A. They take a minute or two to warm up but are very bright when going. I don't use these so much as they are brighter than I normaly need but I may use them for reading or looking at a map etc.

I have put high power led flexible strips into the two halogen strip style lights I had. The glass difusers in the original fixtures do a very good job. Each one of these takes 0.4A and gives about the same light as the old 20W hallogen setup. The one over the hob gets used when cooking.

The standard van interior lights have had led replacments added so I do not do too much damage too quickly if I acidentaly leave them on.

I have contemplated putting in some high power leds for genral illumination but have not done it the main problem is that they are just too bright if you look directly at them so you need to have a setup with good diffusion or with the leds out of sight and the ligh coming form a surface they are shining on. If I did put some in I would be looking at a simple direct drive setup posibly with a d2flex to provide dimming.

The one thing I am contemplating doing is suplementing the reversing lights with 4 Q5s as they are woefully bad and I have an aukward revers every day out of the drive. 4S direct drive should work well as the alternator puts out 14.4v. I want to check the legality of this sort of mod befor progressing though.

There are some pictures here of the van and some of the lights.

Ifor

 

[VegasF6]

ifor powell - That's a pretty neat setup. As an American I have never seen that Renault pop top before, what a great modern replacement for a VW Vanagon. I have a Chevy conversion van. Captains chairs, TV etc. It is a great trip taking vehicle, but it isn't a camper. I really like yours.

dw51 - Last information I got about 2 weeks ago (from Download I don't think he will mind) was that the Kennan was back to 700mA drive levels. If that is true, that is great since that is really about all the IC included with the board is speced to run. If not you can always parallel another resistor.

The way I understand it, from an automotive battery NOT charging, you will probably only be able to run 3 crees due to the V drop in the circuit. At charging voltages you may be able to run 4. Let us know how it works out!

And, I dunno if you have seen this webpage but the guy is on a budget very similar to my own namely, cheap.

 

[dw51]

Ok, here's what I'm thinking about. I hope someone can tell me if it can work.

This driver: http://www.kaidomain.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductId=1640

Three Cree Q5 XR-Es

and this reflector: http://www.kaidomain.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductId=6255

My issue is with the driver. Can I run the three Crees with this and a 12V automotive battery? And do they need to be wired in series or parallel?

 

[kuksul08]

How about these, is 60 degrees enough flood? http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=711-1046-ND

Ok, here's what I'm thinking about. I hope someone can tell me if it can work.

This driver: http://www.kaidomain.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductId=1640

Three Cree Q5 XR-Es

and this reflector: http://www.kaidomain.com/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductId=6255

My issue is with the driver. Can I run the three Crees with this and a 12V automotive battery? And do they need to be wired in series or parallel?

You should usually wire them in series, so that one of the leds won't take more current and possibly burn out. Then you have even more current going into the other LEDs in parallel and eventually they'd all burn out.

For wiring in series, just make sure the input voltage is enough above the total Vf of the led's to make up for inefficiency in the driver. There is some info about it in the description. At the same time, you can't exceed the max input voltage, so it looks like 3 in series is the most you can do. So yeah, technically it should work.

 

[VegasF6]

I wanted to see a picture of the 60 degree ledil and I came across this, the twiddle. Isn't that interesting? That is really cool for fixed lighting.
http://www.ledil.fi/datasheets/DataSheet_TWIDDLE-XR-E.pdf

 

[saildude]

The marine or boating industry now has a lot of LED lights for 12 volts designed for cabin lighting - West Marine has an online catalog if you don't have a local marine store - sometimes the prices look a bit bad but when you add up the cost of parts, shipping and your time things can look more reasonable - there are also many 12 lamps that will go into existing fixtures - also consider florescent fixtures or CCF - I have a 12v florescent fixture in my boat and it works quite well