LED light project.

Location, Home, CA

The one thing an RV’er never has enough of is battery power. Especially if he is dry camping or “boondocking”, ie, camping without being connected to a hard power source such as a campground 110 volt line. A major power “hog” are all the 12 volt lights which draw directly from the battery.

A year ago I bought 2 LED light bulbs for our bedside reading lights in the RV from a vender at the Quartzsite, AZ winter swap meet. These lights have proven to be reliable and have a low currant drain.

This past winter I purchased several LED bulbs while at Quartzsite to replace some of the heaviest current draining bulbs in the RV. We have two overhead fixtures, each with 3 bulbs, and those bulbs draw 1 amp each when all are turned on for a total of 6 amps. When we first purchased the RV, I had replaced the on switch with a three position switch so only one, two, or all three bulbs would be lite. This helped the battery drain as we usually only used one or two bulbs at a time.

The LED replacement bulbs were actually a disk with lots of LED’s on it which I used in place of one of the bulbs. This works very well so next winter I may replace the remaining bulbs.

The placement of the two light fixtures is not optimum for use as reading lights so this year I purchased 2 brass swivel light fixtures with LED bulbs to mount over the couch as reading lights. Temporarily hooking power to one of these lights showed that it was adequate for reading. The problem was how to get 12 volt power to the lights.

The closest source was the original ceiling lights. Removing the fixture which is in the living room slide out showed that the slide out ceiling is hollow but has spacers running fore and aft which keep the inner and outer walls of the ceiling separated. It also blocks any attempt to get a wire through to the cabinet behind the light fixture under which the lights are mounted.

Neighbor Paul suggested a wooden piece with a slot for wires in it be attached to the ceiling between the light and the cabinet and painted white to match the ceiling. I remembered that a plastic molding made for wires existed somewhere and a trip to the local hardware store was just the ticket. I bought a 5 foot piece of Wiremold which is a plastic tube with a groove on one side which snaps together and has a sticky backing to attach it to the ceiling. This worked perfectly!

Light fixture with cutout for Wiremold.

Close up of cutout.

I drilled a hole in the cabinet, installed the Wiremold, and pushed the wires through. Inside of the cabinet I used 4 inch pieces of Wiremold to keep the wires in place.

I drilled a hole in the bottom of the cabinet for each light, the cabinet floor was also hollow, so it was easy to get the wires out to the lights.

Reading lights installed with Wiremold going to the cabinet on upper right.

The finished project looks like it came originally from the factory.

My next project is replacing the old original 27 inch TV with a new 26 inch flat screen TV. I want to make the space behind the TV available for storage. This one has me baffled but I am working on some ideas. More on this later.