LEDs - what’s out of the box?

Hi all, 

We’re camping off grid just now in Spain - with our new battery which we are monitoring fastidiously!  It seems that the main lights operated by the switch by the door are quite energy efficient, but if we turn any other lights on, that’s not necessarily the case.

Does anyone know which of the lights installed are LED, and if we should be replacing any that aren’t?

Thanks!

Fiona

PS we have a 2014 Malvern.

Thanks - good spot - we will get shot of the rest!

The halogens are the ones to look at first - they waste a lot of power as heat. If you take out one of the bulbs and identify the type (pretty easy by looking at LED bulbs on Ebay, for example) then they can be very cheap indeed these days in LED versions. The price difference between sourcing them in the UK and direct from the Far East has narrowed a lot recently, though you can still save a fair bit if you don't mind waiting for them to arrive.

A lot of us have also replaced the fluorescent lamps with LED as well - you save much less power with these, if anything at all, but you do end up with lights that come on to full brightness immediately, without the waiting that you get with tubes.

Sounds good! Amazed LED aren’t standard by now.

It does seem surprising, but the reason is likely to be that four years ago (when your van was buitl), LED light fittings were still relatively expensive - maybe four or more times the cost of a halogen fitting. It's only fairly recently that costs have dropped a lot.

If you look at some of the older "LED conversion" threads here, you'll see that the more geeky of us were very much into DIY conversions (I think I made at least four different versions of the conversion of my Labcraft Trilite fittings, for example). It's only in the last year or so that parts and complete fittings have become available at a price that makes DIY less worthwhile (though I still enjoy it - sad but true).

PLOUGHLIN wrote:My Gloucester bit older but essentially the same as a Malvern has only the over cupboard "mood" lights as LED.

Hi Doon

Just a thought about the "mood" lights mentioned by Peter.

They are LEDs of course, and each one uses very little power - but have you counted them!!

It would be far more efficacious to replace individual lamps with LEDs as Mojo suggests, and you may well find (as we have) that you only need the two dome lights on for most of the time, with maybe a reading lamp and the one over the kitchen at intervals.

A number of members have found Aten Lighting excellent to deal with, and they don't supply the older, cheapy Chinese stuff that sometimes appears on eBay. https://www.atenlighting.co.uk/caravan-motorhome-lighting

When we are off hook up we rarely use the mood lights. I did try to count them once - it was quite an illuminating experience!! (Arrrgggghhh. Sorry!  )

Doonhamer5 wrote:Hi all, 

We’re camping off grid just now in Spain - with our new battery which we are monitoring fastidiously!  It seems that the main lights operated by the switch by the door are quite energy efficient, but if we turn any other lights on, that’s not necessarily the case.

Does anyone know which of the lights installed are LED, and if we should be replacing any that aren’t?

Thanks!

Fiona

PS we have a 2014 Malvern.

Sorry, off topic but where are you?
We're close to Almeria. 

Rich..

We are at Águilas, heading down that way.

My 2011 Malvern has all led except in cooker hood so I would expect 2014 to be same. Surround lighting takes most current. Observe current reading on Sargent and switch lights on and off in turn to find out what each uses.

We are at a scout site in Sherwood forest for four nights without hook up and murky sky so subject of great interest at the moment

Doonhamer5 wrote:We are at Águilas, heading down that way.

Ah, not far away. We're on the marina at Almerimer and it's windy. Bring some warmer weather with you. 
Rich..

Ps, the sun has just come out

Sun’s out here too!