RV Lighting LED replacement for halogen G4 base bulbs

Lower your electric consumption using LED lights in your RV!

I've always wondered why there are light bulbs being sold with just two pointy leads coming out their base end. It turns out those have a name and an application.

First off, let me show off where the application is located in my RV. In our 2010 Open Range 399BHS we have a pots and pan hanging rack over an island (pretty cool). Inside that rack which the view you have is looking up at the ceiling, there exists three small recessed lights.

Each of these recessed lights contains a G4 halogen bulb. I'm pretty sure that these are 10Watt bulbs. The fixture itself is round of course with two VERY small holes. I don't think you can mount the bulb wrong with these prongs. To remove I :

• Turned the black cover counter clockwise about 1/3 of a rotation. It just dropped off.

• Pulled the bulb straight out.

RV recessed lighting that typically uses a Halogen G4 base Bulb - Ripe for LED replacement

Below, you'll see the original 10W Halogen I removed from the fixtures. On the right, you'll see the LED replacements I ordered.


On the LED replacement there are 6 High Intensity LED's mounted and on the backside some circuitry that makes sure that the 12V RV power is at the correct voltage for the LED's as well as fix a little problem LED's have. The problem is that while the Halogen does not care which way it goes in, the LED's do, so the circuitry is added to make sure the LED's don't care. Its a very long electrical engineering talk to explain, but just know that all LED replacements must have a little circuitry in them.

To replace :

• I simply made sure that the LED's (the yellow things) were point out as they give off the light.
• I them pressed the two prongs into the holes in the fixture where the original halogen bulb was
• I then put the lens on and twisted 1/3 turn clockwise.

So - how did they perform. They were OK as a replacement. They were not as bright as the halogen in my mind, but they do perform admirably.

One important note : I noted that the halogen bulbs get very, very, very hot and that in the ceiling with the insulation and little bug dust that I feel the halogen are a fire hazard. The LED lights COMPLETELY reduce the fire hazard risk to a very, very low level. I would recommend the LED lights for halogen bulb replacement. If possible, get MORE than 6 LED's on the board for a better replacement. However, there are probably brighter LED"s available too.

RV lighting : On the left a G4 base halogen 10W bulb - On the right G4 base LED putting out same amount of light

921 Replacement Bulb for a 360 degree application

Previously, I wrote about a 180 degree application for an LED light to replace a 921 incandescent bulb. I'm also using that article to collect good LED replacements for 921 incandescents as well so I'll go update that article as well. As we think about RV lighting applications, here is an article that talks about the rich variety of lighting applications within an RV.

However, that application was 180 degrees (about 1/2 of the 921 reflects directly onto plastic). This application is for a 360 degree application. For fixtures in which the light bulb hangs down in the fixture and light needs to go everywhere, you need to have a special LED replacement that has LED's sending light into every direction.

360 degree 921 incandescent RV lighting application suitable for LED replacement

The light bulb that is in MOST LED lighting applications is pictured next. It is called a 921 Wedge incandescent light bulb. I've looked around around and it looks like these bulbs put out around 280 lumens - very source dependent on the number so just use it as a weak reference.

921 wedge bulb commonly used in rv lighting

The LED FORM FACTOR (shape of the light or its physical configuration) that makes lots of sense for 360 degree applications.

360 degree led light with 921 wedge base

There are many places to get these, but ONE place you can get lights like this is from ledtrailerlights.com. The particular light in their catalog is the T10 380 or at least that seems to be the part number.

We bought two of these and replaced both 921's in the application I'm showing above. Here are my notes.

• The replacement 'bulb' fit perfectly.
• The WARM WHITE is a GREAT replacement.
• Given the 380 lumens is significantly larger than the 280 nominal lumens it should be brighter than the 921.
• It was significantly brighter - the wife loves it.
• This is a keeper and we'll mark this as a good 921 replacement for campers.
• The base of the light is COLD TO THE TOUCH! That will be great for the summers.

I'll make a short video later!

Excellent led replacements for 921 wedge RV incandescent bulbs

NOT a very flashy title. Sorry. But you'll REALLY want to know this, and you simply CAN'T easily find this out on the web.

The light bulb we are trying to replace is called a "921" light bulb with a "wedge style base". This bulb runs on 12 Volts DC (all/most RV systems operate on this system). This 921 wedge bulb consumes about 18Watts of electricity. I'm thinking this puts out about 280 lumens (hard to find GOOD data on this). So the efficiency of this type of bulb is 15 Lumens per Watt, which is fairly low for an incandescent.

921 wedge style light

The application I tested the LED replacements is pictured here. Notice that any light only needs to send out light in a half circle (180 degrees) :

Acceptable led light replacements for rv lighting 921 wedge style bulb

• superbirghtleds.com - WLED-WWHP10-DAC : $14.95 each : this WARM WHITE color tone LED light is almost a perfect replacement for the 921 wedge. There were two 921's in the fixture and I replaced it with two WWHP10-DAC's. So you can see I replaced about $3 of lighting with around $30 of lighting. I still think it is cool. I can tell you that the LED color tone is VERY VERY close to the 921. Also I can tell you that I think the WWHP10 was just slightly brighter and the color tone was actually just enough whiter to illuminate the area a little bit better. I was very pleased. The specs say the LED light bulb would put out 98 lm.  I'll follow up on that later and verify. The current draw is 0.2 amps so the total power consumed would be 2.4 Watts. ASSUMING that my eyes are NOT lying when I say this is equivalent to the 921, we can probably use 280 Lumens as the reference, then the efficiency of this bulb would be near 116 lumens per watt. I don't understand how the mfg got 98 lm / LED in their specs? But I'm pretty impressed overall.
• ledtrailerlights.com - T10 Wedge 380 : Another warm white bulb, but arranged for 360 degree light. Puts out 380 lumens and it fully replaced another 921 application. These are $17.95 each, but have many more LED's on the 'bulb'. Significantly brighter than the 921. WE highly recommend.
  

As I find out more decent replacements, I'll list them here.

Marlan

RV Lighting - There is more to an RV than you think!

In an RV (recreational vehicle) the lighting system is a 12V DC lighting system. That is really awesome because it means that you can take advantage of the automotive market for lighting and innovation for RV's.

In my first article about an RV porch light I really have started to appreciate the idea of lighting in an RV.

LED lights make sense for RV's (and boats, motorcycles, and cars)

First, without being technical, LED's (which stands for light emitting diode) are a low voltage device. That means they don't fit well (yet) for houses which are 120V. They have them, but the bulbs have to have extra circuitry to lower the voltage to the LED's. But for car, auto, truck, motorcycle or RV's which are 12 Volt systems, LED's are a much better fit.

Also, LED's are a DC (direct current) type of device while homes are an AC type of device. While this is a gross oversimplification, you can think of something running on a battery as DC (again cars, RV's) and the home as something different. LED's work best with DC systems. So again, another great fit.

While the green revolution is important for homes, mobile devices like cars, trucks, motorcycles and RV's car about fuel conservation so green is even more important. In fact in an RV, when you are camping on a generator or WORSE, on a battery, you care very, very much how long you can operate. That means that lighting that takes less energy is much more important. A reasonable ESTIMATE of the efficiency of LED lighting is that it is roughly 2-4 times more efficient than incandescent (this is changing) lighting and the numbers are all over the map. I'll try to decode in this article and later articles. By efficiency I mean "how much light you get" in exchange for "how much power you consume".

LED's operate much cooler than regular lights (called incandescent lights) so you'll get less heat which is pretty handy in the summers - particularly in the south.

Lighting Types for RV's

I'd like to list all the different areas that lighting is used in an RV and I think it will surprise you how many different lighting applications exist with an RV. Specifically, I'm going to focus on towable RV's like fifth wheels or travel trailers, but much of what I'm listing can also apply to Class A Motorhomes or Class B and Class C as well.

Here is the list for RV lighting and what I believe are the best types of lights for each system :

• exterior rv lighting applications

• running lights - I think of these as the lights that are on during the day. This only applies to Class A, B, or C as this the same as daytime running lights and really is the same as headlights.
• clearance lights - These would be the lights at the top rear of the RV and along the tops of the RV along the sides. The idea behind these is to give an idea of the extents of your RV so that people understand it is a large vehicle and know its boundaries. Clearance lights are a good candidate for replacement with rv led lights. You will save energy, and have a more rugged light you can probably replace once and never again for the life of the vehicle.
• brake lights - These are the lights that turn on when the brakes are applied. Typically these are in the same housing as the tail lights, but are additionally applied so the drivers behind you know when you are reducing your speed, maybe even rapidly.
• tail lights - These are the standard lights on the rear of the vehicle that let people know you are there. This is another great candidate for replacement with an LED. One thing that makes this application great is that you want all the light to be aimed at the vehicle straight behind you and LED's are great for that.
• turn signal lights - These are the lights that you see that blink yellow (generally) when you are making a corner. A great candidate for replacement with an led turn signal - even more so since LED's can be used to make an "arrow" shape and actually animate to help notify the vehicles behind you.
• reverse or backup lights - My RV (a towable has these). They don't make a great deal of sense on an RV because you are so far away from the rear of the vehicle. But they would be a great indicator so that people know you are backing up.
• porch lights - This is the first light on my list that is not typically part of the "automative" lights package. You car does not have a porch. In the home, porch lights have typically been 120VAC lights that were incandescent or compact fluorescent. But the RV porch lights are 12V. Typically they are incandescent and utilize an automotive light bulb that uses a bayonet base. There are lots of these and you can get them at most auto parts stores (and Walmart, Target). A typical bayonet bulb that uses LED's is pretty easy to find. I've found that the porch lights use a yellow diffuser cover which is supposed to not attract bugs.
• flood lights - Basically a porch light with a white diffuser. Or at least that is how my RV is arranged.
• storage bay lights - These are lights that are in the RV storage bays so you can get your stuff at night.
• rope lights and other decorative area lights - you can't really have an RV without making the outside look festive. This is a common lighting application and it deserves an article all by itself!

• interior RV lighting applications

• recessed lighting - RV's have almost all of the lighting you would find in a home, except it is DC. Our RV has small recessed bulbs that are DC. These are GREAT candidates for replacement with LED lights because they are more accent lights and they are meant to illuminate an area. This is one of the best applications.
• standard wedge style rv lighting - This is the most common form of interior RV lighting. By my estimate we have around 40 of these in our RV. If you have a light fixture that has a BROAD lighting requirement, you might leave it incandescent. But we have these over our beds and in those applications, you could have a GREAT LED wedge style light replacement. Pay attention to the idea of having LED lights all the way around ( 360 degree lighting ) or just 1/2 way - which is the most common method.
• Here is an article on led lighting application for replacement of 921 wedge bulbs.
• reading lights (like above the bed) - a particularly good application for LED replacements. RV's tend to have these built in.
• In this article, I changed the RV Reading light fixture to accommodate an LED bulb.
• accent lights - These are the lights above the entertainment cabinet. One added advantage of using LED lighting here is that you can vary the colors and really add color and timing accents to your accent lights. Typically, these are halogen bulbs and I write about replacing halogen with led's with a G4 base (I explain G4 in the article)
• under cabinet lights - Really an extension of the reading light theme but RV's tend to have these installed already.
• night lights - We plug these into the AC outlets. These are not typically built into an RV. I don't think these are a good or bad candidate for LED's because night lights are already fairly low power consumption.
• flash light - You probably ought to have an LED flashlight sitting right by your door. I've noticed that for flashlights, the LED's beat the old D-Cell flashlights hands down.

What is a Wedge style light for an rv light?

What is a bayonet style light for an rv light?

 

What is a G4 style light for an RV light?

RV Basics : What can you do on a single 12 volt battery?

This won't be a long post, but hopefully, it will be a useful one. Recently, we took Puma out on a dry camping run, actually a tailgate at a football game. I thought it would be neat to talk about what we did so you can get an idea of what is possible on LP gas and a 12 volt battery.

List of things you can do without hooking up your RV to electric/water :
* We took three HOT showers
* We had lighting.
* We cooked.
* We washed dishes.
* We had water pressure.
* We had running water for the toilets.
* We had a fully functional refrigerator
* Extend the RV slide-out
* Retract the RV slide-out

If I modify the RV a little, we could actually do the following really easily :
* Have a car charger for charging cell phones.
* Have a car charger for charging computers.

Honestly, the weekend went better than I thought. You can do aLOT with the battery and LP gas.

RV Electrical : Outdoor Light Bulb

[ Updated with clarifications ]

From RV Park Review videos, RV basics, and travel stories with Sheri and Marlan

One of the interesting and NEAT things about an RV is that everything on one hand is simpler (maybe) and everything is different from what you might know about lighting based on a typical house or car.

For example, an RV has a DC (direct current) system (simpler) and a familiar AC (alternating current) system. I find it interesting to learn which is used in different ways.12V DC lighting is probably the most obvious use of the DC system. You can run off the rv battery without power or a generator for your rv lights (and hot water ignition, water pressure via rv water pump, and finally your refrigerator).

Recently, we had a light bulb burn out in our 'porch'. Well, really, that was the light that goes under neath the awning and would be an outside light for when you have guests over and are sitting outside but don't want to be in the dark.

My (uneducated) expectation would be that the light was a normal light bulb. However, when I took off the cover or diffuser, I was somewhat surprised to see a little tiny 'baby' bulb which is I have pictured.

That is a 12 Volt DC bulb which is really widely available in any automotive section in Target or Walmart. So it was cheap and easy to replace (Sylvania 1141 LL). To replace, it is simply a press-twist-release and then push the bulb in - twist - and let up. The twist-in rv lights are called bayonet style lights. By the way, you can find excellent replacement rv led lights that have bayonet connections. Oh and put back on the diffuser. 

My assumption is that DC was chosen so you could have a tiny bit of rv outdoor lighting while on battery. At least that makes sense to me. Most of the lighting is DC.

Which brings me to another idea. RV's will be great candidates for using rv LED lighting which will provide a nice degree of added luminance at really no cost in power. More on that later!