Ceiling lights

[BJnewby33]

I have a 25 ft. Airstream Safari SE. I keep losing lights in the ceiling. Two went out then two more and now a third two. Seems like it must be something electrical and not bulbs burning out from the way it's happening. Any ideas?

[techiej]

Can you describe what is happening and what you are doing to repair the ceiling light problem?

When I had a bulb go out it turned out to be a fixture problem...I ended up replacing it with LED's.

If you want more info about what happened, the problem with the fixture, etc. I have it on my blog.

[Tdkeith6]

I have a 1966 26' airstream over lander. All of the plug outlets work but none of the ceiling lights work. Any advice on this??

[truckasaurus]

Are they 110V or 12V or both?

[Cyquest]

Tdkeith6 Over heads should be 12v. Battery is charged and or connected? Check your fuses. Worse case disconnect power, turn off breakers, unscrew them from the ceiling and take off the grommet. Turn on power and use a multimeter and see if you got juice. Careful wires don't touch one another or the ceiling skin. Zap! If there's power you know its the fixture. If no power its either, fuse, battery, green wires : corrosion:, severed wire :mice: , switch: defective or corrosion: I had the same problem. I had my ceiling skin down so wires were in tack. Problem was the copper wires had turned green.

Sent from my LG-E617G using Airstream Forums mobile app

[Melody Ranch]

plugs are 115...lights are 12v.. Check fuses.

[TG Twinkie]

If it has the original converter. It may be dying. Check the 12 volt power at the fuse panel.
Could be bad fuse holders; bad connections; bad fuses.
If you have a battery charger. Hook it up and see what happens.
If things start to work. Then upgrade the converter.

[BJnewby33]

Mine turned out not to be an electrical problem. Some were bulbs burned out, but most were just not kicking in. I learned to pull the silver rim around the light down a little and let it snap back. Voila! The light came on. So now every time one goes out, I try that and it usually works. If it doesn't, I know I need to replace the bulb.

[Hummer]

I had similar, turned out the rotary switch was shot AND I also found green corrosion under the wire nuts.

My fix was to take a piece of 14 AWG wire and cut off insulation every few inches and on the hot wires going to light bases I cut off corrosion, removed insulation and wrapped the light wire around the 14 AWG and soldered the on and taped them with UL approved electrical tape thus no more wire nuts at all in that fixture and should never be a corrosion problem again.

The rotary switch was removed and a shallow rough box was obtained at Home Depot.

Carlon 1-Gang 8 cu. in. Old Work Flanged Shallow Box-B108R-UPC at The Home Depot

I screwed this with self tapping screws to headliner right next to the light after drilling 1/4" holes in side of box for incoming wires from light fixture.

I hooked the new 14AWG to the top screw and the AS Issued "hot" wire to lower screw on a 120V commercial 15 amp wall light switch.

I put a white switch cover over on and it looks like a standard wall switch except on the ceiling instead of the wall.

Thusly I have a light switch that will never get overloaded, all joining wires in fixture are soldered so no more corrosion. Total cost of conversion was about $2.50.

Obviously I don't have the 2, 4 or 6 bulb option any longer but I never used less than 6 anyway and the LEDs I replaced them with can go wide open for a small fraction of the power used in one of the issue bulbs.

Working down the ceiling line I as the rotary switches go down they will be replaced as above and I will remove all the wire nuts and solder every ceiling connection as I do not trust wire nuts.