LED overload … turn down the lights!

[WhereStream]

I have a Bambi 16-footer (2016), which has energy-efficient LED lighting. Great, except … you could do surgery in there! These things are bright.

Most of the lights are dual, so I can turn on one side and keep the other side dark. That helps, but …

… the light color is super-cool … very white, a bit of blue … nothing warm about these lights, and not very cabin-like. More “Star Trek” light saber than campfire.

Is there a way to swap out the little burners for something warmer? Can sacrifice lumen firepower — got plenty to spare — if need be.

[Tsunami-v2]

Generally, you can swap out bright led's for a warmer bulb. Just find out what type of socket/electrical connection you have for each type of light you'd like to change. There is the possibility of installing dimmer switches to control the brightness of the light(s). Check google for businesses that handle LED lighting

[DKB_SATX]

My inner nerd is screaming! Star Trek = phasers, Star Wars = light sabers and blasters.

I've seen the fixtures in the new Sports but I haven't seen one taken apart. Is the LED array hard-wired in or does it connect like an old-fashioned bulb? If it's the latter, you can simply find LEDs with a more-pleasing color temperature. If they're hard-wired AND significantly brighter than you need, you could put filtering gels inside the light fixtures.

http://eventprotraining.com/2015/08/...iltering-gels/

[Mollysdad]

Originally Posted by WhereStream

… you could do surgery in there! These things are bright.

I love that!
I get it.
LED's in general don't do well with dimmers.
However, something with a warmer color temperature might seem less harsh. 3400 is considered incandescent like, while 5200 is daylight. Most folks don't think about it because your miraculous eye adapts to changes in color temperature. Go out with a video camera and suddenly every light is a different color!
Try this site and see if bulbs of lower power (lumens) or lower color temperature are available.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KF_Ig8sutg

or try this with gels:
http://www.diyphotography.net/ikea-h...tography-gels/

[WhereStream]

"Star Trek" ... Ha! Sorry to slip my nerd ... I was thinking "Star Wars," for sure, but ... keyboard fingers went to the wrong movie in my head.

Thanks for the video. That was interesting.

I'll check out the company's Web site and see what they have. It appears from the video that it offers warmer LED "bulbs."

I don't yet know if the lights in the Airstream can be fiddled with.

[Trons4u]

I would try both the dimming switch and bulb. You can dim a bright white light, but a warmer light may not be bright enough.

[USAtraveler]

Dimmers can be expensive and they consume power, defeating the main advantage of LEDs. You would need a dimmer on each separate lighting circuit if you went that route. Suggest you remove some diffuser covers and find out exactly what kind of LEDs you have. In some cases you will find a fixture actually has more than one LED "bulb" in it, and you can achieve your objective of less light simply by removing one of the LEDs. You won't know till you try. Go for it!

[Munnik]

We installed photo gels to change the color and added 2 layers to "dim" the brightness some. Works great!

We used a gel made by "Lee" and the color was "marlene" I believe.

[interstateflyer]

Originally Posted by Munnik

We installed photo gels to change the color and added 2 layers to "dim" the brightness some. Works great!

We used a gel made by "Lee" and the color was "marlene" I believe.

Yep....works perfectly for us too. Not only can you tune the intensity and color temperature but also can add color "atmosphere" to your trailer. We like our blue shower and overhead cabinets in blues, oranges and greens.

It is simple to cut out round inserts from the sheets of gels and easily pry open your light fixtures for installation.

[Scorge-ION]

Originally Posted by USAtraveler

Dimmers can be expensive and they consume power, defeating the main advantage of LEDs.

A proper switch-mode dimmer should consume infinitesimal power. A proper LED dimmer should be a device that switches the LED current on and off at a high rate, say a thousand to 10 million times per second. A good transistor switch should dissipate very little power. like a conventional light switch. It's a crummy design if it doesn't.
Any power dissipated by the switch should be more than offset by current reduction through the LED. Particularly, because the eye responds logarithmically, reducing the current by a factor of ten will make the light appear half as bright. Reducing the power consumption to 1/10th is a very big deal; if your dimmer consumes that much power, it's really, really crummy!

Originally Posted by USAtraveler

You would need a dimmer on each separate lighting circuit if you went that route.

Quite true. I'd put each dimmer inside the light fixture it's controlling.

Originally Posted by USAtraveler

Suggest you remove some diffuser covers and find out exactly what kind of LEDs you have. In some cases you will find a fixture actually has more than one LED "bulb" in it, and you can achieve your objective of less light simply by removing one of the LEDs.

I've never seen the fixtures that Airstream is using but I hope they aren't using discrete "bulbs" and standard incandescent holders. That's a very, very poor way and should not be something that a manufacturer of expensive RVs would use.
Incandescent lamps make their light by getting very hot. Their fixtures must be thermally insulating to keep the filament hot and the rest from melting or catching fire.
LEDs are semiconductor devices. Heat is the mortal enemy of semiconductors. A properly-designed LED fixture should conduct heat away from the LED, just the opposite of an incandescent fixture.
I have yet to see an LED fixture that I approve of.

[loft47]

Try LED4RV.com. They have different options in bulbs (12 led vs 9 led bulbs) as well as bright white vs warm white. They know AS very well.

[USAtraveler]

Originally Posted by Scorge-ION

I've never seen the fixtures that Airstream is using but I hope they aren't using discrete "bulbs" and standard incandescent holders. That's a very, very poor way and should not be something that a manufacturer of expensive RVs would use.
Incandescent lamps make their light by getting very hot. Their fixtures must be thermally insulating to keep the filament hot and the rest from melting or catching fire.
LEDs are semiconductor devices. Heat is the mortal enemy of semiconductors. A properly-designed LED fixture should conduct heat away from the LED, just the opposite of an incandescent fixture.
I have yet to see an LED fixture that I approve of.

Sorry to confuse you, Scorge. I put bulb inside quotes, cuz I know LEDs are not really bulbs in the same way as a conventional incandescent bulb, but I didn't know the proper techie name for the little base thing to which one or more diodes are attached so that you can replace them in the unlikely event of "burn out" (correct term?) without replacing the entire fixture. Some (not all) light fixtures have more than one removable LED base thing (?) inside. Pull one out for less light or replace all the LED base things with ones that have less intense light emitting and color rendering. Jeez, I hope that's clear.

[greghoro]

My 2013 Flying Cloud came with dimmer switches to control the light intensity for the front and rear overhead LED lights. I am assuming they were a standard build item, since I found part number 512496-01, Switch, Slide dimmer, 12V Blk in the Airstream parts book.

Switch is quite expensive at Silver Trailer Supply but it may be cheaper than replacing the LEDs. Plus, the dimmer would provide more flexibility.


Greg

[DKB_SATX]

Originally Posted by greghoro

My 2013 Flying Cloud came with dimmer switches to control the light intensity for the front and rear overhead LED lights. I am assuming they were a standard build item, since I found part number 512496-01, Switch, Slide dimmer, 12V Blk in the Airstream parts book.

Switch is quite expensive at Silver Trailer Supply but it may be cheaper than replacing the LEDs. Plus, the dimmer would provide more flexibility.


Greg

The OP has a Sport, however, so some of his lights may be switched only on the fixture. They use 2-light fixtures with "Off-One-Both" switches in the middle of the fixture for at least some of the lights.

[Mattirs]

The problem with a dimmer on an LED is the color range stays the same. You will get a lower intensity of the same blue light, won't become more red.

[WhereStream]

Got a minute to get into the Bambi, and here's what I found in the light above the sink.

All of the lights are the same.

Looks technical!

[DKB_SATX]

From the look of the inside of your fixture, I'd say your best bet is filter gels (one of the suggestion early in the thread) and those will reduce the output from the fixture as well, so get some gels and see which ones work well for you.

[gregwall]

Originally Posted by WhereStream

I have a Bambi 16-footer (2016), which has energy-efficient LED lighting. Great, except … you could do surgery in there! These things are bright.

Most of the lights are dual, so I can turn on one side and keep the other side dark. That helps, but …

… the light color is super-cool … very white, a bit of blue … nothing warm about these lights, and not very cabin-like. More “Star Trek” light saber than campfire.

Is there a way to swap out the little burners for something warmer? Can sacrifice lumen firepower — got plenty to spare — if need be.

Last week I installed dimmers on two reading lights, one in the bedroom and one in the dining area. Like anything else, it is difficult learning, but once done, it's pretty easy. Snowy showed on this forum putting a dimmer in that uses a remote, which is pretty cool.