Installing LED Lights in our Supreme Getaway Caravan
Replacing your caravan lights with LED lights is a simple thing to do but it makes a big difference to power consumption and light brightness and colour. I replaced all of the interior and exterior 12v caravan lighting on our van with LEDs. If you’ve got a newer caravan then you probably already have LED lights instead of the old incandescent ones.
Difficulty Factor: 2/5
Time Taken: 2 hours
12v Incandescent Bulb Holder Being Removed And 12v Led Panel Installed
Big Power Saving With Caravan LED Lighting
Before replacing them I checked how many amps the old ones were drawing and it was 1.71 amps. After replacing I checked the LEDs and they were drawing 0.37 amps. Quite a saving if you have two or three lights on at the same time for about 6 hours or more a day. Particularly if you are camped up and have heavy cloud cover messing with your solar.
Old Incandescent Bulb vs New LED Output Comparison
Cost Of Replacing Caravan LED Lighting
All up I replaced 5 x incandescent type globes at $5.69 a globe plus a halogen one where I had to swap the whole downlight for $24.99. Throw in $5.00 for a chocolate block connector. A tiny bit of silicone plus a handful of screws and the total cost was about $60.00.
Items Purchased Off Ebay 5050 Led 48 And Chocolate Block Connector
Joining The LED Lighting In Existing Caravan Lights
Initially I was going to solder the connections but I figured if I ever needed to replace one the choccy block would be easier to do if on the road. The choccy blocks are held in place with a screw. The LEDs are supposed to last 50,000 hours but you never know so I have a couple of spares. The little strips came with adhesive backing however the adhesive didn’t feel that sticky to me. I have used a dab of silicone to fix them in place.
Fixed In Place With a Bit of Silicone
LED Lighting Light Comparison
The LEDs themselves are the 5050 cool white type, if anything they are a touch brighter than the incandescent bulbs they replaced.
Old Incandescent Bulb (left) vs New LED Output (right) Comparison