Cruisers Forum
Main Forum => General Discussion => Topic started by: bobander on March 02, 2015, 07:23:50 pm
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THIS IS NOT A CRITICISM OF PHOENIX USA, just an observation of an equipment failure beyond their control.
I wanted to pass along my recent experience with one of the fluorescent light fixtures in my 2010 2551. One of the bulbs failed in a way that melted the plastic fixture and the ceiling material underneath.
During our seven week trip in Arizona I noticed that the bulb in one of the ceiling fixtures would flicker when first turned on and the ends were getting dark. I figured that it would simply quit working and then I would replace the bulb. A few days later, I smelled melting plastic and quickly turned it off, the bulb was still working. The pictures show that there was a hot spot at the end of the bulb that burned the reflective paper and melted the plastic housing. The heat was also melting the ceiling material.
I believe that this could have resulted in a serious situation if we were gone from the RV. I have never seen a fluorescent bulb fail like this and consider this to be an unusual failure mode. However, I wanted to pass this info on so that others will pay closer attention to failing fluorescent bulbs. My PC is 5 years old with 31,000 miles and many hours of light fixture use. I am going to replace all the fluorescent bulbs at this time, they are available online for about $2 each. Another possible solution is to replace with LED fixtures. We also no longer leave any fluorescent fixtures on when we leave the RV.
Bob A
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WOW! I am so glad you were there to catch that. One of our bulbs is flaky and works when it wants to. Hopefully your bulb was a fluke but we'll be checking all our fixtures. Thanks for the heads up.
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Yes, it was probably a fluke and will never happen again, and we are over-reacting by replacing all the tubes and not leaving the lights on when away. But, after seeing what could happen, we are kinda forced into doing something to be sure it doesn't happen again.
Please replace that flaky bulb you mentioned.
Bob A
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Hello Bob,
Sorry to read what you posted and see the pictures of your light. I hope as mentioned it was a fluke.
We have all LED lights in our Cruiser and think they are very bright. Have you or anyone on the forum come across other lights that are not so bright?
We would like to switch out some of the lights mounted under the cabinets and replace them with something warmer. The LED lights we currently have put off a very BRIGHT white light.
Any thoughts or recommendations you or anyone else can share would be appreciated.
Thank you,
Dave
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Hello Bob,
Sorry to read what you posted and see the pictures of your light. I hope as mentioned it was a fluke.
We have all LED lights in our Cruiser and think they are very bright. Have you or anyone on the forum come across other lights that are not so bright?
We would like to switch out some of the lights mounted under the cabinets and replace them with something warmer. The LED lights we currently have put off a very BRIGHT white light.
Any thoughts or recommendations you or anyone else can share would be appreciated.
Thank you,
Dave
Hi Dave,
I don't have a lot of experience with LED lights, but if you are looking to reduce the brightness, I would contact the fixture manufacturer to see if they have replacement LED bulbs with warmer color or lower lumens. Or see if the bulb is standard and can be replaced with any other brand that is warmer or lower lumens.
Hopefully others with the newer LED fixtures will reply with better info.
Bob A
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Dave, I have the same LED fixtures you have, and I agree they are very bright...which is great in daytime, and when I'm cleaning, but not so nice for evening use. In the evening I'm using only my small reading lights, but but I want a better choice. I have a plan for a line of dimmable LEDs along the top edge of my upper cabinets that will shine up at an angle and flood the ceiling for adjustable warm ambient light. They will operate with a remote. Unfortunately my schedule doesn't give me a chance to work on this until May, but I'll post details and pictures when finished. I'm getting the components from Inspired LED.
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I agree. That is a very strange melt-down behind the bulb. I have seen melt-downs with ballasts but not the bulb itself.
As some of you may recall, I converted my fluorescent fixtures to LED very cheaply HERE (http://forum.phoenixusarv.com/index.php/topic,1789.0.html) to avoid the scars from changing the fixtures as well as consideration to the cost of buying 12 expensive LED fixtures. Included in the conversion are LED night lights which are real nice to have and not much effort to accomodate. Like many of you, we found our new LED fixtures to be too bright at night so I plan to experiment on one converted fixture and disable every-other LED circuit to cut the light in half. If the results are good, then I'll do the rest which would reduce our lighting power consumption even more dramatically. Given we dry camp most of the time, this will help our batteries even more.
(https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5562/15038148862_66b939da91_c.jpg)
Here you can see the little 3-LED strip mounted on the side of the switch (formerly ballast) housing.
(https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5578/15038511195_511a224591_c.jpg)
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Ron,
What you did looks great, do you have pictures with the lights and covers on?
Thank you,
Dave
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Hi Dave,
Just click on the "HERE" in my message above to get to the project, actually the entire research project. Once I get the lighting brightness nailed down, I will write it up in the Tips & Tricks section in organized fashion. Reading that thread is difficult even for me to follow. :) But it's all I have right now.
Ron
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Thank you Ron,
Does anyone know if the new LED lights in the Cruiser are Natural or Warm White? I thought I would try replacing some of our ceiling light bulbs with bulbs that are warmer.
Thank you
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The LED lights in the ceiling of my 2015 PC are warm white. Very bright and great for daytime and cleaning. Too bright for evening use.
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I agree the lights are great for daytime and cleaning I also agree they are too bright for evening use. I would like to replace the bulbs in some of the lights with something that isn't as bright?
I plan to replace some of the bulbs with ones that are not as bright, I found some on Amazon that I'd like to try.
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For a short while Phoenix used a fixture that had the two fluorescent tubes and a single dome light bulb in it. I bought seven of these from Carol and replaced the lights over the beds, in the bath room, under cabinets in the living room and one spare. I left the main ceiling lights the old two tube. Now if I want a lot of light I turn on the tubes and a night when I want just a little light the dome lights come on. I don't know if Carol still can get these fixtures or not. The new fixtures are slightly narrower and thinner but I was able to make them work. I Replaced the hotter than hell reading lights with LED bulbs I found on the internet. They are bight enough to read by but don't give off the heat. No more burnt fingers.
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Our 2011 3100 has the two fluorescent tubes and a single dome light bulb in it. They are really great. The smaller dome light makes a good light in the evening for watching TV. Easy to switch to the fluorescent bulbs when more light is needed. Assume they quit making the lights :beg as we really like them a lot.
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bobander, thanks for this posting. That is indeed scary! It teaches me to replace those tubes when they first start showing any sign of blackness at the ends. Apparently, you experienced an internal partial short that caused all the heat. I am surprised the fuse didn't blow before it got to that point, but who knows what happened.
The reading lights in my PC are just simply not useful. I replaced the bulbs with LEDs because the originals were halogen and got the fixture so hot it would burn you to the touch after a couple of minutes of operation. Not good. The other problem is they do not swivel sufficiently to properly light the reading material. They really light my bald head well, but not what I am reading. SO, I am going to replace all of them, probably with these:
http://www.amazon.com/Gold-Stars-GW21500-Reading-Chrome/dp/B00AQKC7LO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1425901556&sr=8-2&keywords=rv+reading+lights+led
If anyone has a better suggestion for the replacements, please let me know.
Paul
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Gophoenix, those are the lights we have in our 2011 2552 as well. I wonder if a person could replace the fluorescent tubes with the LED kits and still have the dome light in it as well? I think for our use it might be as close to perfect as I could expect.
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They probably could be replaced. But we always stay at campground with electric, so wouldn't consider the expense of switching out the florescent lights - they work well for us as is. :)
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I need to figure out how many watts the fourescent tubes and starter use. From there I can look at maybe buying a roll of strip led and go from there. It's offered in diff watts per foot. Should be fun experimenting.
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The original twin bulb fluorescent fixtures in our 2007 rig, I had taken one un-tampered fixture into the lab here at work where an electrical engineer measured the power to be 9 watts. My LED conversion dropped the power down to 6 watts, but the light output is way too much. I think I can cut the wattage in half again to 3 watts when reducing the brightness by disabling every-other 3-LED circuit. 3 watts per fixture would be real nice to achieve. But the right brightness takes priority over power savings.
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Ron, agreed. I found several places that sell LED strip lighting in 16 foot length. You can buy it in different wattage outputs per foot. Based on your findings I have a starting point.