Good thing my time ain't worth anything.

[DickWells]

Anybody who has, or has had, a travel trailer with those lousy two-post-single-fillament 12V bulbs will know what I'm refering to. I've fooled with the lights over the bed in our trailer for four years, now, and I'm through with it! Yesterday, I finally took the one off my side, determined to change the socket to a good-ole single post, base grounded bulb system. Got things pretty well set, with a ground wire soldered to the side of the socket, and both wires fed through the lamp stem, but, when I started to re-assmble the threaded hard plastic around the socket, the bottom member, which has been cracked for years, fell appart! Soooo--- out comes the JB Weld, and the DIY overnight re-build of the socket base. A couple of bucks for a one lead pigtail, with a spring and bakelite washer, and a modified flat steel washer, plus a little soldering, and I've got myself a light that works when I hit the (replacment) switch. The orriginal switches were junk from the begining.
Those two spring loaded contacts in the two wire system seem to be the bad part. They are never tight in their sleeves, and are sharp and small, where they contact the bulb base, thus, cleaving off most of the lead on the bulb, the first time you twist the bulb into place! Who the heck thinks these things up, anyway?
So, if you've got the time, you can rectify these factory snaffoos. If my time was worth a dollar an hour, I'd have my lights fixed for as little as 30-40 bucks! :rolleyes:

[Yesterday]

Changed all my lights over to LED's. End of problems, way less power draw.
But. do run a separate ground wire to each light, they don't work if you have
low voltage.

Duane

[DickWells]

Well, everything DC does have a separate ground, at the fixture, but they do bunch up in several places, mostly hidden, inside the walls! I will be glad when everything is LED. That just reminded me of my friend's very high end Aplpenlite trailer. He's been having trouble with his tail/stop lights in the back of his 5th wheel. I helped him jump some of the problem with new wires, so he could get back to Kentucky, but the main problem is still, that all the wires that cross from L to R, R to L, are burried in that very expensive fiberglass molding. The only way to access them is to take out the light frames, and force a flexible shaft down through the insulation and replace ALL the wires, and run new ones, full lenth of the trailer, for the hot ones, and make new grounds to the frame. He wasn't willing to do this, while in Texas, so he headed home with some iffy grounds, and one dim tail light. Couldn't access them from behind his kitchen cabinets, because they have their own back panels, besides the inner sheathing under them! Wonderful, the way these units are built, even the most expensive ones

[cowboywildbill]

I read an article that said you could run every light continuously in an rv for almost two full day's or more if they were all led before draining the battery's. If they were the old style 12volt filiment bulbs, you would be lucky to have the battery's last 8 hours.
And not to mention the difference in heat output. Those old style 12v filiment bulbs will flat burn you and I have seen more than one plastic lens covers melted from them.
When we can afford it we are going to switch most of our's over to 12v LED's.
I would like to find the 110v LED's for our house.