Melting light fixtures, dead wires

[Rmack]

My 2013 (I bought it in '12) Forest River Rockwood Mini Light has been having a problem with the double light fixtures that are in five places in my TT.

With regular filament bulbs, some of them get so hot that the plastic slot that the bulb plugs into discolors and distorts. I bought LEDs, but the rectangular slot is a little loose, and they tend to fall out or disconnect. taping them in place helps for a while, but it's a pain.

One of them quit working after I switched it to LEDs. I bought a new fixture that uses round-based bulbs, and it didn't work either. I replaced a pretty melted one that only had one working slot and it worked fine in that spot, so the wires are dead on the first one. The LED bulbs stay in place, also.

This dead spot is underneath my cabinets on that side. The wires are in a small space between the outside bottom of the cabinets and the inside bottom shelf. I see no way of getting to these wires without tearing out a bunch of woodwork.

What's up with light fixtures melting with normal use?

Would it be worth while trying to remove the CD player/radio that's a few feet to the side of the dead fixture? I'm hoping that I can find where the lights have been spliced in to the system, because that seem like the most likely problem.

[retiredcamper47]

Remove the inside bottom panel in the cabinet. They are usually stapled in and are easy to remove. This way you can do a better inspection of the light wiring and connections. The regular type bulbs put out an enormous amount of heat. They will melt and warp the light lens. Might be cheaper in the long run (time & worry) to replace the whole light assembly with a LED fixture and bulb. Just saying.........

Bob

[Rmack]

Originally Posted by retiredcamper47

Remove the inside bottom panel in the cabinet. They are usually stapled in and are easy to remove. This way you can do a better inspection of the light wiring and connections. The regular type bulbs put out an enormous amount of heat. They will melt and warp the light lens. Might be cheaper in the long run (time & worry) to replace the whole light assembly with a LED fixture and bulb. Just saying.........

Bob

I did think of that, but It looked different from inside the cabinets. I'll need to take another look, but if it had been stapled in place like you guess, I probably would have seen it. Perhaps trim is involved, but that looks too complicated. thanks for the heads up, though. That would simplify things.


And I completely agree for at least a couple of reasons to go to LED's. Carol and I do boondock occasionally.