Indoor LED lights

[MizzouMan_2000]

I've got a 2017 2860DS that we've had right at 1 year.

We got it out of storage this weekend to start prepping for the season and my wife noticed that one of the bedroom LED lights was flickering. This is the 2nd LED light to do this since we've bought it. The first time was in the bathroom.

What's up with these lights? Any sort of service bulletin on them?

Are there better aftermarket options?

Thanks in advance.

[rsdata]

If you do a quick internet search for LED lighting you will see similar options that cost $2 to $20... what are the differences? The LED light element will always be almost the same, but the circuitry to drive and control the LED will be vastly different. The $20 option will be better because of more costly circuit driver/controllers with the $2 option having less and the associated problems when input voltage varies as in our RV systems... sometimes feeding 13.2 Volts and sometimes feeding 12.4 volts to the light fixture.

Our rv's came with incandescent bulbs a few scant years ago that worked in most any battery condition, and LED lighting was adopted to help with power consumption at first at a premium price. The rv mfg I'm sure looked at the spectrum of LED lighting available each model year and chose the $3 options because they are always cost conscious.

Get a replacement and spend a little more to get a quality unit.

I have bought from this outfit and they stand behind their products besides giving a little consumer education.

M4 - Information about RV LED Lights and Rated Lumens

[pt1655]

rsdata, great post, thanks for the info! Our 5 year old Surveyor 220 came with incandescant bulbs but I swapped out to LED's some time back but some of them are starting to flicker. They were just some I bought off Ebay for a reasonable price. Any idea why they might start to flicker? It looks like one of the little squares in the led array is flickering. Would a better quality LED fixture be a better idea? I already put the old incandescant bulbs back into the bedroom reading lights as the led's were too dang bright.

[rsdata]

pt1655...
thx for the compliment...

I swapped out to LED's some time back but some of them are starting to flicker. They were just some I bought off Ebay for a reasonable price. Any idea why they might start to flicker?

I suggest you read over the information presented on the M4 website as they explain the differences between their custom designed LED fixtures and replacement bulbs and others. REMEMBER... heat is the enemy to all electronics...

For instance, I quote...

Quality of Components Beside the LED:

Primarily, when shopping for LED lights for your RV, you really need to consider the quality of the components that hold the LED SMD chip. All chips are pretty equal in quality and output, but it is the way the cage and plates are designed and made that differentiate the overall quality of the finished product. If you were to melted-1156s.jpgfind a competitor's 24 5050 SMD LED bulb and compare the light output to our 24 5050 SMD LED bulb, the light output will be the same. There are many LED light bulbs that are being sold that were never designed for continual use like in an RV (many even being sold at RV related websites). Those bulbs are designed for car taillights, or are simply thrown together cheaply since they do not understand the RV market as well as M4 does.

RVs demand more from electronic components. From battery chargers, to shore power, to discharged batteries and battery regulation, RVs demand the most from products like LED lights.

5050 SMD based LED lights still create an amount of heat, especially in an enclosed fixture. This heat output is substantially less than an incandescent light bulb, but it is still a significant amount of heat that will affect the life of the SMD chip.

All of our light bulbs are designed specifically for RV use. Most are rated at 10-30 Volts. 10-30v lights work in a normal 12v environment, but they include circuitry within the bulb to make them handle voltage surges very common in Recreational vehicles. Next, all of our 10-30 Volt bulbs are non-polarity. Since LED lights are diodes, every SMD chip has a positive and negative, and they will not illuminate and can be damaged if the polarity is reversed. Our circuitry prevents any reverse polarity damage, and makes it so the bulb illuminates regardless of the wiring of the light fixture (many RV light fixtures are wired backwards from the factory which is not an issue with incandescent bulbs as they will light either way). Finally, all of our 10-30 volt bulbs with 5050 chips have aluminum cages where competitive cages are made solely from fiberboard. This aluminum serves two purposes, 1. to function as a heat sink to extend the life of the LED, and 2. so they don’t break down over time like a fiber board. You can feel the weight difference from our bulbs to competitor’s bulbs and see the difference in the image above.

I hope this helps...

[Flybob]

As Rsdata said, the cost savings in LED fixtures is accomplished by using inexpensive low quality RF drivers which heat up and fail. They often interfere with OTA TV signals as well. Good LED fixtures last a long time. I recommend not using cheap ones.

[jdmoody09]

We have a 2018 Forest River 39fk and the lights flicker in the kitchen. As of today, we have lost the light completely in our kitchen. We have had nothing BUT problems with this RV.

[JoePK]

Hello, jumping on this thread - I have one in our bedroom area with the same problem. There's four LED's in the middle of the bulb that flickers for about a minute. We have a 2017 GT 5, and I was wondering if the LED is replaceable in this those fixtures. I took the lens off, and it looks like the LED is part of the whole fixture. I'll take is farther apart today and see if that is the case. If so, I'll have my dealer get me a new one under warranty.

[XenoRev]

Hey, I've got those little bubble led lights, with a center push button in my sale m 27dbk.
How do you pop them open?

There is a single bright one on the shelf above the bed, and i wanted to add two dinner ones for reading, etc.

[Skyliner]

Cheap Ebay ones where I can get 10 lights for 12 bucks, last about 3 years before some start to flicker. I don't mind replacing them as they are cheap and have had ones last much longer.

This is what I use https://www.ebay.com/i/252470140770?...3D252470140770