Are we being ripped off?

[GeeMac]

I'd love to run as much of my home on a 12 volt system but I am wondering if you think 12 volt items such as light bulbs and LEDs are over priced because of the coming revolution in power generation? You know . . its a fad and supply and demand and all that. I looked up one light for a sailboat and it was priced at $39.95.  Is it possible to easily make our own from LEDs?

[ghurd]

Regular bulbs are certainly over priced.  The package costs more than the bulb (Dinges).  The 12V bulb costs about the same as a AC bulb?  So why $7 for a bulb that costs them the same as another bulb that retails for 25 cents?

LED bulbs are not over priced, at least good ones.

Legal sailboat bulbs are a poor example, because of the testing and certification they must go through.  That's why you won't find any after-market DOT approved LED replacement bulbs.  And the crazy laws is what drove all the aftermarket HID makers under in about a 10 minute time span (Catz comes to mind).

Making you own LED bulb is easy.  Good LEDs are not cheap.  Cheap LEDs are not good.

An LED bulb that sells for $20 now, is better than the $100 LED bulbs were just a couple years ago.

Even if the parts were free, labor costs, shipping 5 times, packaging...

Then a profit for the factory, the distributors, the wholesalers, the retailers...

What $20 can buy now is amazing to me, even if the LEDs aren't so great.

G-

[wooferhound]

Home Depot has some very nice 12 inch fluorescent 12 vdc lighting fixtures for $11 tax and all.

[TheCasualTraveler]

Yes, what woof said,

     I took his advice and got one of the Home Depot 12" lights and have been burning it for about 12 hours a day to see how well it lasts. So far so good and it draws less than the HF cfl. I think it's rated at 8 watts but I show it draws less than 5. My HF CFL's have both blown already and a third replacement one has those dark spots forming on the bulbs after only a few hours.

     I searched this forum, ebay and the net for the best LED's to make my own lights and gave up because I had no idea what was good and what was priced fair.

[wooferhound]

If you want to make LED lights, I found this site to be most helpful

http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz

It will design your whole fixture for you

with lots of information about how much power the finished light will pull

[commanda]

But if you want to make your own LED lights that last in a real RE situation, you need to read this:

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2007/10/31/848/94375

Amanda

[TheCasualTraveler]

Thanks Amanda, I bookmarked it.

     Did you by any chance do an LED Intermediate class?  :}

[richhagen]

I tried to look for the remedial myself. . . seriously though, her work is pretty straight forward.  With my humble skill set I was able to put together some lights based upon those circuits which I am hoping will last a very long time.  

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2008/3/14/55046/0695

The light fixture from this batch that I kept here has been on pretty much non stop since being built, although that is only a month and a bit at this point, but with no problems.  Rich

[spinningmagnets]

I believe LED's are the future of most RE lighting needs.

The Commanda and richhagen links are the best, here are two more that may be useful:

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2007/1/28/215243/977

claude uses many pics to show how to cluster many small LED's

http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2951&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=l
ed%E2%80%A6  

48V bicycles use LED's for headlights.

"I've heard that the only thing that's certain is death and taxes,...but death doesn't get worse every time congress meets" -Will Rogers

[GeeMac]

Hot dang! I'm going to the Home Depot today to take a look.

[wooferhound]

They are in the Section of the store that has the oddball replacement Fluorescent Bulbs. They have a smaller 6 volt version too. All can use batteries or an external power jack. The bulbs are replaceable too. I have 4, two of them are in my Cargo Van.

http://www.fieldlines.com/story/2007/6/28/16314/5486

[wooferhound]

Some user was saying that when his Harbor Freight 12v CFLs died, he tore them apart, took the old bulb out and wired the same 8w tube to the HF light. He said that it worked better than before and had better color of light.

[ghurd]

So xcav8r369...

These Wiz-Bang lights...

"have 360 degree, right angle and straight on"

What is 360 degree if it doesn't include right angle?

"might be TOO bright" "so I put the regular 1156 back in"

Is this dandy LED light DOT approved?

You say it "might be TOO bright".  Fine.

Is it bright enough to have DOT as an #1156?

Will DOT approve it as an #1156 in my '96 Tacoma?

"might be TOO bright" sounds like it has passed DOT as a replacement for the #1156s in my Tacoma.

Your bunk might have had #1141?  #1156 tend to melt the covers.

Or is this a simple & stupid sales pitch for whatever-dot-com spam?

G-

[TomW]

G-;

I killed that obvious pimp of a comment you are referring to. Posting this so your comment doesn't look like a lunatic rant.  Funny, it usually also kills replies when a comment is removed. Not this time, however.

Tom