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Re: interior light

Posted: Sun Jan 05, 2014 4:03 pm
by Sparticus
My cabin light is burnt out and I have the U shape fitting. Replacement price seems to be £50 which is rather a lot for a bulb.
The fitting is a G10q mostly used on circular fluorescent and u shaped UV bulbs for fly killers, But I can't find anything else that will fit.
I'm thinking of re-wiring it and putting an LED strip in there instead. Anyone have any ideas, thoughts or suggestions.

Re: interior light

Posted: Sun Jan 05, 2014 5:28 pm
by Sparticus
Was looking for a strip to wire into the fitting, but considering simply taking ther whole fitting off and replacing with one of these:

Image

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CAR-INTERIOR- ... 4ac0d6de4e

Figure for £6 can't go all that wrong

Re: interior light

Posted: Sun Jan 05, 2014 7:05 pm
by winchman
Let us know how you get on as I have also thought of doing this, I even got a spare light from the scrappy to play around with

Re: interior light

Posted: Sun Jan 05, 2014 9:13 pm
by Sparticus
Will do. It's ordered!

Re: interior light

Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2014 12:06 am
by the1andonly
I use 2 of this type attached to the roof handles on both sides, powered by cig sockets iv'e added.
They produce very good light. (better than my light, but dont know how good that is.)
mine are fed by the LB
I will be interested how you eventually physically fit them.

Re: interior light

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2014 6:09 pm
by Sparticus
the1andonly wrote: I will be interested how you eventually physically fit them.
Light came this morning and as it wasn't raining I fitted it:
I took the whole light fitting from the roof, which left a long hole and three wires into a connector.
I cut the connector off and used a connection block to attach the new light.
The light has a back plate, so using two small self tapping screws I screwed them into the ceiling either side of the existing hole (They wouldn't self-tap, so I had to drill pilot holes)
The size of the fitting only covers half of the hole, so it looks a bit of a mess, but now I know it works, I'm going to buy a second one and wire that one in next to it, this will a) cover the hole. b) give a spare in case of failure as they are quite cheap. c) give enough light to make other campers think aliens have landed.

The only thing that took some time was sorting the wire colours. The fitting stated black was ground, but this wouldn't work, turns out red was ground (who knew)

Car - use - Fitting

Black Live Black
Blue Ground Red
Red Door Yellow

Re: interior light

Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2014 9:35 pm
by winchman
What no photos!!!

Re: interior light

Posted: Sat Jan 25, 2014 2:22 pm
by Sparticus
OK, here's photos.
They are nice and bright, but truth to tell, they actually look cheap, whats more they didn't quite cover the gap and I didn't line them up perfectly, so while it was nice to be bathed in light. If you actually look at them during the day, they don't look good.
Image

Image

Re: interior light

Posted: Sat Jan 25, 2014 2:25 pm
by Sparticus
......so I've taken them off again ant bought 4 of these from Hong Kong at £2 each
Image

Re: interior light

Posted: Sat Jan 25, 2014 2:28 pm
by Sparticus
Then I soldered them into the original light, glueing them in place
Image

Re: interior light

Posted: Sat Jan 25, 2014 2:30 pm
by Sparticus
Final result:

Image

Image

Re: interior light

Posted: Sat Jan 25, 2014 2:35 pm
by winchman
Thats good thanks for posting the pics, I have a few of them in the shed so I might try this my self

Re: interior light

Posted: Sat Jan 25, 2014 6:26 pm
by Jerzy
I thought the internal tube light was a higher voltage so you couldn't just swap it with LEDs (Though obviously you have!) - So have I made that up ?! :?

Re: interior light

Posted: Sat Jan 25, 2014 6:44 pm
by Sparticus
I stuck a volt meter on to find out which wires were which, it was reading 12v. so I just connevted it up.
(If anything blows, I'll let you know!!)

Re: interior light

Posted: Sat Jan 25, 2014 7:02 pm
by winchman
Jerzy wrote:I thought the internal tube light was a higher voltage so you couldn't just swap it with LEDs (Though obviously you have!) - So have I made that up ?! :?
The light will have a 12v supply its this you need to use.
The light will also contain some electronic gubbins that ups the voltage to light the old tube just disconect the feed to this