BAC Forum
General Boards => Technical Support => Topic started by: Mike Groves on April 26, 2015, 03:30:01 PM
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I have already replaced my ceiling lighting with the wafer leds from China, and I'd now like to replace the 40W sconce bulbs of my 1999 Beaver Marquis with a suitable replacement (also from China since they are so much less expensive than buying them through sources in this county who probably buy them from China anyway).
Has anyone done this and can they give the bulb description? I think they are candelabra bases, but not sure of the lumens or whatever else the LED should have so that it adequately replaces the 40s that are there now.
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Mike I have changed the bulbs to all LED in our coach, I was able to get the bulbs from EEZ RV products(Donald Chinn) he is in Quartzite
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Mike,
I have the same coach and replaced them with the equivalent candelabra base bulbs from Wal-Mart. They ran about $9.99 each. No issues, they're dimmable and I didn't have to wait for shipping.
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Check out the 3-pack of 40W dimmable candelabras at Costco. There is also a 20% off ad at Freddie's this coming week on GE LED's, but the Costco Feit's are likely the best deal.
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I have already replaced my ceiling lighting with the wafer leds from China, and I'd now like to replace the 40W sconce bulbs of my 1999 Beaver Marquis with a suitable replacement (also from China since they are so much less expensive than buying them through sources in this county who probably buy them from China anyway).
Has anyone done this and can they give the bulb description? I think they are candelabra bases, but not sure of the lumens or whatever else the LED should have so that it adequately replaces the 40s that are there now.
What base do these 40W bulbs have, I replaced every light in my 06 PT with led lights even the basement lights. Got all from yitamotor on ebay,,,great prices and really fast delivery. They have a warehouse in Seattle I believe and ship out of there.
Great service.
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Lee,
The base is generally called "candelabra" but its also E12 I believe. That's sort of what I am wanting to verify, is the E12 the same as is in the coach for the AC circuit lighting in sconces and bathroom fixtures?
Thanks to Joel, Jerry, and Randolph - I think I can compare specs from these bulbs which are a bit more pricey than what I have paid to Chinese sellers.
I'll look around now on ebay to see if I can find these specs.
Randolph since we have the same coach can you comment on my thread regarding the Oasis Combi and let me know if you've ever thought your Hurricane was louder than it should be?
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I got mind at Costco. I don't remember the price, and they are dimable also.
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I hope E12 is the same in this country as candelabra. I've bitten the bullet and ordered 10 bulbs from China on Ebay - free shipping all the way from China -
http://www.ebay.com/itm/121549297451?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&var=420491918818&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT
$36.99
I've been happy with my leds in my ceiling fixtures, so I hope I'll be happy with these.
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All,
Just wanted to post that I did receive my 9W, dimmable, sconce lights from China and installed them yesterday. They are a little brighter than the original 40W candelabras they replaced, but don't dim as much as those lights did. I realize now it would be great to replace the bulbs in the fixture above the dining table, and above the sink in the bathroom, but those bulbs are visible so it might be difficult to find a "designer led bulb" to replace them with.
At any rate, the bulbs are about 1/2 the cost you can purchase them for at walmart or other discount locations. They do say 9W rather than 4W or 5W but its still significantly lower than 40W.
Just FYI,
Mike
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That is one thing I noticed right off the bat when I tried replacing can lights in our family room years ago with LED's. It may say "dimmable" on the package, but there is a lower limit on LED's in that regard. Once the available juice is lowered far enough, they just won't dim any further - I assume there is a minimal amperage they require to operate.
In our family room situation it wasn't enough for when we watched movies - at the lowest dimmer setting they were still too bright to get the desired theater effect. I put the originals back in and used the LED's in can lights elsewhere in the house without dimmer switches. I have "in motion" LED Xmas lights that are highly amperage sensitive that way. Most people that are just getting into using them, since they've become more affordable, don't realize that "dimmable" LED's have that one peculiarity.
-Joel
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That is one thing I noticed right off the bat when I tried replacing can lights in our family room years ago with LED's. It may say "dimmable" on the package, but there is a lower limit on LED's in that regard. Once the available juice is lowered far enough, they just won't dim any further - I assume there is a minimal amperage they require to operate.
As far as I can tell, there are two issues involved here. First, different LED lights seem to have different lower dimming limits; that is, different brands of bulbs of the same wattage and socket size. Second, for 120V applications such as the sconces, there are dimmers especially designed for LEDs that provide better results that do standard dimmers. The bulbs all say they work with standard dimmers, but we had "pulsation" issues with the bulbs I bought for the vanity. Changing the dimmer fixed the problem. Here's the dimmer I've used to replace the standard ones: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B3613ME?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B3613ME?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage)
BTW, as for the sconces, we replaced the fixture, not just the bulbs. We think the "faux-Tiffany" ones we have now are far nicer than the OEM ones. One real advantage is that these use standard based bulbs so we are able to install the 60 W-equivalent LEDs that use ~12-13W. Lots more light available at night or on gloomy days.
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Joel, and Joel, (that's fun),
I did see before ordering what the dimmable ranges were but ok, they didn't mean that much to me so I went ahead and got them. I'd say they probably dim about 50% but on a more positive note they are brighter at 100% which is how we use them.
Since I put in the 5 wafer LEDs in most of the ceiling pots, additional reading light is useful while sitting in the "living room".
For movie watching in the coach, the accent ceiling lighting is not bad so that works or simply leaving a little light behind us in the kitchen works as well. At least Margaret hasn't complained. She complains about the new surround sound I replaced the Bose with, as does my dog. They just hear funny noises they've never heard before (because the surround sound is that good) coming from places they've never heard it coming from before, and it spooks them. It spooked me for a while, too! :)
Thanks,
Mike
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For truly "low level" lighting, nothing beats the strips of LEDs I installed under the valences in the living area. The lights are controlled with tiny DC touch-control dimmers and can dimmed down to "barely on". I recall that the strips I used were on the order of 300 lumens/foot so they can provide a lot of light if we want it. Our complaint with many RVs is that they are gloomy inside; if I turn all of our lights on full it definitely isn't gloomy!
I also have a set of undercabinet LED lights that I bought from Lowes in the kitchen area. There are three light bars linked together and controlled with a single switch and they are a huge improvement over the rather pathetic puck lights that are there. I was lucky in that I had 120V available in the main cabinet which made this easy; not all Beavers apparently had this.
BTW, I also replaced the Bose with a modern system with digital sound input. Mine is a soundbar with a woofer mounted inside the old TV cabinet. My only regret is that when I bought it ~4 years ago none of the systems were using Bluetooth for connectivity and I had to run wires through cabinets, etc. Now it all would have been so easy!
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Joel,
Where do you think I got the idea to install the vizio sound bar, Santa Claus? :)
No, I searched and found your postings when I found that I just couldn't get the Bose to work at all except for one speaker. I quickly purchased the 5.1 Vizio surround bar with wireless subwoofer which connected to 2 rear speakers. Like you I put the subwoofer in the tv cabinet along with my Dish Sat box, after removing all the Bose systems.
The two kitchen Bose speakers sounded better than the 2 vizio speakers, and the wiring was already in the tv cabinet so I hooked them up even though others said they wouldn't work with anything except a Bose system. They work great! The two bose speakers up front are connected to my BOSS radio which I installed in place of the Delco/Bose radio, but I can use the fade control on the radio to switch from the front two speakers to the Vizio surround system. I think you'd gotten the previous model which lacked the wireless connection to the subwoofer and also the 2 extra speakers. I can not imagine the Bose 2.1 sounding as good as this 5.1 system. It just perfectly creates the sound in the Beaver space.
Oh, I've looked in all the right places for the old subwoofer. Someone took it out. I believe it had been under the couch because I did find a wire under there which seemingly use to connect something.
I do have the Bluetooth in the sound bar which I mounted to a long oak board which replaces the 3 cabinets across the front of my coach.
From reading your posts, I know that you are more liberal than I when it comes to updating the original coach, but for me, being more conservative, I make it so the next owner would be able to put everything back to original and start again if he/she wanted. Even when I added my countertop Danby dishwasher I've only used existing holes in the counter (the liquid soap hole to run the water plumbing underneath the sink.
Knowing this about me, you can understand why I'm not adding rope lights throughout. :)
You can see my sound bar setup in some of the interior pictures of my coach here -
http://coach.quickreckoning.com/
I've learned a lot from you, that's for sure. You might have been the original poster of the Chinese wafer leds that I replaced my halogens with.
And I'll have to post one of those "thank you"s to you.
Mike
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Mike:
Thanks for the compliments. My wife and I have the attitude that the MH is ours to do with as we please. Personally, I don't understand the desire to be able to restore it to OEM condition; I wouldn't do that with a house so why would that be the expectation for a MH?
We removed the Venetian blinds in the front area this winter, along the with window "surrounds". We retained the valences which we had recovered years ago. Using curtain hardware bought from a boating supplier my wife made lace curtains for the front windows using lace she had purchased in Canada last summer. We already had blackout curtains in the bedroom using the same curtain hardware. With the heavily tinted glass we didn't see any reason for privacy curtains up front.
I'm not sure I posted on BAC about our furniture replacements, but we have an Ekornes Stressless loveseat and chair up front and the front seats were reupholstered several years ago. My wife has a sewing/cutting table where the dining table used to be and we throw a tablecloth on it at use it for meals, also. Most likely we'll replace the front captains chairs with new Flexsteel ones next spring; I'm tired of the "cushy" feel of ours that don't provide me the kind of support I like for driving. BTW I was surprised to discover that our front seats weren't Villa as I had originally thought; they were made by a small company in Michigan that no longer exists.
We just turned 100k miles on ours and I think I've caught up on all the "once in a while" kinds of maintenance items. This spring I had the brake lines flushed since I doubted that anyone had ever done it and while we were at it I had the differential lubricant changed.
I'm not really worried about resale value; by the time we well it, it will be >20 years old and anyone who buys it will probably be doing so more for the C-12 and the Allison 4060 than anything else.
Joel
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Ok, then Joel, BOTH you and your wife are a liberal minded pair! :)
I've placed a link to the up front entertainment system and that's about as wild as I have been with this coach, except for the countertop dishwasher in the other picture.
http://coach.quickreckoning.com/Entertainment01.jpg (entertainment "slab")
You can see the subwoofer in the tv cabinet along with the VIP-222k Dish receiver. The TV optical sound cable runs to the Vizio sound bar, along with the audio cable from the satellite system. I've wired my other video input to my rear camera display with the satellite Standard Definition video out, so technically I can get video running down the road from the King Dome In-motion antenna I took off my old rig and put on this one. You can see the sound bar running across the oak plank in the front which also has the satellite controller on the right side of that, and also a white wireless router, to its left (antenna on roof) so as to pull in distant wireless signals. Anyway that plank of wood has a lot going on.
My wife is tall, and I am taller so dishwashing isn't comfortable in the sink but its extremely easy with this 3gallon per load dishwasher by Danby of Canada.
http://coach.quickreckoning.com/Marquis_19.jpg (Dishwasher)
I placed a piece of stained wood on top of a nonslip rubber sheet beneath the dish washer and screwed in a lip so the dishwasher can't run past the edge of the wood and fall off. Seems to stay put after real world testing. Not a good idea to run it while in motion however as we did see some water leaking. Since it's drain is to the sink, and to the normal grey water tank and only 3 gallons, it works even for dry camping. My wife loves it!
Mike
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Joel your attitude is refreshing. I'm trying to get there myself. So far I am just frustrated with broke stuff and the money to have other people do stuff. Thanks it helps.
Jerry
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So far I am just frustrated with broke stuff and the money to have other people do stuff.
Although we paid to have our residential fridge installed and to replace the front carpet with a luxury vinyl tile, the rest of the interior work we did ourselves. We recovered the valences and made the curtains, as I've already noted. We have framed original art in several places in the coach, but those were items we had in our S&B. The "faux-Tiffany" sconces came from Overstocks and I installed them.
I do pay people to do the mechanical stuff, but so far that has been manageable. The bulk of our costs have been "maintenance" rather than "repair". The largest repair cost this year was having our Hurricane removed, shipped to ITR and re-installed. That did cost a bit, but now I have a system that runs very well.