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Date:         Tue, 18 Sep 2007 20:54:59 -0700
Reply-To:     Mark Drillock <drillock@EARTHLINK.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Mark Drillock <drillock@EARTHLINK.NET>
Subject:      Re: LVC adding LED interior lighting
Comments: To: Richard A Jones <jones@COLORADO.EDU>
In-Reply-To:  <46F09141.4060202@colorado.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed

I have been running nothing but 12 volt led outside lighting at my solar powered Baja getaway shack for a few years now. All of the original multi led bulbs are still in use with no dead leds that I know of in maybe 1000 hours of use. These are yellow to reduce bug attraction and are left on all night every night we are there.

I also have put white multi led bulbs in the inside fixtures with no failures.

I recently replaced the single old style bulb in a rechargeable flashlight with some yellow leds I wired up in parallel. I bought a large quantity, prewired with a resistor, specified for 12 volt operation to use in my Vanagons and decided to try some in a 19.2 volt flashlight that I otherwise planned to discard. The light came as part of a rechargeable tool kit, circular saw, drill, reciprocating saw. Using a white flashlight at night in a desert like Baja can quickly lead to unpleasantness. I worried that 19.2 volts would kill the leds but so far so good. I left it on all night a few nights at home to test it before relying on it down there.

I am not a fan of fluorescent 12 volt lights as I can often hear them.

Mark

Richard A Jones wrote:

>>Keep in mind that the ideal design may have little meaning for the >>application intended. 100,000 hour life of leds for use in flashlights >>for example. How many sets of batteries would you need before you >>approached the 100,000 hours of the bulb? > > > Also, these "lifes" are statistical averages--like "mean time > to failure" for disk drives. I bought a 36 LED light for the > Mountain Club cabin: > http://store.sundancesolar.com/12v36ledbudi.html > which has an advertised "approx 60,000-hour life" and it > started failing very quickly--a few LEDs out, then more, > then more. When I sent it back ~1/2 of the LEDs were out > or flickering. Granted, this was not a single LED, but > more complex. > > Maybe they are not "statistical averages" but "statistical > predictions".... > > Richard >


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