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Date:         Wed, 19 Jul 1995 11:44:49 -0600 (MDT)
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Stuart Hutton <hutton@poly.oscs.montana.edu>
Subject:      Re: interior light

> > Dominic Fraser writes: > > > > Is it worth the effort to replace my incandescent interior light with one > > of the fancy-dancy flourescents? I imagine the power drain would be 1/3 > > to 1/4 of the little heater in there now. Caveats anyone? > > I don't believe the flourescents are that much more efficient. Looking > at them in the catalogs, they typically consume anywhere from 1-2 amps, > and if I remember, the incandescents are close to the same. Also, they > are expensive, ranging from $40 to $60. Not worth it, in my book. But > then, the drain of the lights is almost insignificant compared with the > fridge, in my camper. The flourescents, in addition to being very > expensive, also consume more real estate, and replacement bulbs are > expensive and relatively hard to find. You can get a replacement bulb > for an incandescent light at just about any auto parts store. That > about sums up my opinion of 12V flourescent lights. =) > > -David The way you can figure these things is this: The power consumed is given in watts ... Power = voltage * current. So, if you take say the overhead stove light, it consumes 45 watts of power. This will mean, incidently, that it has a current of about 4 amps. If you go to WallMart and spend $8.95 for one of those flourescent work lights (get the PM kind) it will consume 10 watts (.8 amps). So, the point, aside from the calculations is that you can quite nicely replace the single lamp with 4 flourescent lamps and still use less energy. We now normally use only the flourescent lamps. This idea actually came through Dr. Ying and not me. The 1 big drawback with these lights, as someone said, is that they are noisy. If you want to watch tv you will probably have to cut the lights off. However, in terms of producing a lot of light while having an almost insignificant drain on your battery, you can't go wrong with them. Stuart


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