Electrical Electrical hook up

[Boots in Action]

Hello Drover, you are a man of similar virtues in that you can use a bit of ingenuity with some LED strip lighting to achieve some fantastic results with a soldering iron and a bit of wire. Very easy to get great lighting results for little effort and cheaply too. I must be following in some great footsteps!!! I will have a look at your old thread. Thanks. Stay ahead of the pack!!!

On my old 14 footer thread I have details how I fitted LED's to the cupboards and a strip on the outside, I buy a 5m roll or 2 on Ebay for about $10 a roll, and just chop off the length I need, solder on some wires, a bit of heat shrink and silastic and stick it to the wall, power drain is negligible.....I know from the fact the one in my boot was left on...........for the ones in the cupboards I just used speaker cable, it was light, flexible and I had about 600mts of it....................

http://expandasdownunder.com/threads/drovers-14-44-3.4502/

Hi,
thanks for all the tips. Can @Drover or @Boots in Action tell me what type of LED strip they used?
Also, did you use waterproof on non-waterproof strips.

If you have the links to where on ebay you bought it, that would be most helpful.

best wishes
Mike

Hi Mike, I always went for the waterproof strips, you just never know when they could get wet or damp. If you go into EBAY Aust, you will come to a search . Type in "12 volt led strip lighting" (no inverted commas of course!) and you will be in a world of leds. Work your way down to a supplier called awesomegreenla which has the goods for $6.99 incl postage (coming from NSW too!) If you go down a little further to supplier edoled2012, his price is #7.99 including postage from within Australia too. A couple of days and you have delivery of 5 metres to cut into ANY length you want (at the scissors mark). You are then in business to light up anywhere in you van for peanuts AND very little current draw!!! Good luck. Hope this is useful to you.

 

[Drover]

Can't recall if mine was named waterproof or not, I have a new roll in van somewhere, for outside duty I just put a dob of silastic in the heat shrink that I covered the connection with, a big dob on the end to seal it and a dob every couple of foot to make sure it stayed on the wall outside, use the gutter silastic, clear and shouldn't cloud.........stayed on the old rig for ages in all weather and has been good as on Big Mal, clean the wall with metho before sticking it on.................and unlike the Jayco jobs fitted on the awning drum has never failed.

 

[mikerezny]

Hello Drover, you are a man of similar virtues in that you can use a bit of ingenuity with some LED strip lighting to achieve some fantastic results with a soldering iron and a bit of wire. Very easy to get great lighting results for little effort and cheaply too. I must be following in some great footsteps!!! I will have a look at your old thread. Thanks. Stay ahead of the pack!!!


Hi Mike, I always went for the waterproof strips, you just never know when they could get wet or damp. If you go into EBAY Aust, you will come to a search . Type in "12 volt led strip lighting" (no inverted commas of course!) and you will be in a world of leds. Work your way down to a supplier called awesomegreenla which has the goods for $6.99 incl postage (coming from NSW too!) If you go down a little further to supplier edoled2012, his price is #7.99 including postage from within Australia too. A couple of days and you have delivery of 5 metres to cut into ANY length you want (at the scissors mark). You are then in business to light up anywhere in you van for peanuts AND very little current draw!!! Good luck. Hope this is useful to you.

Hi @Boots in Action,
thanks so much for the suppliers. I just ordered 5m 3528 300LED waterproof from edoled2012 for $7.99, but this also includes a couple of connectors and a neat little in-line dimmer that will do just nicely as a switch.

This was edoled2012 and awesomegreen1 were cheaper and delivery should certainly be much quicker than ordering from China.

Hopefully, it will be delivered and installed before our next trip out on 31st March.

cheers
Mike

 

[Drover]

The switches they come with are usually a pain to use, inline push pad type and if you shut power down and then reconnect they can come on, I didn't bother with them , my outside ones I mounted them so they could connect to the outside light switch.

 

[mikerezny]

The switches they come with are usually a pain to use, inline push pad type and if you shut power down and then reconnect they can come on, I didn't bother with them , my outside ones I mounted them so they could connect to the outside light switch.

Hi @Drover,
thanks for that information. I am going to also order some normal inline switches.

cheers
Mike

 

[mikerezny]

Hi @Boots in Action,
thanks so much for the suppliers. I just ordered 5m 3528 300LED waterproof from edoled2012 for $7.99, but this also includes a couple of connectors and a neat little in-line dimmer that will do just nicely as a switch.

This was edoled2012 and awesomegreen1 were cheaper and delivery should certainly be much quicker than ordering from China.

Hopefully, it will be delivered and installed before our next trip out on 31st March.

cheers
Mike

Hi @Boots in Action,
I can recommend dealing with edoled2012. Found out that their office is in Dandenong, just down the road from me and I can order from them and pick the items up. Nice and convenient for future purchases. So thanks for the tip.

The LED striplight is installed across the whole bedhead, 1200mm and the wiring is hidden behind the bed head. It looks really neat.

The 1200mm strip draws only 400mA which is also good.

Still waiting to get some inline switches. In the meantime I will run them from a split from the socket for the ceiling lights.

Thanks for passing on all the information for this great idea.

cheers
Mike

 

[Dean Anderson]

Don't go overboard with your 12V lighting... Yeah it's great to light things up, but it attracts lots of bugs.... When we free camp we usually have more light shining on the side of the car to keep the bugs away from us and the minimal needed for us to do what we need to do.

LED lighting tends to attract more bugs as well because of the blue tinge to the light.....Evolutionary thingamejig I suppose....fire tends to be more orange....heat from the fire tends to make ones wings fall off and body sizzle (when your a bug).

Other thing I have noticed is the el-cheapo LED strip lights tend to go yellow (the plastic they're housed in) and look pretty shoddy after a while...probably because of the lack of U.V. stabilizers?

If you can get the stats for the temperature of the LED lights that you buy it is a great way of seeing the quality. if you can stay below 5000K the light is more natural/yellow, but the lower temperature lights can be quiet a bit more expensive for the same lumen output. That's why cheap LED spotlights tend to have a blue haze. All LED's are not the same...

 

[Drover]

I hang a 12v fluro work light from the roof rack on the ute at night, keeps the bugs away when sitting outside.

 

[Boots in Action]

Hi Mike, glad to hear you are well organised regarding electrical hook up with LED lighting over bedhead for reading. The split from the ceiling light connection is an easy one with the in line switch to control light on/off. Some fellow caravan

Hi @Boots in Action,
I can recommend dealing with edoled2012. Found out that their office is in Dandenong, just down the road from me and I can order from them and pick the items up. Nice and convenient for future purchases. So thanks for the tip.

The LED striplight is installed across the whole bedhead, 1200mm and the wiring is hidden behind the bed head. It looks really neat.

The 1200mm strip draws only 400mA which is also good.

Still waiting to get some inline switches. In the meantime I will run them from a split from the socket for the ceiling lights.

Thanks for passing on all the information for this great idea.

cheers
Mike

ers had a look at our setup last week whilst we were away in the Connondale ranges. Although they had had their van for nearly 4 years, they had not seen LED strip lighting used like that before. Another convert to a simple solution to bed lighting. Thanks also to DROVER again for his advice on in line switches. Instead of drilling holes in van for switches, I used white velcro to hide wiring and also to attach switch to side wall above bed. Just in case it needed servicing or had to be changed. Good luck with your trip to NW Victoria. Safe vanning!!

Don't go overboard with your 12V lighting... Yeah it's great to light things up, but it attracts lots of bugs.... When we free camp we usually have more light shining on the side of the car to keep the bugs away from us and the minimal needed for us to do what we need to do.

LED lighting tends to attract more bugs as well because of the blue tinge to the light.....Evolutionary thingamejig I suppose....fire tends to be more orange....heat from the fire tends to make ones wings fall off and body sizzle (when your a bug).

Other thing I have noticed is the el-cheapo LED strip lights tend to go yellow (the plastic they're housed in) and look pretty shoddy after a while...probably because of the lack of U.V. stabilizers?

If you can get the stats for the temperature of the LED lights that you buy it is a great way of seeing the quality. if you can stay below 5000K the light is more natural/yellow, but the lower temperature lights can be quiet a bit more expensive for the same lumen output. That's why cheap LED spotlights tend to have a blue haze. All LED's are not the same...

Hello Dean, you bring up an interesting point about LED lighting and the light they put out. Firstly there are 3 generally recognized colour outputs for LED lighting: Warm White (highest temperature colour and closest to incandescent lighting) is rated as 2700 to 3000 K, Cool White is somewhere between 3500 and 4100 K, and Daylight (closest light equivalent to midday sun on clear day) is rated at 5000 to 6500 K. There is actually NO DIFFERENCE in light output, it is just that our eyes tend to SEE more of the higher Kelvin rating, hence the change in headlight bulbs away from the incandescent colour of ordinary car bulbs (tungsten/ halogen coils 2700 to 3000 K) to the cooler temperature perceived by the eye to higher Kelvin ratings of above 4100 K. The Kelvin rating for the LEDs that I have, and Mikerezny has purchased are rated at 6500 to 7000 K and are still called "Cool White", so something is not correct there. Anything above Daylight rating of 6500 K is supposed to be the equivalent of sun brightness on an overcast day! Go figure that one!!
I have to agree that bright lights do attract the bugs, but I counter them with mossie coils. I would rather have bright light to see what I am eating (not the bugs) than the dimmer (perceived?) Warm White colour. Personal taste only, and we do mainly bush camping too!! The colour of fire is closest to Warm White and the bugs are usually kept away from fires because of the smoky haze and/or heat produced.
I have had my LED strip lighting in my van for nearly two years now and no sign of yellowing in the plastic housing, maybe because they are not subjected to UV rays from the sun, which may cause a problem in exterior situations. Drover would be able to confirm that. Have a look at my shots on the thread of my LEDs lit up. The LEDs are certainly not yellow, and are much better than the Warm White for reading etc, although not as cosy or romantic!! In fact, the Warm White LEDs are cheaper than the Cool White, and as you said, you may need more of these to SEE the same as Cool/Daylight type.
You are quite correct in saying that all LEDs are not the same. You should normally select the Kelvin range for the appropriate task required. Maybe I am getting too old, but give me a higher Kelvin rating for all my tasks, especially for vision at night on the road!!
Light up my day and night!!!

 

[Dean Anderson]

bugs are usually kept away from fires because of the smoky haze and/or heat produced

I wonder why bug zappers have blue light and yellow/orange bulbs are used outside bbq areas?

 

[Dean Anderson]

Here's a few pics that show why bluish LED's are generally cheaper....It can also be because of poor quality control etc,,,,

Firstly...You can not get a white LED as such.....

The output colour is dependant on the phosphor....Not enough phosphor/inconsistent coating/etc

Here's another temperature rating scale.

Personal preference, I prefer 5000K or below...I don't like the bluish tinge...

 

[Drover]

Well I don't know what type mine are, long time since I got them but Yes, they do yellow outside but since my van isn't white it doesn't really show but I have noticed one on the barrell that are OE do the same.
Ah Ha, new roll in cupboard says 3-4 lm/LED ????? Cool White and IP65 with a SMD type 3528 SMD which most doesn't mean much to me but I do know they put out a nice bit of light at night, can handle outside but they do attract bugs hence my fluro off the Ute..............& at $10 a 5m roll, excellant value.

 

[Boots in Action]

I wonder why bug zappers have blue light and yellow/orange bulbs are used outside bbq areas?

" Touche" Dean. And it looks like you have gone into the same technical source that I did. The wavelength story tells a lot too. Note the difference between infared light and ultraviolet. Red lights on torches at night are harder to see by anyone passing by, and the whiter the light (getting close to the ultra violet range) can be seen for miles!! (bugs too??) Note that all Government buildings have cool white/daylight for all working areas to prevent "fatigue syndrome". I guess you are supposed to work better if the lighting is good and bright and not dim as in warm white.

 

[Dean Anderson]

@Boots in Action Maybe I need some at 7000k for the end of the night where I need to concentrate on staying awake and the bugs dont like the taste of my blood?

 

[Boots in Action]

@Boots in Action Maybe I need some at 7000k for the end of the night where I need to concentrate on staying awake and the bugs dont like the taste of my blood?

Whatever turns you "ON " or "OFF"!! Personally, after I have had a few relaxing drinks at the end of the day, I would need more than 7000K to be able to concentrate, and the bugs don't attack me anymore. They don't like the taste of alcohol in my blood!!
Seriously though, I had another look at the Kelvin scale and accept and acknowledge that above 5000K would not be a good light to read by. The blue tinge on the book that I could be reading would be rather disconcerting, even in my inebriated state. Fortunately, the LED strip lighting I have, does not appear to have that tinge (just good white light!) even though it is "rated" at 6500K. Obviously it is NOT that high, just wrongly marketed. Thanks for the info on how LEDs are manufactured to produce white light from a uv source with the help of phosphor. Always willing to learn. Cheers.

 

[Boots in Action]

Hi @Boots in Action I'm not really sure what you are trying to achieve here but ill try to help, I suspect that the black and pink wires you talk about that are going to your fridge is for 12v power supply to the fridge. This wiring loom will allow you to source 12v power from your tow vehicle (if you have the appropriate wiring on the tug) to run the fridge whilst you are traveling. If you stop you need to disconnect this as the fridge will drain your start battery within a couple of hours, DO NOT hook a battery charger to this Anderson plug.

The PV controller you talk about is being feed from panels on the roof I'm guessing? which is all stand alone stuff and will look after your battery with minimal input from you. As for your concern about the Setec only putting out 14v I'm not real sure what you are asking here or trying to achieve, I can tell you now the Setec in my Expanda has looked after my 120AGM battery for many years now with no help form an external battery charger. I have a Projecta 25amp 7stage smart charger and I have never hooked this up to the Expanda as I have never had a need to, I plug my van into mains power at least once a month for a couple of day to allow the Setec to do its job which is to keep the battery fully charged and well maintained, I have attached a battery SOC guide to this post for reference.

I'm assuming the 8mm loom you have run directly to the battery is for you 15amp 7 stage charger firstly I would make sure this run is 8mm2 not 8mm as you have stated or you could be in for trouble. Personally I would be looking at using 10-13mm2 wire for this if I were you, also make sure to fuse this run on the positive side as close to the battery as you can or again there could be trouble. I don't think you would damage the Setec by using an external charger in this way as your solar is doing this already, as for turning off the isolation switch this all depends were in the overall circuit the isolator is, I hope I have made sense.

Oh and :welcome: to the forum, I'm sure you will find the answers you are looking around here all you need to do is keep asking.

View attachment 48326

Hi @ Axl , thanks again for supplying the colour chart showing voltage/level of available charge left in battery. It took me some time and research, but I am returning the favour and now give you a colour chart for your AGM battery, which is the correct one to use. So if you wish, you can laminate a copy and attach it to a convenient place, just as I have done. Very handy.
Also included is a chart on charging voltage for AGM batteries - note 14.7 volts for best results which is much higher than my Setec which only reaches 14.05 volts. For full details refer google ...agm battery voltage. Heaps of great info there to dispel any doubts you or any other members of this forum may have. Hope you find this useful.

Hi @Boots in Action I'm not really sure what you are trying to achieve here but ill try to help, I suspect that the black and pink wires you talk about that are going to your fridge is for 12v power supply to the fridge. This wiring loom will allow you to source 12v power from your tow vehicle (if you have the appropriate wiring on the tug) to run the fridge whilst you are traveling. If you stop you need to disconnect this as the fridge will drain your start battery within a couple of hours, DO NOT hook a battery charger to this Anderson plug.

The PV controller you talk about is being feed from panels on the roof I'm guessing? which is all stand alone stuff and will look after your battery with minimal input from you. As for your concern about the Setec only putting out 14v I'm not real sure what you are asking here or trying to achieve, I can tell you now the Setec in my Expanda has looked after my 120AGM battery for many years now with no help form an external battery charger. I have a Projecta 25amp 7stage smart charger and I have never hooked this up to the Expanda as I have never had a need to, I plug my van into mains power at least once a month for a couple of day to allow the Setec to do its job which is to keep the battery fully charged and well maintained, I have attached a battery SOC guide to this post for reference.

I'm assuming the 8mm loom you have run directly to the battery is for you 15amp 7 stage charger firstly I would make sure this run is 8mm2 not 8mm as you have stated or you could be in for trouble. Personally I would be looking at using 10-13mm2 wire for this if I were you, also make sure to fuse this run on the positive side as close to the battery as you can or again there could be trouble. I don't think you would damage the Setec by using an external charger in this way as your solar is doing this already, as for turning off the isolation switch this all depends were in the overall circuit the isolator is, I hope I have made sense.

Oh and :welcome: to the forum, I'm sure you will find the answers you are looking around here all you need to do is keep asking.

View attachment 48326

Hi @Boots in Action I'm not really sure what you are trying to achieve here but ill try to help, I suspect that the black and pink wires you talk about that are going to your fridge is for 12v power supply to the fridge. This wiring loom will allow you to source 12v power from your tow vehicle (if you have the appropriate wiring on the tug) to run the fridge whilst you are traveling. If you stop you need to disconnect this as the fridge will drain your start battery within a couple of hours, DO NOT hook a battery charger to this Anderson plug.

The PV controller you talk about is being feed from panels on the roof I'm guessing? which is all stand alone stuff and will look after your battery with minimal input from you. As for your concern about the Setec only putting out 14v I'm not real sure what you are asking here or trying to achieve, I can tell you now the Setec in my Expanda has looked after my 120AGM battery for many years now with no help form an external battery charger. I have a Projecta 25amp 7stage smart charger and I have never hooked this up to the Expanda as I have never had a need to, I plug my van into mains power at least once a month for a couple of day to allow the Setec to do its job which is to keep the battery fully charged and well maintained, I have attached a battery SOC guide to this post for reference.

I'm assuming the 8mm loom you have run directly to the battery is for you 15amp 7 stage charger firstly I would make sure this run is 8mm2 not 8mm as you have stated or you could be in for trouble. Personally I would be looking at using 10-13mm2 wire for this if I were you, also make sure to fuse this run on the positive side as close to the battery as you can or again there could be trouble. I don't think you would damage the Setec by using an external charger in this way as your solar is doing this already, as for turning off the isolation switch this all depends were in the overall circuit the isolator is, I hope I have made sense.

Oh and :welcome: to the forum, I'm sure you will find the answers you are looking around here all you need to do is keep asking.

View attachment 48326

 

[Boots in Action]

Hi Boots in Action,
happy to be of some assistance. We are the proud owners of a 2106 Penguin which we bought new in November last year.
So it is good to have someone else on this forum with a Penguin.

Our 12V setup is much much simpler than yours. 100Ah GEL battery fitted as an option from Jayco. I would have preferred an AGM but having it fitted at the factory meant the about 40kg weight of the battery is included in the Tare and does not come off the 300kg personal allowance.

Only draw on the 12V are lights, a fridge fan, stove ignition, and sometimes a small fan or a NiMh battery charger.

I have no problem keeping the battery charged via the vehicle when towing, a 40W portable solar panel, and a couple of hours on the SETEC when we are packing up to leave (Only reason for this is to give the fridge a couple of hours on 240V to check it works and to do a little pre-cooling before stocking it up).

We bought a device the R/C people use that keeps track of watts, voltage and current and accumulated Ah and Watts. This is connected between the Solar regulator and the battery. Our usage is less than 2Ah per day and the 40W panel restores this easily in less than 2 hours. I usually keep the panel connected for longer to float the battery.

When in storage, I usually connect up the panel once a week for a few hours.

cheers
Mike

Hello @mikerezny , I have just posted a thread giving full details about AGM verses Gel batteries. I think you will find it very interesting regarding use and charging. With your Gel battery, your Setec charger is just about perfect for maximum charging voltage during absorption phase (14.1 volts) recommended and the Setec reaches 14.05 volts. The float charge of the Setec at 13.65 volts is slightly higher than the recommended rate of 13.3 volts!! Might be a good idea to NOT leave it on charge with the Setec and to just put it on charge on a regular basis - say once a month??? And take it off charge when float voltage kicks in. Have you got a volt meter connected?? As it says in my thread, Gel batteries require a dedicated charger with a Gel setting (something the Setec does not have!) to get the best life out of the battery. Just a suggestion.

Also, I think that any interested members on this forum that have AGM batteries should use a dedicated "smart" charger whenever they get a chance to hook up to 240 v , so that they get the battery up to its full capacity @14.7 volts (and has switched to float) BEFORE reconnecting to the Setec to keep it on float charge. Setec has the correct float voltage at 13.65 volts to do this indefinitely without damage, but it will never get the battery to full capacity if just hooked up after a trip. More on charging as I do more research and more threads. @Sweet Pea , you might like to refer to the thread to help you with your "new"? battery when your charging problem has been solved. Cheers to all who are interested in this sort of thing.

 

[mikerezny]

Have you got a volt meter connected??

Hi @Boots in Action,
thanks for posting that informative article on the other thread.

Yes, I do have a voltmeter, it is a combination voltmeter, ammeter, accumulative charge device that I have wired up in series with my solar charger.

The only time I put the Setec unit on is for a couple of hours first thing in the morning before we head off on a camping weekend. It comes on because I plug the van in to give the fridge a kick-start on 240V before switching it over to 12V just before we go. We usually go away every second weekend.

The car trickle charges at 0.8A via the Setec while we are driving and the car voltage is around 14.5V. So, the van battery would see about 14.5V minus the 0.7V that is dropped across the diode, so about 13.8V.

I usually put the solar panel on sometime over the weekends we do not go away. The Open Circuit voltage is usually around 13.85V which is pretty close to 100%. The solar charger usually runs for about an hour at 14.4V on the first stage, after that it kicks into second stage and floats at around 13.7V from memory. But I only leave it on for a couple of hours to make sure it gets into the float cycle.

When we are camping, we use about 2Ah per day. Ideally, I put the panel out daily and put in about 2-3 Ah. Before I plug the solar panel in, the Open-Cicuit voltage is usually around 12.75V. The SOC voltages in published tables are usually for 25C. But in summer the battery will be hotter than that and in winter it will be a lot colder. So I don't worry about it that much, but prefer to get 2-3Ah into the battery for each day we are camping.

In summer, I try to avoid having the panel out in the hottest part of the day to reduce the panel temperature. It was never a problem getting 2-3Ah into the battery in a couple of hours with our 40W panel. So far, in the colder months in Victoria, it is more difficult to get enough sunshine to get 2Ah into the battery. I don't worry since the trickle charge from the car on the way home will put in 2Ah or so with 2-3 hours of driving.

Since we are discharging so little (2Ah from a 105Ah battery) and charging regularly, I would expect that we should get a good life from the battery. Since I am not floating the battery continuously, I don't have to worry too much about the actual float voltage of the Setec or the solar charger.

cheers
Mike

 

[Boots in Action]

Hi @mikerezny , you certainly have the technical know how under your belt and have most things under control. In my research, I have come across a chart on charging voltages for AGM batteries at various temperatures. Temperature has a considerable effect on recommended charge voltages. I think I saw at 10C, charging voltage should be as high as 15.3 volts, whilst at 40C, it is as low as 14 volts. When I find it again, I will include it on another thread. Saw your thread the other day on calculation of GMV etc - very informative. I will update my profile this week if I can. As I have a 3 litre turbo charged Colorado (Izuzu motor), I do not have any concerns towing my little Penguin which has a tare of only 959 KG. Rather light compared with the "big boys" on this forum!!