LED voltage important?

[BruceS]

I'm considering changing most of the lights over to LED's and am curious as to how important it is to have a steady 12V rather than typical 12.4 to 14.2 etc depending on whether the battery is being charged or drained.
I have tried one on the fluctuating voltage with no drama although it's easy to see the change in brightness.
There are gadgets available to maintain the constant 12V but are they needed?
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/300553603410 ... 1423.l2649

[Newcastle George]

I previously ran my led strips in series with current limiting resistor from my 24V system and had some failures due to the charging regime. I now have them in parallel at a stable 13.8V from my 24-12V converter and they seem to be performing better.

George

[BruceS]

Thanks George.
I guess for $1 a pop it's worth doing.
All my lights are on one fused circuit so I can either have the regulator at the fusebox or one of these little units at each light.
Probably need a much bigger one (more Watts) if at the fusebox?

[bagmaker]

G'day Bruce,
I would consider driving the LEDs with a dimmable system,
this is similar but you should research thoroughly to suit yourself.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/DIMMABLE-LED ... 3f1aeb6e0c

I have dimmable LEDs in my van - works for me, when cooking or reading they are bright but later just barely on is enough light, there are 3 separate curcuits of control, each with a little knob.
The lower brightness means significantly less power draw.

[Chuck]

Our van has all LED's throughout - now - originally the reading lights were the old globes so changed them over to the warm variety.

Made a bit of a boo boo with the 2 kitchen ones... put in white & the lighting is brilliant for cooking etc, but, when ya just wanna make a cuppa it's very difficult to judge the colour of the tea. Thinking of changing these 2 back to the warm version.

[BruceS]

Where does the power come from Chuck? Straight off the battery or through what they call a 'driver'?
Not sure why they gave it a name like that!!
Do you know how high it goes to on full power under charge? No blown LED's?

[Greynomad]

Just this week changed the whole house downlights (18 of 'em!) from QH to LEDs.
Electrician was amazed the house had not already gone up in smoke... several QH downlights had fluff insulation burned onto the back. One had got so hot it failed. Melted the glass into the plastic housing!
Seems we got that job done just in time...

Girt the m/h has already been switched to all-LEDs. Battery consumption dropped dramatically!
(Bruce, we just replaced the globes. The LEDs run happily on 14.6V... and on 11.7V when I let it get that low.
Must replace the inverter-powered 240V TV with a 12V flat-screen one day...)

Next job: LED DRLs on both Girt & Jim the Toad, and a 2.5m strip of LEDs to replace the awning light on Girt.

[Pokey]

Bruce, i switched out my standard 12v bulbs for LED "bulbs" a couple of years ago and have not had a problem at all. Not a single failure from them and they are running on a basic 12v circuit off the house batteries across the full range of SOC.