Quick Tip: LED Lighting

Usually vans got lighting in the back cabin, which is operated from the starter battery. Mine was equipped with a 12V 10W incandescent festoon bulb. 10W at 12V means that there is a current of almost 1A (0.83A) going through the light. Although this is acceptable for sort time use, in my book such an energy consumption is somewhat high for longer evenings.

Modern days know LED lighting, which is about 90% more efficient than incandescent lighting. However, the electronics of some LED light sources cannot cope with varying power, have the light source failing.
There are also some cleverly designed electronics which are tolerant to voltages between 8 and 30V.
The local marine equipment store offers products of the Swedish make Båtsystem.
My light source of choice was the 94Spool1. Power rating for this source 0.7W (0.66W according to the packaging), resulting in a current of 0.058A (0.055A). Such a low current encourages of using the van's lighting all night long.
The only "problem" with this particular light source is, that it's got only one side that emits light, so orientating the source correctly during installation is important.

Update on the Solar Lighting

Yesterday I posted the quick-tip about using solar charged garden lights for nighttime illumination inside the van.
It seems I got lucky again by the choice of van I made. My Vito got those little tiny triangular window which as windows to look through are entirely useless. Most of the view is blocked by the dashboard anyway...

tiny window

And then it struck me! Windows let in light. If the solar collector is small enough, there actually might be a good use for those tiny windows. Solarvets are pretty small, guess what? The 12 LED version fit just perfectly!

Solarvet sitting in the side window

The trick now is to get the wires into the living area of the van. Since the cable is so thin, it can be squeezed underneath the door's grommet easily.

Wiring through the door's grommet

Next issue to consider, those light only switch on in darkness. Of course, one could imagine to modify the electronics, but for me, that's too much of an effort. On the right hand side of the dash, there is a compartment... so, the solar/battery unit can be just put in there, up-side down.

Lights on position in the right dash compartment

Now to the LED part of the story. To keep things simple, I just wound the LED-chain about the vehicles internal skeleton. Nothing fancy yet, but it get's the job done.

LEDs all shining

I figure, it could be a good idea to add a switch to the cable, somewhere in the living area. We will see...

Almost free (solar) Lighting

Here's a quick-tip for you:
IKEA offers some solar powered LED garden lights, called SOLARVET. All things considered, those are really inexpensive (even less expensive in Europe, it seems).
I will use those behind the windscreen, inside the van. This way, I can blind the solar cells, forcing the thing to illuminate. Also, I will insert a switch between the main unit and the LEDs, thereby adding control over the illumination provided by the LEDs.
For larger vehicles, there is a 24 LED version of SOLARVET available.