1141 and 1156 Bulbs and Fire Hazzard

[browncrown]

Just throwing this out for safety sake...

I know the new LED Bulbs are expensive, but the 1141 and 1156 (regular RV and Tail Light Bulbs) are dangerous. My mom is elderly and she keeps and RV on the coast and I take her over there when she wants to go. Her last trip, she said her porch light burned out. I told her I would get one and bring it over when I picked her up. Well, what I found really scarred me. The 1141 bulb had gottend so hot, it burned not only the plastic cover, it also melted the housing for the porch light itself.

These bulbs generate a lot of heat as well as sapping a huge amount of power from your batteries. She's a little poorer now, but I replaced all of them in her RV. At 82, she would have a hard time getting out in an emergency. I'm in the process of replacing all of mine in the Brown Crown as well, but as I said, they are not cheap. When I replaced the one on my range hood, which was one of the bayonet type small bulbs, I couldn't even touch it after it was on for about a minute.

When you can, change them out, it might prevent a fire and someone from getting hurt.

BC

 

[ol trunt]

Hey BC. I know what you mean about the old school incandescent bulbs creating heat. The cyclops lamp on my S-10 PU has burned two holes in the plastic lense--to the point that it leaks water :shock: Like you, I plan to use LEDs in my bus. I've collected about 8 different style LED lights to try out. Since I only have space for three house batteries I know I'll have to go LED if I want more than a couple of days off grid (or generator). One evening while I was out in the bus testing out a LED for the fume hood my wife walked in and commented "Oh look, there's a light!". That's sort of the problem--you can see the light but you can't see anything with it . While LEDs produce "lots of light", it just doesn't spread out very well. So far I am most impressed with the light strips when used to produce reflected light.

Today, PDBreske (The Camel Conversion) showed his installation of a LED ceiling light rated at 10 W and said to give off the equivalent light of a 60 W bulb. It looks pretty good. I'll have to ask him for more info.

I have only three situations where I really need to SEE: When cooking, when reading and when shaving. Still I'd really like to stay with LEDs.

 

[bapos]

To me just makes sense to go with better lights that give the same lighting with less power consumption. Yes the old bulbs did their job back in the day but today is a new day. I am going to plan on doing the LED thing myself. Just makes sense to me

 

[bansil]

I was amazed when I replaced all my int. Lites with leds....every one of the plastic sockets was burned and melted....scarey stuff

 

[JakeC-SKO]

Same experience here...this is no joke! I had already decided to replace mine with LEDs, due to what looked like charring and the insane heat they put out, but actually saw smoke when I was testing LEDs. Any who, here is a quote from my build thread, with a link to where I got them. The actual light output is amazing.

Old bulbs. Just standard 1156 tail light bulbs.



New leds. Ever so slightly not as bright, in the pics at least, but the light is incredibly warm for leds.
Link to ebay auction

 

[Diesel Dan]

Can someone tell me the difference between the quality of the light produced by LED vs. compact fluorescent? I just put the CF bulbs in my bus because I was being a cheapskate; but one day I might get around to jumping on the LED bandwagon...

 

[roach711]

It used to be that led "bulbs" gave a harsh bright-white light like a daylight-balanced bulb. Now you can get the warm-white balance that give light more like an incandescent. I kinda like the daylight balanced bright-white bulbs myself but the warm-white bulbs do give a softer light.

Either way, 12V LED bulbs are getting pretty cheap. I got mine from hong kong for about $5 each with free shipping. Looks like prices have fallen a bit more since then. My total lighting load (5 lights) went from 65 watts to 15 watts.

Here's the ebay store where I got mine:

http://stores.ebay.com/duan-led2010