Are you aware of how much power your standard 12V no. 1141 incandescent bulbs are gobbling up every night? Lighting will drain your batteries much more quickly than you would think.

The answer is about 1 1/4 amps per bulb. There are usually two bulbs to a fixture. How many fixtures do you leave on at night? If you’re anything like the average RVer I see in the parks, you have five or six fixtures on. That’s 15 to 18 amps per hour just for lighting! In my old days of boondocking reading by the light of one of these bulbs for four hours would deplete my battery (1.5 amps x 2 x 4=12 amps) when combined with running the fridge, propane detector, and keeping the furnace on all night at a low setting.

So, I’ve taken to using L.E.D. puck lights when boondocking. I haven’t stuck them anywhere, using them as flashlights. Donna gave me a 12 volt L.E.D. bulb for a light fixture, but I’ll admit to seriously disliking it since it emits a blinding blue-white light. That said, it is a power sipper. When I monitor my voltage, I see it drop by two to three points when I turn on an incandescent light fixture. There is no fluctuation when I turn on the fixture with the L.E.D. bulb.

Waiting at AM Solar with me today for work to be done on his rig was Doug, an L.E.D. lighting specialist. His site is LEDTrailerLights.com. He gave me two bulbs to try. They rather look like the Capitol Records Building in L.A. 🙂 :

I put it into a fixture in the study and was astounding to discover warm, yellowish like not unlike that of an incandescent bulb!

I tried to get a comparison shot of the other bulb, but all I got was a blinding flash of white!

Again, no voltage drop.

L.E.D. bulbs last much, more longer than incandescent bulbs. Now that I know I can make the switch with no compromise I’m going to start buying L.E.D. units as my incandescent bulbs burn out. Thanks, Doug!