Enclosed trailer interior LEDs

[iagsxr]

Trying to get my race trailer set up asap. I'm thinking about using LEDs for interior lights rather than 110 so we don't have to listen to the generator all night.

Couple questions, assume I'm ignorant about LEDs because I am.

Would it be a terrible idea to power them from the truck battery? Or my race car uses like a really big motorcycle battery. If it wouldn supply enough power for the lights then I'd have a spare for the car and not take up as much space as a full-size battery.

These are the fixtures I'm looking at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00RC...1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=12v+20w+led

Thinking four for a 7×18 trailer. Am I even on the right path?

 

[csp]

Add a deep cycle battery to the trailer that is charged by the truck's trailer plug when you're driving.

 

[UpNorther]

I used a 15' roll of self adhesive LED's in my trailer.Think I paid about $15 on ebay. Switched it into 2 zones. I power it from its own battery though, seems there's always 12 volt stuff plugged in and didnt want to drain truck battery. Trailer is 8x18.

 

[BFBOB]

Yes ... and no. LED's are the best choice for lamps since they give the most light per Watt currently available. There are many choices for the fixture, or even no fixture. I've used the stick-on strips of LED's with very good results. I assume you're talking about an enclosed trailer--I'd be inclined to use a strip of LED's all the way around the upper corners. Often there's a curved or inclined join between walls and roof so you could stick on the strip at about a 45 degree angle.

That said, the next question is how long you need them to stay lit between charges. In the case you cited, four 20W lights, let's assume you want to run them for an hour. Running on 12 Volts, the four lights will draw 6.7 Amps. A common size for backup batteries in alarm systems is 7 Amp-hours. This would run your lights for an hour. Step up to a bigger, motorcycle sized battery rated 30 Amp-hours, and it would run them for 4 1/2 hours. Pick your lights, decide how long they need to run, do the math and choose a battery accordingly.
(this calculation is not peculiar to LED's. Any electrical device follows the same rules, the only exception being if you need to use an inverter to convert the DC to AC. Then you lose a LOT of run time because of the inverter's inefficiency.)

I gotta learn to type faster. Yup, got my LED strips on eBay too.

If you have a friendly alarm dealer (NOT Batteries Piracy, ooops I mean Batteries Plus), the lowest cost for a battery intended for deep cycle use would be one made for alarm systems. Up to 30 Ah are fairly common; bigger than that they're usually special order.

 

[nadogail]

IMHO, I feel you are on the right track with the LED lights, when I outfitted my service van in 1999, I used an inverter to power the under cabinet fluorescent lights I installed in the ceiling of my van for the occasional nighttime service call.

With the technology available today, and the proven performance of LEDs I would use them instead of the fluorescents.

Take a tip from the RV crowd and install a "coach battery" for your lights.

 

[iagsxr]

Thanks for the responses.

What color temperature should I be looking at? There are 6000k daylight white waterproof strips on Amazon. I think they better be waterproof because I'll wash the trailer interior periodically.

 

[matt151617]

What about a solar-powered setup? It would be totally self contained, and panels are getting very cheap now. Hell, you could even just use regular battery powered LED lights and rechargeable batteries.

 

[APEowner]

I'm eager to see what you come up with. I'm planing on going LED lighting with battery power and solar recharge on my trailer. At the moment getting the engine back in the race car is a higher priority no other than dreaming and budgeting I haven't made any progress.

 

[Falcon67]

The "house battery" in our trailer is a full size Group 24 deep cycle lead-acid unit. I use that because we use it for a lot of things and a cheap alarm or UPS battery won't cut it. It's also there for a race car backup. I haven't switched over the LEDs yet, but I have 24' spool. I think it pulls maybe a couple of amps, if that. Note that I bought some of the "cheap" LED shop lights at Sams and tested those with our generator. The T-8s in the trailer flicker just a little, the LED shop lights are worse. So I'm not using those after all.

I have not installed the strips of LEDs yet because I have to re-work the entire trailer layout anyway when the dragster is ready to run. Battery location, wiring, tie downs all have to move around.

 

[UpNorther]

The lights I posted in post #3 are 6000k.
I've used 3000k's on a different project but they're more of a dimmer, comfortable light. The 6000k's are nice and brighter for working light.

Re: solar panel. I've thought about mounting one on the top of my trailer but because of the LED's low power usage, there hasn't been a need. I camped out of my trailer 12 days last summer, and my 12v deep cycle battery never needed to be recharged.

 

[theoldwizard1]

Take a tip from the RV crowd and install a "coach battery" for your lights.

Long time RVers know this. The best battery for this situation is a couple of 6V golf cart batteries. These battery are designed to by completely discharged and recharged hundreds of time. They are available at both Sams Club and Costco. They actually DO make a battery box that hold 2 6V golf cart batteries.

NOCO HM426 Dual 6-Volt Commercial Grade Battery Box for Automotive, Marine and RV Batteries

 

[iagsxr]

I ordered these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00HSF66JO/ref=ya_st_dp_summary

So they should be about the same as what UpNorther posted. So four 4ft strips in an eighteen foot trailer should be enough?

I can't figure out how to figure the power draw for the whole strip.

Do I need more parts to wire them up? I see some sort of connectors on Amazon.

 

[UpNorther]

I ordered these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00HSF66JO/ref=ya_st_dp_summary

So they should be about the same as what UpNorther posted. So four 4ft strips in an eighteen foot trailer should be enough?

I can't figure out how to figure the power draw for the whole strip.

Do I need more parts to wire them up? I see some sort of connectors on Amazon.

In my trailer, I used 4', 3', 3', 4' strips. So I think your layout will be good. If not bright enough for you, later on you can always add more LED strips on more roof ribbing. The ones you found are the exact ones I have in my trailer, lol.
Power draw is about 2 amps. Like I said in an earlier post, they were bright enough that I split them into 2 different zones so I could dim it.
YES, definitely get the connectors.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GTGLCXI/?tag=atomicindus08-20

 

[Wardster]

If what you picked doesn't work, then you should consider adding two or three LED pancake light fixtures that you find in today's newer RV's. This is similar to the ones in my 2016 truck camper.

http://www.campingworld.com/browse/...OKInbl57qc4wBP87f4oUsm1O9CR8JFqwUrBoC2S7w_wcB

 

[Dustball]

I can't figure out how to figure the power draw for the whole strip.

24 watts @12vdc per 5 meter roll.

 

[iagsxr]

This is the battery out of my race car. The car will get a new one before the season just as a matter of course.





How long do you think this battery would run the lights? Like I said it wouldn't be the worst idea to carry a spare that would fit the car. Otherwise I have a yellow top Optima in a car I never drive, but it's big and I never will drive that car if I pirate the battery.

What did you use for a switch?

 

[UpNorther]

Part Number: ETX20L
Weight: 15.5 lbs
Warranty: 3 MO
AGM
12 Volt
17.5 Ah
1.8 Amp
Amp-hour: 17.5


So, when the battery was new, you could expect about 8.75 hours run time on the 15' of LED lights. Can't realistically guess run time off battery now because of aging.
Like I said earlier, I run a bigger deep cycle 12v battery, and like others are saying a RV battery. Truth is, your never going to know until its in. Worst case senario, just buy a spare or another battery then.
Funny story for you - before I put mine in. I wired up one of my 3' strips to a 9v battery, wrote down the time and day. 3 days later, i gave up on the experiment = battery was hot, and the lights were still going but dim.

In my trailer, I ran the supply leads to where my battery sits, and put big alligator clips on them. For switches I fished wires down the wallspace and recessed 2 regular 110v/15a wall lighting switches by the door and put a 2 gang switch plate over it.

 

[iagsxr]

Thanks for that. I'm going to try the little battery first.

We could have a marathon night early or late in the season where we need lights that long, but we'll still have a 5000w generator and battery charger with anyway.

I was thinking of mounting a single gang box and taking a blank face plate and drilling a hole to mount a toggle switch, but I guess there's no reason I couldn't use a standard switch

 

[Dustball]

Mount a solar panel to the roof of the trailer and your battery will be topped off when not in use.

 

[iagsxr]

I got them stuck in. Had a heck of a time with the connectors. I'm wondering if I got the wrong ones, they seemed too thin for the water-resistant LEDs.

In my shop with the shop lights off:



I'm not happy with how we wired them. Going to put a terminal strip on the wall in the corner by the breaker box. I'll hardwire the power/ground from the switch and then run the light wires to the terminal strip:



Thanks to all that helped, esp UpNorther.

As a side note, I was pretty happy to get my 110v wiring done today as well. My $200 Craigslist generator ran the air compressor, my big shop vac, and a jig saw at the same time no problem. The air compressor came up to pressure before I could find more stuff to plug in.

As another side note, my $200 Craigslist generator is loud as hell. I'm awfully glad we're not going to have to run it for lighting. 12v lighting = good idea

 

[csp]

You shouldn't have ground at the switch with 12v DC, just power in to the switch then to your terminal strip.

 

[whizzer182]

I'm planning on running 110 to my trailer as well.

How are you getting power from the generator outside to inside the trailer? Plug on the outside of the trailer to inside? Or just an extension cord through the door?

 

[iagsxr]

I'm planning on running 110 to my trailer as well.

How are you getting power from the generator outside to inside the trailer? Plug on the outside of the trailer to inside? Or just an extension cord through the door?

Let me preface this by saying I don't plan to keep this trailer any length of time. I needed something now and cheap.

When I bought my generator the guy threw in an RV cord. The cheapest I found the outside plugs for it was $50-60 on Amazon. If I mounted it to the front of the trailer there would then be a hole through the front wall if I wanted to pull the box off when I sold the trailer.

So I drilled a hole in the floor. The plan is to drop the cord out the hole to hook it to the generator then roll it up inside when we're done. I may put a door on the hole, but that's waay down on the list.

Kinda hillbilly but it works:

 

[iagsxr]

You shouldn't have ground at the switch with 12v DC, just power in to the switch then to your terminal strip.

Yeah gotcha, I should have worded that better

 

[Falcon67]

I'm planning on running 110 to my trailer as well.

How are you getting power from the generator outside to inside the trailer? Plug on the outside of the trailer to inside? Or just an extension cord through the door?

I went to the local RV dealer and bought a cable port for our trailer. Big 4" hole, mount the plastic port with the door. A pigtail hangs from the breaker box with a twist lock 30A plug. Stick that out the port, then I use a 30' RV cord to the generator. Maybe $60 in the whole deal buying the electrical connectors from Amazon and not HD. And the 30' cord from Amazon and not an RV house.

 

[sberry]

This always brings out the rocket surgeons but I would have a couple 12V fixtures I could hook up to a spare car battery, charge it from line as needed with my battery charger and could even add small inverter if a guy want to use all 120V which is probably what I would do. Why **** with a motorcycle battery or even a deep cycle when a charge from a car battery probably last well beyond a weekend.

 

[sberry]

I think its been covered here but we are aware additional over current protection needs to be on 30A rv circuits? They are design to feed a panel, not direct to an outlet.
If a guy is selling this 30A may be an asset but I assume anywhere that has 30 probably has 15. I believe pop ups are wired this way, simply have a 15 end on a 12 wire.
In a trailer you may even be allowed a 14 wire tapped on to a 20A circuit for light fixtures.
I have wired job trailers and trucks. Early on I made it more complicated and my designs were not as good as today.
If I needed 30A service would no doubt have it but if I was ramming thru would be a ready made 120/12 cord, a 3 way with a couple power strips added. All plug and play zip tie raceway. 30 is used for shore power AC, if I was running AC from a 5K its 240 volt and would be running it opposite the trailer circuit direct with a cord. All the rest of the trailer is usually a single circuit on a 30 RV.
Shate is so cheap plug and play anymore can buy little plug in inverter, hook just lights to it.

 

[sberry]

Ideally would be a battery, inverter and transfer switch.

 

[iagsxr]

This always brings out the rocket surgeons but I would have a couple 12V fixtures I could hook up to a spare car battery, charge it from line as needed with my battery charger and could even add small inverter if a guy want to use all 120V which is probably what I would do. Why **** with a motorcycle battery or even a deep cycle when a charge from a car battery probably last well beyond a weekend.

That setup run your air compressor pretty well?

 

[csp]

Kinda hillbilly but it works

It's really not. Many campers/RVs have pretty much the same thing for shore power, just through the side with a cover over the hole.