RV Light fixtures are easy to replace. It is very EASY to modify your RV to reduce your lighting power consumption by UP to 75-85% over your current lighting.
It’s EASY to do. I swear. Even I can do it!
Background articles on RV Lighting
Don’t start this article without reading my starting article on all of the different types of RV lighting that exist – it’s quite amazing at all the lighting apps there are for an RV.
You don’t have to change an entire fixture, you can change the RV bulbs from incandescent to led by simply swapping out the bulbs with an LED made to fit in the fixture.
Changing an entire RV Fixture
I wanted to swap out an entire RV light fixture.
Why?
- I have never changed a fixture.
- the LED lights I was examining required a custom fixture.
- the current fixtures were too hot with standard 921 incandescent lights. This made sleeping in the summer uncomfortable.
Steps to change your Light Fixture
Typical Light Fixture you can purchase
This fixture has a custom fit to the LED light that is in it. Therefore, a straight LED replacement won’t make sense for this fixture. I wanted to try this different size LED light so I just ordered the fixture. Replacement RV lighting fixtures are about $10 or so.
Here I’m showing the same light fixture with the Bezel attached. Don’t get a fixture without the Bezel.
While hard to see in the picture above, there are 25 white LED’s in their light. This allows manufacturers to user CHEAPER individual LED’s instead of more expensive LED’s with higher light output.
How to think critically about how many LEDs it takes to make a bright light
A good benchmark for LED’s is that 10-15 single LEDs will replace a standard 921, you can see that the manufacturer doubled the amount of LED’s to get about the same light. In other words this means that the LED’s they used are less than 1/2 as bright as the industry standard led light (as of this writing). That might be a good trade-off – If you have control of the plastic FIXTURE – like this project does have.
If you pop off the plastic diffuser (the plastic thing that helps spread the light everywhere) you’ll see there are screws you can unscrew.
Go ahead and unscrew them!
Here the screws are unfastened.
My “wire nuts” – the things holding the fixture to the RV wires – did not come unscrewed – they were crimped.
So I simply clipped the wires on this OLD fixture (not the RV wires – the ones going into the fixture) and then stripped the insulation back about 1/2 inch.
I went ahead and wired in the new RV light fixture.
Now you can connect your new RV light fixture.
In case you are wondering … you fasten black wires to black wires and white to white.
Next, I simply screwed in the four screws which I “borrowed” from the old fixture. These don’t need to be long or strong as the fixture is very light weight and the RV wall/ceiling materials are not very thick.
Here is the final project.
The LED lights put out a much cleaner light. Since this is above the headboard on the bedroom, the area is NOTICEABLY cooler using the LED’s.
You can see the Incandescent light on the right.
My wife loves her new LED light fixture.
Conclusions on swapping your Light Fixtures
- Swapping light fixtures is easy.
- Anyone can do it with a screwdriver and wire stripper/wire cap
- Get the fixtures you want.
- the LED lights are awesome – we love them.
- The new fixture has a better button placement.
- What are you waiting for!!!
Replacement Led Light Fixtures for RVs
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Jay says
bought double and single LED light fixtures for my Shasta Flyte. Swapped out the fixtures as above and the only one that worked was the double fixture in the bathroom. Replaced the old incandescents and they work fine. Any ideas as to what could be wrong. The LED are all functional.
Marlan at Rv52 says
the most obvious thing would be that maybe you accidentally got the leads backwards?
did you try the lights before you screwed them back flush, like when they were only connected to the wires?
marlan
Jay Seymour says
Hooked all of them up the same. Black to black and white to white. tried them before mounting flush and they didn’t work.
Marlan at Rv52 says
Well, I would troubleshoot the next steps like this.
First, I would put a voltmeter on the black/white and see what the voltage was. Since other folks may be reading, I’ll be a little more descriptive – When the switch is off, voltage should be zero, when it is on, should be up around 10V.
You said that incandescents work off of these wires.
If there is voltage and the incandescents still work, I would have to suspect something with the LED fixture.
One thing I’ve noticed, when I just did a bulb-for-bulb replacement (not the whole fixture) that the LEDs wedge style “bulbs” sometimes were very finnicky on being plugged in to the wedge slot. So I would definitely suspect your fixture of not working. I don’t think that if you got the wiring backwards that it would damage the LED fixture – there is a possibility that the maker of the fixture got it switched on you. Can you play with the fixture a bit? Wiggle the lights in the fixture? Maybe even use a voltmeter and trace the voltage to make sure it got to the socket in the fixture?
Love to hear what you find, so please post back. Good luck.
Darrell elmore says
I got the replacement LED for a two sided incandescent. The RV has black and white wires. I removed the nuts and then attached the LED fixture. It came with black and a red/orange color. I hooked up the black to black and red to white. Nada. Nothing works. I pulled the fuse before the wiring and left the next light on the ceiling on so I could tell when the power was off. I hooked the new one up several times, each time restoring power. Nada. So, at this point I have to assume the new LED fixture is bad or does it go red to black and black to white? I don’t think so~
Marlan at Rv52 says
My next step would be to use a voltmeter and check the voltages on the fixture. I’m assuming it worked just fine with the little incandescent wedge bulbs. Do you have a link to the fixture you bought? Put in on the comment if you can. I agree with you that the LED fixture just should have worked. I never really trust the wire colors, although generally the black tends to be ground or neutral.
Emma H says
Thanks for your great information. Hope you update more useful information.
Emma H says
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