Interior Trailer Lights
 

I am looking to put some lights in my trailer and was told I should look at getting some LED lights so then if I am unable to plug in then I could use a marine battery for juice.

Anybody use this method or have any better ideas?

I have no idea how affective LED's are... I do know that I put 'Trac' lighting into our trailer... I just remove the actual lights before we start moving cause of the weight on the tracks...

I have the LED rope lights and they work pretty good. I am not sure if you can run them on 12V. Mine have a standard plug on the end. I assume that you could get the 12v landscape lights and use the power pack for 110 and then hook the wires to a battery for 12v if needed.

Do you always have power for your lights or do you have another method?

Are the rope lights bright enough to trim your meat? I was thinking about just buying a trailer converter for the power.

Use a couple of marine deep cycle batteries, an inverter and small floresent (sp) lights, three work great in a 6 by 12. will last for 24 hours or more and provide all the light you need. I also use the same setup to run my fec and have no problems if someone trips the gfi.

I think this year there may be one contest out of 15 that doesn't supply power.

To be honest, we really only use the trailer for transport and sleeping and do just about all of our work in the canapy (it has 4 walls) so it's not a big deal. There has only been one time I had to work out of the trailer because a major storm came through and we took down the canapy and we had electricity supplied.

Before you spend all your money on marine batteries and power inverters, have you looked at hooking in a RV power converter?

Thanks for the ideas!

I installed 12 RV flouresents. I used 30" ones. They draw 1.4 amps each. I installed 3 on each side wall of a 6x12 trailer for a total of six. With the walls and ceiling white, I don't use them all at once. Guess I put to many in. I also use a deep cycle marine battery. They will run for hours.

Not Sure how bright they are but I know they are 12V. May work well for a trailer..

http://www.westmountainradio.com/PWRbrite.htm

Wow, really low power draw!

I have used a 4ft single bulb light for years in my work, running a Werker 31 amp gellcell battery. I can easily run 10-14 hours on a charge. the Werker is the best battery I have found and the gellcell is the best for longevity. A couple of these should run 3 3 footers till all the beer is gone.

My trailer came equipped with 12 volt lighting and 110 lighting. If I am hooked up to the trailer's pigtail then I can use the 12 volt lights.

Give this link a look/see:
www.leddynamics.com

Friends of mine use this lighting in their BBQ trailer and are very pleased.

Thanks for the info!

If I had a lot more money to spend LED would be the way because of the low amounts of draw. But I am leaning towards buying a cheap fluorescent light fixture and plugging it in when 110 is available are using a cheap inverter (FIL has one in the garage) to convert 12V to 110V using a deep cycle battery.
$150 a bulb :eek:

Thanks but i need stay cheaper.