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Old 06-26-10, 09:22 PM   #9
nibs
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This thread is a bit old, but well worth revisiting, there are many new great LED lamps available on the market. We live full time in a converted MCI bus and spend most of our time off grid. Several years ago we bought track lighting which uses MR16 lamps, I took out the transformer so that the 20 watt halogen bulbs could run directly off the 12 volt house batteries, last winter I swapped out the halogen lamps (8 of them) and installed 3 watt warm white LED lamps. The current draw went from 16 amps down to less than 2, and the light is about the same color and intensity. Most vendors of LED lamps are not aware of the color of the lamps and sell white white (5000 +/-Kelvin) lamps, Swmbo will not tolerate these as she says they are too harsh. We used warm white lamps (3,000K +/-) and they have worked out beautifully - I no longer have to be the electricity grinch, we also use 12 volt 9 emitter lamps in regular 12v rv fixtures for the bedroom.
LED's may not ever pay for themselves in saved electricity, but if you are off grid they give instant peace of mind.
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