LED vs flouresent

Re: LED vs flouresent

I originally started out in solar power with a 12V battery bank since I'm a ham radio operator and wanted to power the radios straight off the big bank. Since I was doing that, I also went with 12V lighting for emergency lighting and looked at a lot of options at the time.

I found that yes, LED lights would reduce power consumption, but it was a real problem finding a color temperature I was happy with. Most 12V LED lights were very harsh and monochromatic. That might be okay for a work light or very short-term emergency light but absolutely was not what I wanted for an extended time. At the time it was a lot simpler just to get a 12V RV fluorescent light which put out MUCH better light, albeit at more wattage.

That was about 4 years ago. Now there is a lot better selection of LEDs available. I've even found some LED "accent strips" at Autozone that are warm white (my preferred color temp). Websites like superbrightleds.com sell a variety of color temps (or even colors) in a variety of base styles to fit various fixtures. However it's a moot point for me, as I've since switched to 48V bank and use 120V fixtures for everything. 120V bulbs of any sort are significantly cheaper than the 12V equivalent! They are also - in my very limited experience - more reliable. Some of the 12V lighting I bought died fairly quickly, which was disappointing considering the cost.

I think if I was setting up an RV and wanted to be able to run off-grid for extended periods I'd go with LED to maximize battery runtime. On the other hand, the power difference between CFL and LED isn't *that* large, so I'm not likely to retrofit fixtures in an existing RV due to the cost of LEDs. (Unless the RV has a dozen or more lights on all the time, that might add up - but I'd be likelier to change the layout of lights so I don't need so many.) I would *definitely* replace incandescent bulbs with LED in an older RV.