Thread: Tent fans and LED strip light

Haven't used the LED strip but after seeing them used I will certainly be investigating further. Mate has replaced 12V fluros in his 'shack' with the LEDs and they were certainly bright enough inside the diffusers.


Martyn

We have a plug in 12v fan for our camper and it is great though you would need a long lead from the landy....

as for the strips, if they are what I think, yes, you can cut them to length...there are several types though..

Mrs hh

I bought some of these:

White 24cm Flexible Waterproof PVC LED Light Strip 12v | eBay

...and am very happy with them. Dirt cheap but slow to arrive by post. Not strictly cut-to-length but they come in various lengths.

if your getting the one that runs on 4 D cells its not bad, especially when you knock up a battery eliminator for it and run it off of one of those cheapy jump packs.

the lights not brilliant but put the fan on a milk crate and it moves enough air to make a muggy night bareable.

I recently got SMD (Surface Mount Diode) light strip/bar in 3000 - 3200K colour which has a more yellow light. I found this colour was easier on the eyes and attracted less bugs. I prefer SMD lighting. SMDs tend to run warmer than LEDs though.

Have a look here:
smd 5050 - DealExtreme

This is the one I got:
$12.25 - 36-LED 576-Lumen String Light with Aluminum Alloy Shell - Warm White Light (12V) - LED Light Bulbs

Kelly

I recently bought one of these setups;
KORR Lighting

As yet I havent been able to sety them up in the camper trailer, I have however tried one out in the kitchen at home in the pitch dark, it lights up the kitchen nearly as well as the 240v flouro in there, Im impressed.

Fans, there are a few good ones out there that arent cheap and quite a few cheapies.
I grabed a 12v one from bcf as I have 12v wired up in the camper and its all I could find at short notice.
Only used it for 2 nights, but it was 32 deg C at 11.30 at night and it was definately better than no fan at all at least I got to sleep after Id found it and switched it on. Tossed and turned for 1/2 an hr before I got up and found it and switched it on.
Its also very good at getting the fire going if the woods a bit wet, really gets the air into the base of the fire and get the heat going. (not needed on 32 deg nights)

I bought a 5m roll of the 5050 SMD LED strip a while back. It came from ebay but the link in another post to the Deal Extreme ones will be just as good most likely. This stuff all seems to come out of China so the quality is generally good I believe.

I used mine in our kitchen to make some under cupboard lights - so that benchtops are illuminated and also above a beam that blocked light from reaching the oven. The transformers I used were less than 20$ each. And they power up to 3m lengths of the 5050 stuff. Not that this will matter to you if you're going to be running it in a camping setting.

The 5050 is approx 3 times brighter than the 3528 SMD LED - for roughly the same current draw IIRC.

At my local markets there is a bloke selling variations on all of this LED stuff. Check out his site. I didn't pay attention to your location so I have no idea if you're anywhere in Qld. But the point is you'll be able to get an idea what sort of options there are in terms of making the units yourself or buying something pre-manufactured.

He does the festoon bulbs that go into your interior courtesy lights too. LED are the way to go here unless you want a dim, yellow light for trying to read maps by or finding the missing dummy to keep baby happy...

I should also mention that there are potential issues with these LED strips. Some are cuttable at various intervals and others are not. If you make up a light that had say, 1m length of SMD LEDs and you terminated it with a plug to go into a transformer or 12v setup, and there were some 'dead' LEDs somewhere in the string, you would need to be cutting the strip and taking out the bad units before soldering the rest back together. It's simple to solder but a hassle if it does happen.

The other thing that I found was that the waterproofing resin that my strip was encapsulated in does not like long term use. My Dad cut some sections containing 3 SMD LED units and soldered them into his garden pathway lights. They ran all night for a couple of months before he opened the lid on one that had failed. He found that the resin had hardened and turned dark brown from the heat - rendering the light output almost to nothing. This hasn't happened to the ones in my kitchen that are on for a good 5 hours every night. My guess is the lack of airflow killed Dad's and mine will continue to be fine as they have space around them to disperse the heat.

Any questions: fire away.

Originally Posted by Randylandy

Has anyone got or used those little battery powered fans in a tent am considering getting one but would like to know how effective they are and how long the batteries would last as the RV4 can get a bit stuffy. Also Anyone use those LED strip lights that you can cut to length? Any good?

I bought some of these:

White 24cm Flexible Waterproof PVC LED Light Strip 12v | eBay

...and am very happy with them. Dirt cheap but slow to arrive by post. Not strictly cut-to-length but they come in various lengths.

yep i got these too for the parking lights on the front of the disco.
i was slack installing them as liquid nailed them to the bottom of the bullbar!!
they work brilliantly