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 Topic: Lighting in large tent
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 via mobile 08/4/2021 at 8:35am
Location: Yorkshire
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Quote: Originally posted by Francais on 07/4/2021
Well it’s upgrade time, I have decided to upgrade my three bulkhead lamps which currently run 75/105watt Halogen regular BC bulbs.
Two of the three lamps have inline dimmers, so it will be interesting to see how this ends up, the dimmers were never designed for LED bulbs, so as a test I have ordered a 15watt Warm White 2700k BC dimmable LED bulb, at £7 a pop they are expensive.
I doubt my inline dimmers will be up to the job, as they are rated 60-180 watt, but I have to give them a chance at least, and do a test.
Plan B if the dimmers don’t work is get a couple of 4-50watt dimmer units that are designed for LED’s.
Watch this space for the results.
Where do you attach bulkhead lights to your Biscaya, Français?
When we had a Biscaya, we used an Outwell Castor light fitted with an LED bulb. It's a nice compact size and has 2m of transparent wire which we suspended with small white cable zip ties, threaded through the holes in the inner tent suspension tape.
With the Karsten, we used my all-time favourite lights: Outwell Caph 1200 rope lights. Easy to fasten a couple to the air tubes using bigger cable zip ties, these have both warm white and amber light options (amber light supposedly repels mosquitoes and other flying insects). The amber light is subtle and warm so just right for relaxing evenings and the warm white is ideal for when you need good illumination.
The Outwell Caph 1200 lights aren't cheap but they really are good, so good that I've bought a couple more as I believe they've now been discontinued and don't think there's anything else on the market like them. An added bonus is that they pack down small and have a nifty storage case.
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08/4/2021 at 7:13pm
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Well the 15watt dimmable (1521 Lumens) LED bulb turned up today, the brand is "integral LED" model 16-64-64 and to be fair it works very well with my existing dimmer, but full control is not really there, I could live with it, but thought I can do better.
On integral's website they recommend using a LED compatible dimmer, they even give a make and model.
So I have now ordered a Varilight JQP401W dimmer, there are cheaper dimmers around but for £14 it could turn out to be worth it.
So I will be removing my old Relco dimmer, and will remove the module from the Varilight dimmer and install it directly into the bulkhead lamp, there is plenty of room, and with the new bulb being LED there will not be much heat going on, if any.
Interesting was the weight of the integral 15w bulb, it tips the scales at 129gm compared to my other regular 15w household LED bulbs of which I have two brands one type at 39gm and another at 64gm, so I guess that extra weight in the integral bulb is due to the dimmable circuitry contained within the bulb.
All work in progress as they say.
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12/4/2021 at 4:31pm
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Well impressed with the Varilight dimmer, it worked fine straight out of the box, but I was able to further program it to perfectly match it to my 15watt integral 1521 lumen dimmable bulb, which is a regular shape BC bulb, I will be using the dimmer as an inline unit module mounted in a plastic box not far of the size of a fag packet, as I decided against mounting the dimmer module into the bulkhead lamp fitting.
Following a side by side comparison I can say that the 105 watt halogen bulb that I was using is no brighter than the 15 watt LED bulb, and the colour of light from the LED Warm Light bulb is as close as you can get to that of the halogen bulbs.
I am now just waiting for a cheap £6 LED dimmer to arrive from China, for use with one of my other bulkhead lanterns, it will be interesting to see how that works compared to the more expensive Varilight dimmer.
All in all a worthwhile project, in that I have now upgraded my three bulkhead halogen lanterns to LED and retained the glow to that of halogen, having two of the lanterns on dimmers is a must, for inside the tent and the porch.
Interestingly integral have now discontinued the 15 watt 16-64-64 dimmable LED bulb for a 13.5 watt version using the same product code, although on testing the 15 watt version was running at 15.9 watt and the newer 13.5 watt version is running at 14.8 watt, not that it makes any difference as both bulbs are rated as 1521 lumens.
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22/4/2021 at 5:00pm
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Well my eyes deceived me, using the iPad LUX app to measure brightness it turns out that the integral 1521 Lumen 15 watt bulbs were not as bright as my old 105 watt halogen bulbs, in fact the halogens were still 25% brighter, so I decided that will not do.
I am now using Osram Parathom LED bulbs rated at 2452 Lumen and are 21 watt, and these are brighter than the 105 watt halogen bulbs by 25% and work perfectly with the dimmers.
The Osram bulbs only come as E27 (ES) probably due to the weight of the bulb at 211gm, a normal BC GLS halogen bulb is around just 35gm.
So I have had to change the fittings in my tent bulkhead lanterns from BC22 to E27.
All in all a great result, the old 105 watt halogen bulbs actually draw 120 watt, and of course get very hot, no such problems using LED bulbs, even at 21 watt.
Quite funny is the service life of the Osram LED bulbs, for the amount of time we use them whilst on our annual fortnight campings in France, they should last for 400! years according to the spec.
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