How to avoid the pitfalls of converting to LED Lights in your RV. Hello everyone. This is Eric Stark with TheSmartRVerPodcast Delivering the Smarts you need to enjoy the freedom of the RV lifestyle without the fear of breaking down. So today we're going to cover some ground about LED lights. And we're going to talk about RV shows and backup cameras.

LIVING THE RV LIFESTYLE

So, we have got a lot of things we're going to discuss today that should be very interesting to you as the RV. So now let's talk about living the RV life and checking out local RV shows. Yeah. So, Alexis, have you been to an RV show?

Alexis- I have. I have been to one. It's very interesting. So, I know everything basically. Yeah, not really, but, um, yeah, I enjoyed being there. Nice to see all the, the models that they have and they kind of show you.

Eric- Mm-hmm. So, you not only see new RVs, you see all the stuff that's being sold for RVs. Yeah, exactly. Um, they have so many accessories, um, both for camping and RV, you know, primarily related.

Alexis- So it's just fun to see what upgrades you can do to your RV if you're a real seasoned RV or if you're just starting out. Um, there's something for everyone.

Eric- Mm-hmm. So, RV shows can be very informative. Yes. You know, even if you're not looking for an RV, looking for a new RV, it's worthwhile going to one just to check it out, you know?

Alexis- Mm-hmm. Might become a thing you'd want to do more often, but at least go to one if you haven't been to one.

Eric- Yeah. Check out the new RVs. It's going to get your, uh, creative juices flowing. Think about your RV. Maybe you're not going to buy a new one, but how you can upgrade. Yeah. Seeing some of the new stuff can help you stay in touch with some newer things. It's not a catch-all for all new things. Mm-hmm, there's just a lot of stuff there. It's. Kind of swap-meet driven in some ways. Yeah. You know, people selling sunglasses and mm-hmm. T-shirts and goofy stuff and mm-hmm and then there's always like, you'll see people walking around because everybody bought this one thing.

I remember one I was at, and everybody had cord reels. The guy sold a million of them. It was like, man, how many times are people going to use this? What twice? Some of them would buy three of them. You know, I buy three and get them for whatever a piece, you know. Oh boy. So, a lot can happen there. Now I remember being at one show and.

I was a vendor there. , and that's where the CAMCO Rhino FLEX hoses were basically born. Wow. Not because they thought of it, someone else did, but the guy kept sending everybody to the CAMCO Boost to get their fittings. And of course, CAMCO said, hmm, there's a lot of these hoses moving. Let's go ahead and uh, make this hose.

Mm-hmm. Alexis has compiled the list.

Alexis- Yep. So, you can check it out.

Eric- It's complete and thorough and all in one place. You don't have to go scavenging through the internet. That's right. Mm-hmm. All right. So now that's on your list for the next thing to do, going to an RV show. But now let's talk about staying on the road.

STAYING ON THE ROAD

And how to avoid the pitfalls when converting to LED Lights. Consumers, we've experienced worldwide changes in lighting. You know, whether it's an RV, a residential application, commercial or marine. Anywhere there's a light bulb. They can be found. We're having to change them because there's something revolutionary new that's coming out.

So, with each new type of light bulb, some good comes with it and some bad comes with it. So, with each new type of light bulb also comes new hype, and there's a need to push it on society. Everybody's got to get this bulb, you got to make the switch, you know you're going to be left in the dark, no pun intended,

If you don't get this new form of light, you won't have any future. You know, it's an interesting thing because it's inaccurate in a lot of ways, but there are a lot of pros and cons, as I said. But let's do a little history of the light bulb. Yeah, it sounds exciting, doesn't it? Talk about light bulbs, so you have to understand how things have come along and where we're at.

But the incandescent bulbs, they've been around for decades. Mm-hmm. You know, they're still used in so many applications today, including RVs, but they're deemed inefficient when it comes to power consumption because they take a higher wattage to produce. The light, you know, a brighter light if the, the brighter the light you want, the higher the wattage so it consumes more power.

So, they can be inefficient that way. Then there's the halogen bulb, which, you know, they're known for being much brighter. That's kind of like the cat’s meow bright bulbs, or it used to be, but they'd use a lot more power and they'd burn a lot hotter. So that reminds me of years ago when I owned another business called AZ products.

Wow. It worked great. It just used more electricity or more battery power. Mm-hmm. And it ran hot. But it still became a bright light because there was no alternative back then. It worked; you know? But those days are gone. Yeah. That bulb is, you know, history. I still have one though, in the original packaging. Oh, cool.

You're in my antique emporium. Yeah. Three things. I love it. So Haagen bulbs had their place, and they still can in some applications, but everything's changing is what we're getting into. So, fluorescent tubes, they've had a, you know, they've been an excellent alternative to incandescent bulbs, and especially when you have to light up a lot of areas, keep the heat down, and it's not a flood that's coming right on, you know?

Mm-hmm. So, they work great. You know, most businesses have, almost every business in the world's going to have fluorescent tubes in it. Right. You know, for light. And then comes along the compact fluorescent bulb, the CFLs, they're efficient and they're also bulky and they're also very ugly, you know what I'm talking about?

They want a little spiral bulb on it, you know, right? That hey, this thing's great. You got to have these, you know, um, very unique sizes. They like horrible and most light fixtures that had an exposed. and sometimes that's all you could get. And they're just horrible looking. And they also contained Mercury.

Mm-hmm. , which Mercury we know is I is horrible for the environment. Yeah. But you know, it's okay. It's, you know, whatever, they're not going to go down that road. So, they're ugly and they're not dimmable. So, the CFLs pretty much are lame. So that brings us to the LED Lights, kind of the newest thing now. LED light bulbs have been around for a long time.

you know, the smaller applications. But they just didn't hit mainstream until maybe, I don't know, eight years ago, 10 years ago. It's been a while because it took a long time for them to become mainstream, get all the kinks worked out of them. You know, I remember in the nineties they were, or the early two thousands, they were around and, um, yeah, they just didn't have, you couldn't get them.

They're more expensive, harder to. The quality wasn't there. But today the quality is there. In the LED bulbs, just the bulbs. So, they produce more light with less energy, and they come in a lot of different sizes and types, which makes them more usable, and more user friendly, but they cost more per bulb, and sometimes it's going to pay for themselves quickly.

It's been like a 10-year plan or something. Wow. So that van will vary state by state. Mm-hmm. So depending on where you live, it might affect you in different ways. And so, the bulbs, some bulbs might be allowed, some not. Yeah. But it's still going to be a major blow to the incandescent halogen bulb market. Sure.

Mm-hmm. So it's another way to force you into the LEDs. Which, you know, the bulb in itself is, okay, we're going to get to all. Really what this is all about is what we're leading up to here. Little history doesn't help though, so LED bulbs are very popular with RVs because they draw so much less compared to the incandescent bulb.

Mm, it's amazing. So when you're on battery power, you need to conserve as much battery power as possible. So if you're out camping, you're off the grid, you're relying on those batteries, you don't want your lights to consume it, or you're not turning on your lights at night because you don't want to waste any power.

especially for just one bulb. So that number's going to vary, obviously, depending on what bulbs you in the invention, how many you use, how many are on all the time, so that you have to calculate, get an idea for how much battery power you're going to use each day. But the point is it draws a lot less. So how does that translate into cash savings or does it?

Well, it really depends on how much you pay for the new LED bulb or bulbs and what kilowatt hour, you know, cost you're paying from the electric company. So, you can maybe save a buck per bulb a year. It depends, you know, this is related to an RV, so it's a little harder to calculate because. Using the battery and your converter to recharge the battery.

So yeah, it's a little harder to calculate, but you know, you can still do it. Um, you can figure that out by bulb what you'd save if they're on all the time and you know, the converter's always running type of thing. Mm-hmm, but you know, it's going to be savings. But really in an RV it's probably, that probably doesn't matter as much as saving the battery.

You know, if you save $12 per year in your RV, Who cares, right? Surely not that much, right? You know, it's two cups of coffee. . Isn't that ridiculous? Two cups of coffee easily. Yeah. Or one cup depending on where you go. . Yeah. So now here's where things get different. If you're going to, let's talk about replacing the fixtures with LED bulbs.

So that would be a new light fixture. that comes with an l e d bulb built into the fixture. So, in other words, the bulb is not replaceable. So, if that fixture costs you 60 bucks, your gain will be brighter lights and any saving in cash probably won't come for three to four years. Oh, okay. In an RV you might never really see it because you don't use it enough.

Mm-hmm, so you're, you're buying it to gain light and battery. , but you're not really going to ever see a return on that, especially if you paid 60 bucks for one fixture and then you buy 2, 3, or 4 more. Do you know? Right. Even if it's $30, you're not ever going to see it. Hmm. So that's because the fixture costs much more than a single bulb.

So, you have to think about the numbers here and how you're calculated. Um, so everything I do is based on, you know, an average retail price. And so, you have to kind of look at it that way. If you're doing any research into this for an RV, it's probably not even worth researching for your house or a business.

Different story. Yeah. Yeah. So, here's kind of the real problem or the real rub with buying a fixture with an l e d light bulb built into it. So, it's non-replaceable. The light is part of the fixture. Hmm. So, if the fixture fails, it has to be replaced. Right. That's common sense, it's going to be something inside of it.

One of the electronics is going to fail. The light won't work properly, might come on and flash and flicker, or only half of the LED light strip come on because one-half of the fixture has gone bad. You know, the drivers for the LED bulbs have failed, and so now you have to replace the fixtures. So, if you have to replace the fixture now you've just doubled the cost.

Mm-hmm. and these fixtures, what I'm seeing or we're seeing in our stores, they're not lasting for 10, 15 years. They're lasting for, you know, three years. Two years. Oh yeah. Four years. So brand new RVs are coming out with LED balls or LED lights and fixtures. And people are coming in with brand new lights needing them replaced.

They're not even out on the market yet. That style light, yikes, that's how quickly it's happening. Mm-hmm. So, it doubles the time to break even if you ever will. So now you're asking our LED light fixtures failing. Yes, they are. As I just said, we're seeing them in the store and so. That’s why the newer RVs come with LED light fixtures, so they're starting to come in.

They're failing pretty early because incandescent fixtures pretty much never fail. I mean, we get people coming in with the Sunray brand light fixtures looking for a replacement. Sunray went out of business in the nineties. Oh wow. So that says how long they last. Mm-hmm. people come in with bargeman lights that have been, you know, the, the lens hasn't been made for 10.

That's how long they last, you know? Yeah. So, they, you know, they, they last where these new l e d ones aren't, so it's not necessarily the bulb that fails, it's just the electronics around it. And residential l e d lights are the same way too. I know at my home, every l e d light we replaced two years ago, we bought the house.

We've replaced it. And they all failed, pretty much the same way. Wow. You know, so it's happening. I talk to other people, it's the same thing. So, LED light bulbs are really good if you can just do an LED light bulb. So if you have to replace the fixture, and you go with an LED light that's built into it, a non-replaceable bulb, that one might come back and bite you.

Mm-hmm, that one might be a little less cost-effective. Right. But that's what everything's going to be, you know, so if you're, so, if you, you look at this, we really don't have a choice. Yeah. It's changing. You know, the market's shifting. So as incandescent bulbs get outlawed and they aren't available then, then the fixtures are going to become less and less and less.

Mm-hmm, then it's going to be much harder to buy anything but a new fixture with an LED light strip built into it. And you know, manufacturers, you know, they. They don't want their stuff to last forever. Not anymore. They used to, yeah. So, it's about money. So, they have to sell this stuff, resell it, you know, otherwise, they're going to go out of business.

Mm-hmm. So, their profits drop all that. You know, they're making a lot of money now and then, the changeover, but eventually, it levels off and they can't have that. And we know that. I think everybody understands that. That's just how it works. So, the LED is a, a. Inexpensive power source to some degree. You know, just sometimes you don't see that money for a long time.

Yeah, you know, especially outside the RV, as I said, the RV is not a problem. So also, just so this is out there, this is not about green energy or saving energy to save the planet, just as just the reality of the light bulbs. Yeah, none of that's my concern. bad as that may sound, that's not what I'm talking about today.

It's just LED bulbs. So, if you're going to. Do an upgrade in your RV and switch to LED bulbs. Maybe you've already done it, maybe you haven't. Um, maybe you've done a few lights, but you really want to do them all now. Cause sometimes it's one of those things you step into because you know, bulbs aren't that, uh, you know, they're not inexpensive.

So, if you buy a new fixture, I recommend getting fixtures that come with LED bulbs in them that can be replaced. Yes. Because that way if the fixture fails, which it probably won't, it'll be the bulb, you can just replace the bulb. Yeah. Because even LED bulbs do fail. They don't always last like they're supposed to.

Right. And you know, even if they have a five-year warranty or something on them, where do you take the bulb after you buy it? Who has the receipt? Who knows. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, who keeps track of that? I mean, some people might, and that's good for them, but other people aren't, you know, receipt, you save for a day to make sure it works and after it works, you throw it away.

Mm-hmm. So, buy fixtures that take a twist in bulb, you know that. Like Incandescence used to be. If you have fixtures like that, just put in LED bulbs, you know, it might be a little bit more for the bulbs, you know, and you start buying them all, but you have better fixtures. This is one of these things where older stuff is good.

We see that quite a bit in the RV industry, where sometimes the older stuff works and lasts much longer than newer things. Yep. But int LED is a problem worldwide, not just in RVs or category-wise. So, the real solution is just to keep your fixtures in good shape. Don't abuse them, and don't break those lenses.

Sometimes, you know, you can't get a lens after a few years. And if you do have to upgrade it, buy one where it has a twist-in bulb that you can replace it. If it does fail that way, you can keep that fixture. In most cases, the fixture doesn't even matter what it looks like. Right. They don't notice it.

They're on the ceiling. If the lights work, who cares? Yeah. Do you know? And if you have friends in your RV that don't like your light fixtures, I don't find new friends. Exactly. Put them out. . . All right. It sounds simple, but it's not always simple to do. But that's my recommendation on LED bulbs and the problems we're seeing today and how you can overcome them in your RV.

And of course, these principles will apply to your house as well.

NEXT STOP

Now, this takes us to the next stop. The moment Alexis has been waiting for because today we are going to go. Montana?

Alexis- Yes. Here, in Montana. Imagine that we go to Montana a lot. Yes, we do. Well, it is one of the nicest-looking states. That might sound, you know, prejudice there, but it is, well it is.

Eric- I live here. I got to defend the state. So, Montana is an awesome state. Mm-hmm. So today we're going to go to Makoshika State Park. Mm-hmm. So, Alexis, what made you pick Makoshika State Park?

Alexis- Well, first it's just fun to say Makoshika. No, I was kind of just searching around for state parks in Montana and this one really stood out. I had never heard of it before, which, shame on me. I've lived here my whole life. But I really have not. Um, but apparently, it's Montana's largest state park, which is kind of cool. Um, it's a high desert, so it's not the mountainous region that we live in. It's very different, but there are cool rock formations in it.

Um, there are trails to hike and bike. You can look around at the, um, surrounding, uh, area. You can camp in it, and there are just tons too.

Eric- Right. So, the high desert is on the eastern side of Montana. That's right. So, it's a completely different look than the western side. Yeah. You know, it doesn't have pine trees, they don't exist. No, but there's sand. Dirt and rivers and such. There are things to do and see there. Mm-hmm. So, it sounds pretty cool. Sounds like a nice place. I kind of like that high desert anyway, so it attracts me to it. Yeah. Yeah. And so, what is there to do there as far as, but you mentioned some activities. Mm-hmm, but of course after those activities, you got to eat.

Alexis- Oh yeah.

Eric- So, what is there for food?

Alexis- Well, um, it is a smaller area, so there weren't a whole lot of options, but there's a place called the Beer Jug that got really good reviews. Apparently, their food is amazing, so, Might be somewhere to check out, um, the goof, I think I'm saying that right. That's a pizza place.

Alexis- So if you're a pizza lover, then there's lost Los Amigos, which is Mexican food.

Eric- So, all right, so Las Amigos sounds like a safe name. Mm-hmm. Now that doesn't sound like a pizza place. Does not, sounds like a German, whatever. Yeah, it does. Go and drink beer till oblivion. Whereas the beer jug, you drink enough beer, whatever they serve is going to be good.

Right. Exactly. Go. So, there you go. So, it sounds like all three of them are good. Mm-hmm. in Mexican food. You can't go wrong with, you know, most of the time, right? All right. So now are there places to stay for RVers to use their RV?

Alexis- Yeah, there are a couple of different campgrounds. I always try to list at least three, um, that are reviewed well. Um, there's Canes Campground, there's Riverview RV Park, and Whispering Trees, RV Park. And obviously, in those last two, you know, you can take your RV, but in Canes, you can too. So, I always like to list ones for our RV friends. Make sure it's RV friendly, right? So, we're looking out for you people. That's right.

Eric- We're making sure you have got the best places to eat, drink and sleep. Recreate. Yeah. And sleep it off. Yeah, exactly. So, you see there's always recreation everywhere we go. Mm-hmm, every spot, there's recreation, there's always food. Yep. So, you see how that works. You can eat your heart's content, then you go recreate.

Alexis- Yep. Yep. You walk off all that food, exercise it off.

Eric- Yep. But while you're having fun, all right, we're also helping you not exceed the load limit of your RV. You know, is that the way? You know you don't go there and gain a bunch of weight now you can't take your RV back because you exceeded the load. Oh man, that's right.

All right. So awesome. So again, you can go to the next stop on TheSmartRVer.com website and check out Makoshika State Park. Mm-hmm. and all the other next stops that we have. Talked about upcoming ones, they're always on the website long before we talk about them. Yep. So, it's a great resource.

Just wet your appetite. I know every time we talk about this stuff, Alexis and I are like, hey, you know, I want to go there. I want to go there. Uh-huh. You know Uh huh? Yep. And so, it kind of gets that, you know, going. So, it's pretty cool. So, check it out. It's at TheSmartRVer.com. So now RV Envy, you know, there's nothing cooler than having an RV where you got all the nice little gadgets.

RV ENVY

It doesn't necessarily have to be. Big old massive RV that you pull in the RV park and everybody's looking at it, you know? Mm-hmm. It's just the RV with all the cool stuff on it or the cool things for you. Yeah. You know, who cares what everybody else thinks, but you always have those things, and someone will be envious of it.

That's why we call it RV Envy. Mm-hmm. So today we're going to talk about backup cameras. Now I was going to focus primarily on Furrion backup cameras. As the brand here, but I've changed that. Um, I just got a sample of a Magdy backup camera. Oh, interferon and Magine. Um, both RVs come pre-wired for both brands.

Okay. So that's something that's changing. Uh, backup cameras or observation systems as they're. You know, likely to be called today. Mm-hmm, because it's not just about backing up, it's about seeing things as you're going down the highway. Right. What's going on behind you on the side of you, depending on what options you get.

Mm-hmm. So, I'm going to do videos on both brands, so we'll get those on the website hopefully before this episode comes out. We're trying to stay ahead of this, but videos are coming out on YouTube channel at TheSmartRVer, so it's YouTube at TheSmartRVer. Mm-hmm. Maybe TheSmartRVerPodcast. I need to get this straight.

But anyway, we've got too many names of too many things, but it's on YouTube and there's a link to it on TheSmartRVer.com. Yes. You know, TheSmartRVer.com has links to everything. Mm-hmm. So, if I get it messed up, just go there. always works better without me in the loop. So observation systems, or cameras or backup cameras, whatever you want to talk about or whatever you want to call them.

It was quite a thing, you know? I was like, wow, that was really something to be envious of, you know? But you know, they worked. But when you retrospect they were junk, you know? Horrible-looking monitors, big clunky things. When they failed, they failed miserably. You know, like that thing, you just throw it in the trash, and you'd never replace it.

Oh, wow. You know unless you really fell in love with it. And it's something like, maybe the cameras are replaceable and it's inexpensive, but you'd probably never fix it. Just throw it away. Right. Or just let it sit, you know? Yeah. When you sell your RV, it has a backup. Doesn't work, but it has one. Do you know? So today they're a lot more compact.

They're friendlier, they're wireless, so you don't have to have all the wiring. And when you're going down the road, if you're pulling a, let's say a trailer, doesn't matter, fifth wheel travel trailer, you can have a camera on the rear. You can even buy cameras to mount on the side next to your clearance lights.

And that's how they're powered is from the clearance lights because they don't really have the same power requirements as the old cameras. So, you just run with your clearance lights on and it powers up the cameras and then they talk to the monitor on your dash wirelessly. So, it's much more effective today.

Much friendlier, much RV friendlier, and they're easy 10 stalls in most cases. and there are a lot of different ones out there, and you really got to be careful what you buy. There is a brand called Halo View, which is still around, I got behind it for a while because they're inexpensive and it seemed to work okay, but you had to run some wires on it.

That with an antenna, the more I think about it, that's just lame. You're putting more holes in the roof. Mm-hmm. So, Halo View is not the worst brand but's not a brand that I would support anymore. Hmm. I revoke remove the smart RRP seal of approval on that one. Oh, wow. So, if you bought one, I'm sorry. No, they're not that bad.

It's just they're d they've gotten better, you know, there are less expensive brands that have improved like Magine. They come in price-wise, a little less expensive than Ayon. Okay. Furrion has taken a different approach versus the machine, but both are good-quality cameras. Mm-hmm. or systems. So, if you're looking for one, you know, there, there's a lot of brands out there.

Just stay away from the junk. I would recommend Magnadyne or Furrion, you know, look at the camera. In fact, the Magnadyne one, uh, the testing I've done so far, works really well. The phones we've installed work, so I'm more familiar with those. But Magnadyne works well so far. And the tests we've done, in fact, the Magnadyne is probably going to go on the company trailer we bought, which that's going to be a whole other episode, probably.

Nice. But it's, it's all about, everything we talk about is going on this RV. So the proof will be in the pudding, everything we talk about will be on this RV. Mm-hmm. And there's a ton of stuff that we have planned for it. It's going to take two months to get everything done. That's how many changes we're going to do to it.

Wow. So, it's, and it's going to be decked out with everything. That's cool. That's awesome. So, talk about RV Envy. Ah-huh. So, it's going to be nice. So, that's just from me now. Um, Furrion is still a good brand. Mm-hmm, you know, um, so check them out, and like I said, we're going to do videos on them, break it down more.

But rear observation systems are pretty darn cool these days. Yeah. And they're getting, dropping in price. You can get a good system for under 500 bucks. You can get a good system for under a thousand bucks, you know, under 800 bucks, like Fury. They have a nice system for like $765. You know, it's regular retail.

It's a great system. Mm-hmm, so check them out. If you don't have one, they're very, very handy to have mm-hmm, you know, just knowing what's going on behind you sometimes is so much better than trying to back up with one who cared. Yeah. You know, I mean, you can back up an RV, someone can help you with that.

Mm-hmm. But if you're driving down the road and you get a blowout or start getting one, a tire starts separating. Sometimes you can't see it from your tow vehicle. Right, right. But you got a camera now and suddenly you see rubber and stuff shooting off the. Off the road. Now you can definitely pull over quicker, which gives you an advantage, right?

Mm-hmm, and so that also reminds me that, you know, you need to have the TST Tire reminders on your trailer and that'll help you. Yep. And there's another product coming up that we're going to be discussing is RV Defender, and that's for blowouts Tire protection or you know, saves your trailer from blowouts.

So that's coming up too. Nice. We have a lot of things happening here, but either the backup cameras or rear observation systems are something you want to look at. Mm-hmm. And of course, there'll be a link in this podcast to TheSmartRVParts center with the cameras there. Or just go to TheSmartRVParts center and look up rear observation systems.

Real simple. All right everybody, I want to thank you for coming by today and listening to the show. Truly appreciate it. Don't forget to subscribe to us on all your favorite channels, your podcast channels, and YouTube, you know, make us your go-to source for RV information for the do-it-yourselfer. So, this is Eric Stark with TheSmartRVerPodcast.

It's been great hanging out with you today. If I don't see you on the road, let's connect at TheSmartRVer.com.