Hey friends, welcome back to Grand Adventure! I'm your host Marc Guido,
and if you're like a lot of RVers you've found that sitting under these overhead 12-volt LED
ceiling lights in your RV is kind of like sitting in Giants Stadium at halftime. We're going to
show you a couple of options for dimming these lights in this week's episode, so stay tuned!
There are two sets of lights that we'd like to place on dimmers
to even out the lighting in our RV. The first is directly above the theater seats, where these two
12-volt LED puck lights put out a beam that's far too bright. These lights are on a rocker switch.
The other is directly above the couch where Zoe and I were sitting just a moment ago. This light,
however, turns on and off via a button mounted in the center of the light; it does not have a
separate switch and therefore requires a different solution than the lights above the theater seats.
So we're turning to two different products for this modification.
For the theater seat lights we're going to replace the rocker switch in the wall
with this capacitive dimmer switch from RecPro.
For the push-button puck light above the couch we found this nearly identical replacement dome light
that has a dimmer switch built right in. So, let's get to work!
Let's start with the theater seat lights. We first
have to pry off the decorative covers to gain access to the mounting screws.
The new switch is rated for a maximum 50-watt load at 12 volts.
This is what's known as a high-side switch, for installations where there's both a positive
and negative coming from both the battery and the light fixtures,
for four wires in total. If only a positive lead runs through your existing switch and
there's no adjacent negative lead, you'll need what's known as a low-side dimmer switch.
We'll first disconnect the old switch and cut the negative wire in two.
We'll next strip the ends of the wires for the connections.
Now that we have the wires connected we'll use crimp end caps to ensure a solid connection.
All that's left is to screw the new switch into the wall and press the cover into place.
I was disappointed to discover that the new switch almost,
but didn't completely cover the existing hole in the wall.
I hoped that the opening in a 1-gang rocker switch plate would fit the new dimmer switch.
Alas, it was close, but not close enough.
So instead I decided to purchase a blank 1-gang wall plate
and dremel out an opening for the switch. Even though I traced the
body of the new switch I unfortunately cut the opening just a little too large,
and haven't yet bought another one to try again, although I suspect that I'll just leave the switch
as is because the edges of the hole are barely visible on either side of the dimmer switch.
Simply tap the button in the center of the switch to turn the light on or off.
The switch remembers the dimmer setting last used.
Holding down the button brightens or dims the lights.
The flickering you see here is a product of the camera's shutter,
and is not at all visible to the eye.
Now let's turn our attention to the ceiling puck light mounted above our couch,
which is even easier to replace. You rotate the cover counter-clockwise to
remove the cover. This provides access to the mounting screws, which we'll remove.
Pulling the excess wiring from the cabinet we see that this is simply connected to our
12-volt electrical system by a positive lead and a negative lead. We'll cut each
at the crimp connector to remove the old light fixture.
Again we'll strip the ends of the wires for the new connections.
We'll again twist the wires together before crimping a cap connector in place.
Next up we'll tuck the excess wiring back up into the hole,
and screw the new light fixture in place.
All that's left to do is attach the new light's cover.
This light operates in much the same manner as the dimmer switch we just
installed above the theater seats, except that this light's button is not capacitive.
Simply press the button to turn the light on or off.
Hold the button to cycle between dimmer and brighter.
The effect is much more pronounced than it appears on our camera.
Again, when you turn this light off it remembers the previous dimmer setting.
The end result is positively glorious! No more dark corners,
no more harsh brightly lit areas. Our RV's evening lighting is now all even, and gentle on the eyes.
One set of lights I truly wish we could dim are these eight ceiling lights that are all switched
together. They're massively bright! However, these lights aren't on their own physical switch.
Instead, they're switched on and off by our Lippert OneControl. The OneControl is capable
of functioning as a dimmer; unfortunately KZ didn't program it that way, and the best we can
tell the programming is locked out to individual owners. If anyone has figured out how to get
around this we'd absolutely love to hear from you in the comments section below this video!
Now if you'd like to try to install some of these LED dimmers in your RV we'll put links
in the Grand Adventure Shop on Amazon, and in the video description down below.
Understand that these are affiliate links. It doesn't cost you any more to shop Amazon
through Grand Adventure; however, Grand Adventure does receive a small commission on each purchase
that helps to bring you more and better videos each and every week.
Now another housekeeping item. There's less than a week left
for you to enter the contest to win your own Zero Breeze Mark 2 air conditioner for your RV.
If you missed that episode which includes explaining how to enter to win,
we'll put a link right up here on the screen so you can go back and check it out.
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So until next week please remember, life is nothing but a great adventure! We'll see you then.