Permanently Fitted Awning LED Lights

[stevetrent]

Just rigged up close to 4 metres of LED lights under our factory fitted awning. Testing them over the weekend at the Just Kampers Open Weekend and really pleased with the result.

They are similar to the Fiamma LED kits but loads cheaper, costing around £35 in total for the LED strip, cable, 12v plug & double sided tape. Along with around a couple of hours of work measuring up, soldering together and then fitting.

Took a little bit of consideration making sure everything fitted when closed up etc but so chuffed and well worth the time and effort for a sweet finish and one less thing to put up when setting up. The cool thing is that you can also turn lights on before opening the awning so you have light to set the awning up in the dark as well!

Will try and post a photo if I can.

 

[calikev]

That sounds like a great idea Steve look forward to see the pictures

 

[calikev]

Nice one where do they plug in :?:

 

[Tayls]

Good job, would be a really good facsheet 'how to' post

Looks great
Ian

 

[Bjohnson]

This looks great, can you post more details as I'd like to sort something similar myself

 

[timhutch]

Top job!

Parts list.....?????

 

[T5WOB]

i fitted my ones on out side of awning .wired it into interior rear light .does make big difference . :clap.may just see them on this pic .

 

[Argo&Liebe]

Nice one where do they plug in :?:

:goodone

But I have the same question

:?:

 

[T5WOB]

i put the roof up and drilled a hole buy back roof hinge .and ran a wire to rear inside light switch .see if i can find a pick

 

[Ajspicer]

Fantastic awning lighting, what edges do you gave the led's on as it is difficult to tell from the image?

 

[Rubbadub]

I really would love to know more about this mod. Such as where do you get the lights from? Where are they switched from? if one of the internal lights then how did you route the cables? and so on, basically as much info as poss.

 

[johnyboy]

I had a go although I went for a plug in to the useless 12v under the bench seat option

 

[Caliboard_CaliPilot]

Awesome! I spent a full weekend on my last trip to think about how i could attach a few lights to the awning but i gave up.. your solutions looks brilliant! Thanks!

Chris

 

[Argo&Liebe]

I had a go although I went for a plug in to the useless 12v under the bench seat option

This looks a good idea :idea:
can you tell us more?

Drilling holes in the van still scares me a lot :?

 

[johnyboy]

Me too! I'll write up later - wouldn't have attempted it without Steve's picture though!

 

[bvddobb]

Wow! Beautiful! :cool

 

[Argo&Liebe]

Johnyboy , where did you plug the lights? Tell us the secret

 

[johnyboy]

Here is what I bought:

5m waterproof LED in white, with adapter
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5M-3528-SMD-3 ... OC:GB:3160
£9.99

5m of 3A cable
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/390811517075? ... 1439.l2649
£3.45

Cigarette Lighter plug
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/250893854393? ... 1439.l2649

The LEDs are great because they come with an adapter for 12v which you would plug into the house, just made up a wire to the cigarette lighter plug. I will take pictures later in the day.

 

[scraynes]

Hi All,

This is a great idea and I'm just looking for some further info before I have a go at this.

I don't really like the idea of drilling into the van in anyway, but I do see the value of them being full time wired in. I would prefer to run a lead from the 12v socket, either in the boot or the bench seat.

I'd like to mount the strip led on the awning and somehow have a connector block at the awning. Then make up a lead that on one end, plugs into the 12v socket and the other end has a connector that connects into the block on the end of the led string. That way I'm thinking that the lead could be used for other applications in due course.

What I'm needing help with, is that connector block at the end of the led's. What have you guys used? I'm thinking that it is effectively outside, so needs to be waterproof and not just floating around in the wind etc when driving along.

If anyone has a solution to hard wiring it to an internal light, without going thought the body work that would be lovely...

Look forward to the answers, we're all a bit OCD, and I wouldn't like it if there was a better (neater) way to do it..

 

[johnyboy]

You are describing what I did - the last picture in teh above post is the connector... I used Sugru to hold it in place and keep it out of harms way

 

[nclarke8]

Here are some pics of what I did. Used 4m of a 5m roll of 5050 SMD led Strip from Ebay, Wireless remote and Cigar lighter charger lead.
[album]1756[/album]
you can just see fly lead stored on the Awning hinge.
[album]1757[/album]
here is the connection wire with cigar lighter at one end and wireless remote receiver connected to 'micro Deans' connector at the other. These are used on RC cars / planes etc and contain a male pin and female socket.
[album]1759[/album]
Here is the main strip, 2m, that sits inside the awning housing.
[album]1758[/album]
difficult to see but there is also 1m on each of the arms.
[album]1760[/album]
Again difficult to see but there the cable is attached to the fly lead.
The charger end is plugged into the socket in the boot.

The lights on Full power light up ground around the van for about 10m. 4M of good LEDs are too much and I'm very glad I got the remote (£5 I think) 25% setting is fine, 100% is just look at me !!
I actually use the 1m left over in the drive away awning and they are just about right.

 

[scraynes]

Thanks for those replies. I like the idea of having the led's on the extending arms too.

Based on your report of how bright they are, I may well go for the 3825 rather than 5050 leds.

I didn't recognise the connector block in your photo at the end of the post. I now understand that it's a female 2.1 mm socket.

Thanks again to both of you

 

[johnyboy]

No problem - I think I might write it up in a little more detail for future reference. Would not be possible without the help from stevetrent

 

[Big Bloke]

No problem - I think I might write it up in a little more detail for future reference. Would not be possible without the help from stevetrent

I'd be really interested in having a go a this modification as well.
Be great if you did write it up in a little more detail!