Tag Archives: LED

Memorial Day 2013

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Since we are now on a more normal (read: more like the rest of the world) schedule for Roxie we have to take advantage of the 3 day weekends as they come along.  This was just such a weekend.  I had a hard time figuring out where we might go.  I know I wanted a reservation but didn’t want to be too far.  We wanted to be able to get there on Friday evening so we had a full Saturday of fun and adventure.

I called on an old, reliable friend.  Princess campground near Grants Grove of Kings Canyon National Park.  I checked reservations about 3 weeks prior and there were about 10.  The next day about 8.  Oh boy!  Better get one.  I did.  Now that we have a longer trailer the spots are a bit harder to find.  However they had one that claimed to be 45′ long.  I’ll take it!  However, I didn’t tell Roxie we were going until the week before.  I wanted to surprise her a bit.  There is a running joke that we never go camping on the major holidays.  This used to be true when she didn’t work and I could take of whatever time I wanted.  We would never go camping on Labor or Memorial day, we would go the weekend before or after.  This was very advantageous to us when we were able to get reservations at Yosemite one year when our 4 days STARTED on Labor Day.

Roxie worked until 4:30 on Friday afternoon but due to her diligence over the week and pre-packing, we were able to get away at about 4:50!  Fantastic!  Princess is 70 miles away from home but there is a grade of about 5% that goes for about 15 miles.  I had been having some electrical issues with the truck (discussed in the next blog post) so I started it with some trepidation.  The truck performed just great up the grade even though Roxie thought I was going too fast since she was on the downhill side of the road with no guardrail.  We made it to Princess just about 7pm.

The space at Princess (#7) was long as advertised.  It was an easy back in to get there and a quick setup, especially when you don’t have hookups!  We just made some sandwiches for dinner, watched a movie on the MBP and then settled in for a nice sleep.  Aaron and Paige were supposed to come visit the next day.

I don’t know what it is but sleeping in that cocoon is so much easier than at home.  Might be the closeness, the quiet or knowing you don’t have to work the next day but we slept so good that Aaron woke us up knocking on the door at 10am!  That was good though, we shouldn’t sleep the day away.

We took the loop road down through Hume Lake and back around to Grants Grove.  By that time it was time to eat and we had lunch in the restaurant there.  Next stop was a walk around the Grant tree loop.  It gave us a bit of time to spend with Aaron and Paige.

Here is the requisite shot of the General Grant tree:

Gen Grant Tree

A shot of grandma and granddaughter in the Gamlin cabin:

Paige and Grandma

Aaron and Paige by the fallen tree:

Paige and Dad

 

Paige and Aaron headed home after we got back to the trailer.  It was nice to have them come for a visit.  We will have to take Paige with us on one of these trips.  Maybe on Labor Day…

We rested a bit at the trailer and Diane Ganner (the Bird Lady) walked by, telling people about her amphitheater program about birds.  We had seen her before on our last visit to Princess but we always like to go to a program, especially if it is in our own campground.  Diane stated that this was her last season doing these presentations and that is a sad thing.  She truly enjoys what she is doing and does it very well.  Here is a shot of her and one of her rescue birds:

Diane The Bird Lady

We didn’t have time to get to the amphitheater program at Grants Grove that evening but that was OK.  We cooked some dinner and watched another movie.

Sunday we decided that we wanted to take a hike around Hume Lake.  We had been there many times before but had never done it.  We made up a lunch and headed off.  This Memorial Day was strange in the sense that things did not seem as busy as we think it should be.  I know that the Hume Lake campground was fully booked but Princess was not full.

We started the Hume Lake trail around 10:30.  It is 2.6 miles round trip.  The trail is very easy and flat except for a bit of up and down near the dam.  We walked around the lake counter-clockwise.  As we were walking I asked Roxie if it would be weird if we ran into someone we knew up here.  We walked a bit farther and ended up by the beach that is near the inlet from Ten Mile creek.  Luckily there was a restroom at the beach so we could take a little bathroom break.  We were walking up a hill to the bathroom and waited for some guys to bring down an inflatable kayak.  One of them said, “Come on up Roxie”.  I did not recognize the person initially but Roxie did.  Turns out it was some friends that we have not seen for a long time.  We spent about 30 minutes visiting before we continued our trek.

A lot of people fish in Hume Lake.  They are along the bank and out in boats (non-motorized).  Between the beach and the dam there were numerous fishermen.  Many of them had caught fish also.  As we approached the dam I did not know how we would get by it.  I guess I was expecting a HUGE dam like the ones I grew up around (Shasta, Whiskeytown, Claire Engle).  This was not huge since the valley below was not huge either although they did have a nice bridge across part of the valley.  Essentially we did some small switchbacks down, across the bridge, and some small switchbacks up.

The dam turns out to be the world’s first concrete reinforced multiple arch dam constructed in 1908 and still in use now.  The designer, John S. Eastwood, designed some 16-18 of these dams and none of them have failed.  Here is the Wiki on Hume Lake.  Here is a pic from below the dam and then looking across the top:

Hume Dam Face Hume Dam Top

And a view of Hume Lake from the dam (facing west):

Hume Lake

 

We were on the home stretch now!  Lunch was awaiting us back at the truck.  We got back, got our chairs and lunch and plopped down in a picnic area to enjoy a bit of a rest after all that exertion!  We returned to the trailer and partook in our favorite trailer activity.  A nap!  I said I wasn’t going to take one but I did anyway.  We really did nap too!  We slept until about 7pm!!  The amphitheater show was at 7:30!

Dinner had to wait as we drove the 7 miles to the Kings Canyon campground where the show was.  We didn’t know the subject but it doesn’t really matter.  We just like going, listening and learning.  Since the presenting ranger was first stationed at Mammoth Cave NP AND he was a geologist the subject was:  Caves!  We knew about Crystal Cave in Sequoia NP and Boyden Caverns in the National Forest nearby as we have been in each of them.  But we did NOT know that in the two NP’s there were more than 300 caves!  One of them is over 20 miles long and they are still discovering parts of it (Lilburn Cave).  Here is a pic of the ranger (with the required beard) and some of his Junior Ranger helpers, the boy was very outgoing:

RangerProgram

We had a very late dinner that PM and a late movie night and probably went to sleep about 1 or 1:30 AM(!).  But we knew what the morning brought.  Time to get ready to go home.

Here is a shot of our trailer in the spot (#7 is nice and long!):

ASPrincessSp7

Almost forgot one last shot.  Roxie always gets cold wherever we go, sometimes even in the summer.  She had to get this hat to keep her ears warm:

RoxieHat

Another enjoyable weekend.  Next post about some truck/trailer weighing and truck electrical issues.

LED’s again

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LED’s again!  As demonstrated in a previous post, I love LED’s!  When we got our new trailer they had a few LED’s in the trailer.  All the outside lighting was LED.  Inside the light in the shower and the lights in the wardrobe were LED.  However, the main lighting was fluorescent.  There were 4 reading lights that were halogen and two accent lights were straight incandescent.

Replacing the incandescent lamps were easy since they were 1076 bulbs so I just ordered a straight replacement.  The halogens also needed replacing so I got 4 of these.  Almost forgot, there was another incandescent which was in the vent hood over the stove and it was very dim so I got this instead, much better!  That took care of all the lights except the fluorescent ones.  I am sure that they are efficient and all that but they are not LED <g>.

The model is ThinLite and they DO make a LED version of the lamps but they are about $50 each!  I think I can do it cheaper.  I also wanted to be able to put the fluorescent functionality back if I ever wanted to.  So below is a step by step on how I decided to do things.  It has a lot of pictures so be warned.

Here is the light that we are going to convert.  I have taken off the covering lens:

Light01

 

 

Now, without the bulbs and then without the ballast cover:

Light02

Light03

 

I will leave the ballast in the lamp but no power will be going to it.  This would enable me to reconnect the fluorescent if I ever choose to.

What I found for the LED source was a spool of flexible, waterproof LED’s.  I got these from eBay for less that $10 per spool (including shipping).  I needed almost two spools at 5 meters each:

Light06

 

 

I need to cut specific lengths of the strips.  They are clearly marked in sections where you can cut them.  Essentially it is every 3 LED ‘bulbs’ and I figured I needed 5 sections for each ‘tube’ length:

Light04

 

 

Here is a closeup of how the sections are laid out:

Light05

 

 

I cut 4 strips of 5 sections each with 3 LED’s in each section.  A total of 60 LED’s per light (at least the ones that are these size).  Here is the test fit:

Light07

 

 

Another closeup of a section but this shows where the contacts are for connecting strips.  You can see the little +/- pads under the waterproofing.  I purchased some snap-on connections that were supposed to work but they didn’t so I opted to solder them myself:

Light08

 

 

Now it is time for two blurry photos but hopefully you can get the gist of the idea.  The first is a side view that shows you the waterproof coating on the strip.  This must be removed to get to the two solder pads.  The second shows the strip with the coating cut away.  A simple razor blade does a good job:

Light09 Light10

 

 

My next task was to strip some wires that I would use to connect everything together.  I used some simple intercom wire from Chicken Shack.  I stripped of 4 large pieces and two smallish pieces.  The second photo shows the smallish ones cut in half and stripped:

Light11 Light12

 

 

Next up is a triple shot.  The first one shows the contact points with solder beads on it.  Second has one set of wires attached.  Third is two strips soldered together:

Light15 Light16 Light17

 

Three more here.  First is a completed strip with the two segments and the long lead wires to connect to the fixture.  Second is a pair of completed segments.  Third are the segments powered up for a test.  You know how it goes, if you test it will work fine, if you don’t, it will fail when you have it installed.  Something about Murphy…:

Light18 Light19 Light20

 

 

Three more to show the connection for the power (12v+) side.  This is where it can get confusing.  In this fixture positive wiring is black and negative is white.  I am very used to the negative being black and another color, than black, being positive.  I have to concentrate when I am doing these.  First pictures shows the existing connections to the switch.  We are interested in the connector that is closest to us.  That is where the positive voltage comes through the switch.  Second shows the wire disconnected and pushed aside.  Third shows my two black leads from the strips connected together and attached to the switch.  That is where we get the positive power to the strips:

Light13 Light14 Light21

 

 

Negative power comes from wire splicing the negative leads into the negative wire on the fixture (remember the negative is white!!):

Light22

 

 

Time to stick them down.  The strips have a self-adhesive back on them, just peel off the protective tape.  First picture shows one strip down.  Second shows two strips down:

Light23 Light24

 

 

Here is the detail of the short wires allowing the strips to be side by side but connected electrically:

Light25

 

 

Two shots.  First it shows everything all wired up but not so neat.  Second it shows with all the wiring covered by the ballast cover.  Ready to install:

Light26 Light27

 

 

One more test before we mount it:

Light29

 

 

Now in its’ natural environment:

Light30

 

That is about it.  It got to a point where it took me about 20 minutes to do a fixture.  Yes it is quite a bit of time but I did it over an extended period so it wasn’t so bad.

I was going to show some comparisons between the two as far as brightness goes but I don’t have any good shots of that and it is hard to do because everything seems bright to the iPhone.

The benefits that I see are definitely power consumption.  But another one is that in cold weather the LED’s come on immediately but the ballasts take a bit of time to fire up.

I am glad that I did it and also that it is done.