Fun with LED's!

WilliamA

As I've been saying for too long now, I wanted to do some LED upgrades to the interior in anticipation of replacing the porch lights with similar LED's so I've finally gotten enough time and components to get a good start. One of the reasons for thinking about replacing my porch lights is aesthetic (fun and interesting) and the other is that my porchlights have become cracked and pretty ratty looking. The lights still work fine, but the white shells have gotten quite a few cracks in the plastic and are not only starting to look crappy, but I'm having some concerns about getting water into the light and, hence, the trailer wall panel.

Here is a short video of the progress so far. I thought the video might be a bit more effective as to the various settings and how they work. Here's one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_D-YEl2rg0

First order of business is to find out if the video is working. LMK if it's not and I'll try and get it going.
I'll be adding more information to this thread as I get farther (further?) along. For now, let's say it's officially under way...

Here are a couple of links to products I am using:

6" RGBW LED light strip from West Marine:
https://www.westmarine.com/buy/west-marine--6-led-utility-strip-light-with-gasket-rgbw--18514026?recordNum=52
I had some initial issues using this light for exterior application. The description says it's not really designed to be waterproof. However, once I got to West Marine and pulled one down off the shelf and looked at it, that all went away. While the description on the website says it's for interior only, the package says otherwise, that it is fine for deck-mounting where exposed to weather. Once I unpacked the first one, it was immediately evident that this thing is fine for most weather situations. The light is a sealed unit front and back and the wiring is molded right into the assembly. It also has a robust mounting gasket and stainless hardware so any thoughts of water problems are gone. It's much more water-friendly than the stocker. It's a bit shorter than the stock porch light so mounting may be a bit of a creative process but I have no worries about retrofitting them onto the trailer. I'll deal with it, as always. The only downside about this one is that when I picked them up at West Marine in Madison, Wi they only had two on the shelf. I'll order some when I get around to it, but first there's the puzzle of running the wiring and putting in the controller. That'll take a bit of time.

12/24V LED light controller from West Marine:
https://www.westmarine.com/buy/west-marine--helm-mount-led-rgbw-controller-water-resistant-touch-sensitive-multifunction--18514224?recordNum=21

I have been using wire I picked up at Home Depot. It's 5 strand solid copper wire at size 18/5. The colors don't match exactly but are close and it's much less expensive than dedicated RGBW wiring. Being solid wire, it's not something you'd want to use where there is much movement in the wiring components but for solid mount installations such as I'm doing, it will work fine. There is always the option of picking up stranded 18/5 wire from places like: Super Bright LED's or other online sources. For my purposes and experience, this stuff is fine.

WilliamA

LuckyJ

@WilliamA, do you inow if tye LED comtroler has phantom draw? I was on the i pression that those LED comtroler needed power standby to be able to sens a finger touching it.

WilliamA

Lucky,

As far as I can tell, there is no draw. The unit has a power button and when it's in the off position there is no additional draw on my amp meter. I am sure it has some consumption but the power necessary to monitor the keypad could easily be less than a watch battery uses. Whatever the amount, it's below what my milliamp meter can detect. Keep in mind too that this job isn't bluetooth or IR. It's a hard switch so it's not roaming for rf. It's only looking for that one input.

WilliamA

LuckyJ

@WilliamA thank you for the info!

One more thing. Do you think it would hurt the switch to triy it out on the porch LED standard light?? That would be for intensity.

I would really like to upgrade the switch, but keep the standard porch light, and curious to see if the light would be compatible with a dimmer. But only if you feel like it.

Michigan_Mike

It says the video is unavailable.

WilliamA

Thanks Mike, I'll see if I can figure it out...

WilliamA

Sharon_is_SAM

It is working now!

WilliamA

Thanks Sharon! I still flop around putting up my videos and getting the privacy settings in order. I'll get it sooner or later.....

Lots of progress today. I got my overhead valance hooked up to my new switch. It's working very well and I am so pleased to be able to get rid of a couple of switches.

I'm not sure if I had mentioned this previously, but one of the main reasons for rewiring my LED's was that the Patriot LED systems was on the same frequency as my Television, so every time I'd run the Tele remote, it would change the settings of my LED's. Most annoying.... In any case, that can't happen now as the LED controller has no RF/Infrared control. It's simply a switch. I tried switching on the Tele just now and nothing happened to my LED lights. In this case, that's a very good thing....

I also ran the wire for my external porch lights. As I said, the new LED's will require a 5 wire or 4 wire system. I pulled down the speakers, porch light switches, ceiling fan and both porch lights so I could see how things looked in there. I ran my 18/5 copper wire up through the ceiling to both porch lights and just buried it in there for now. Once I get the lights, it will be a simple (relative term) affair to just pull the old lights, wire the new ones and stick up the controller. As I mentioned, I'm wiring both porch lights in parallel so one switch will control both sides. That's not for the sake of simplicity but for the sake of my wallet. The switches are $63 bucks each. I am so far loving the new LED controller as it's easy to use, looks pretty clean and doesn't seem to rob any voltage when it's idling. All things I was looking for. It's also the only one I could find with the specs I wanted and came in black.

Now to wait for more parts and then revisit the hooking up part. I'll post some video of that since there seems to be a lot of interest in that particular topic.

WilliamA

LuckyJ

Vid is working! Thanks.

WilliamA

@LuckyJ said:
@WilliamA thank you for the info!

One more thing. Do you think it would hurt the switch to triy it out on the porch LED standard light?? That would be for intensity.

I would really like to upgrade the switch, but keep the standard porch light, and curious to see if the light would be compatible with a dimmer. But only if you feel like it.

Lucky,
Dimming LED's, as I'm learning, isn't as easy as incandescent bulbs, but there are many dimmers available for white LED's as well. If I understand the principle, dimming a standard bulb is a matter of reducing voltage. That won't work with LED"s. Dimming LED's is actually about cycling the voltage off and on at specific frequency so it "looks" dimmer.
Like a movie made from still frames of film, we see the dim, not the transition between off and on because it's too fast for us to process. The same exact LED controller I'm using is also available in a white light only version. The sticky wicket for this kind of controller is where and how to mount it. I'm working on that as we speak. It's safe to say there's no concrete setting on the plan but I'm ready to start mixing.
Stay tuned....

WilliamA

WilliamA

I got around to ordering the rest of the bits for my porchlight LED project. According to USPS, the switch and lights should be showing up here on Monday. I've got my wiring run, which I feel is going to be the most challenging part of the job. Now I need to make a mount of some kind to put the switch in. I will be doing that within the next couple of days. I am also playing with the idea of putting both porchlights on the same LED controller, but using the drivers' side ceiling switch to be able to turn that one off. It would be a very simple affair to simply run the positive wire of the 5 wire harness through that switch. That would mean having essentially two SPST switches in series. The power for the LED will have to come from the controller, but there's no reason I can't put a switch in the one side so if I wanted only one porchlight on, I could turn that side off. I've bench-tested the idea and it works. Mostly, the reason for that is it would solve the problem of what to do with the hole in the ceiling on the drivers side. I could unhook the switch and simply leave it up there, or I could do a (probably) hack job of making a plug to fill the hole. My brain isn't up to the job of leaving the switch there and not having it function, so I'll probably go with the option of hooking it into the drivers' side porchlight. My preferred choice would be to delete the switch and fill the hole. I'll probably work on some sort of filler plug but in the event that doesn't look right, I can put the switch back in and wire it.

Another task I've looked at is to disassemble the O.E. porchlight and use the housing to stuff my RGBW LED strip into. Rather than just stick the new light on the trailer, I think I can surgically remove the stock LED's from the light and stuff the new light into the housing. That might be nice and avoid the problem of putting a 6 inch light up to replace an 8 inch wide light mount. I'll take a look at that when I cut the old wiring off and remove the O.E. light assembly. Putz, putz, putz...

Going back to the dash-light circuit I installed at the beginning of this thread, I thought I'd pen up a diagram of the wiring I have used to tie the dash lights and ceiling valance together. As I said earlier, the dash lights are 5 wire, red, green, blue, white and 12V positive. The valance LED is a 4 wire system. It's RGB with red, green, blue and 12V positive. I did a bunch of bench testing trying to mix the different LED strips and have discovered that, so long as the LED system uses a 12V positive control wire, any combination of light strips will work, just missing the color that isn't connected. In this case, since the controller is a 5 wire job, it has no setting for white light as it mixes the rgb circuits to get "close to white". The controller has a white setting, but achieves that by having a completely separate set of LED"S in the light strips that are white. When I select white on the controller, it simply turns off the RGB led's and turns on the white ones. In short, I hooked both systems together through one controller. The ceiling valance is the 4 wire circuit, so when I select any color or combination of colors, it exactly matches the 5 wire dash lights for color and brightness. When I select "White" on the controller, the dash lights go to white and the overhead valance simply goes out. Perfect. Here's a diagram I whipped up to give you an idea of what I mean:

Perhaps once I get this all put together early next week, I'll make another video of the whole thing. It sounds confusing, but it really is.....

I told you this'd be fun!
WilliamA

WilliamA

The switch and lights are on the road via USPS and if I believe them, will be here tomorrow. The wiring is in from side to side and power is available, so the next sticky-wicket is to find a home for the switch. The switch itself is bulbous and huge, so it's been a bit of head-scratching on how to mount it without having it take up too much real estate. Also, I need to hide or decorate the two gashing holes in the roof that will be left by removing the stock switches.
Set your wayback machine to my days in a van club. We did tons of custom interior funkiness and most of the mock-ups were cardboard, tape and spraypaint. Learning from that experience and my days of custom car fabrication, dashes and switchboxes and various interior components always look fantastic....in the mind's eye. The best way to let the air out of your design is to actually build it. So that in mind, I set to work drawing up a few different designs on my CAD, then transferred them to cardboard. I built, starting from the absolute minimalist that would fit up to a bit more elaborate architecturally, then put them up in the trailer to have a look. The minimalist design looked okay, but spartan and without any form that matched the surrounding bits. I built the second one sort of free-form and stuck it up. Hmmmm... Closer, but a bit to avant-garde for the job. I made a third one based upon the second design, but flattened it out and made it symmetrical front to rear. I also made it so it could be mounted vertically or horizontally. I had in my mind's eye that flatter to the ceiling would be a better look, but as it turns out, the opposite was true. For affirmation, I tasked my partner, K to have a look and she, (without prompting but just browsing photos) picked the same one. Here's a photo spread of the process:

Sitting at the kitchen table with a pile of cardboard and a roll of packing tape. I'm holding this one to offer a sense of scale. The small square stuck to the face of that one is a mockup of the actual switch size and depth. I stuck it on each pattern in turn. I can move it around slightly up and down etc once I have the actual switch in hand. While the switch blank looks huge on there, it's actually only a quarter inch larger than the stock double-switch.

Here's my minimalist design stuck up with tape.
It's okay....Not great. Perhaps a bit more style-tuning....Meh...

This one is a bit more architectural and interesting, but fitting proved it to be perhaps a bit too interesting. A good design, but just not what I was looking for. It DID, however, give me a visual of the same basic shape in a more symmetrical front to back design for the third one.

The third design is basically a copy of the front profile of the second one, but wrapped around symmetrically. I also had the presence of mind to make it so I could mount it horizontally or vertically. That turned out to be a good call. I tried it both ways and picked the one I didn't think would look as good.

Here it is mounted with the longer plane on the roof. It wasn't too bad and I could see some hope there, but....

In the pre-vis process, you try everything you can think of. I turned it around and immediately liked it...A lot....

Here's a wide photo of the whole affair to give a better sense of scale. It's not bad up there at all. Keep in mind that when I was building it, I thought it was stupidly large. That's the part of the process that always trips me up is not scale, but compared scale. What looks big might disappear in place and vice-versa. That's why I go through this exercise. There's just no substitute from a look-see.

Now the next step will be to cover it in white paper and see what the color does to it. Another thing that my experience has taught me well: Color makes things many sizes. I'll cover the switch blank in black paper and the switch mount in white paper, then stick it up there again.
This ain't architecture, it's artillery.... Bracket the target, then fire for effect.

WilliamA

LuckyJ

Looks good, but when you say it's huges, do you mean thickness of surface? If it is only surface, what about only enlarging the original switch holes?

And if it is thickness, you could make a spacer.

But I am just throwing ideas.

WilliamA

Luc,
Yeah, it sticks out more than an inch in back. The wire harnesses are composite so they're stiff and point straight out the back. It'll be a squeeze as it is but I'll work it out.

WilliamA

WilliamA

More progress this morning. Since the switch and lights were scheduled to drop in today with the mail, I thought I'd better get to work on some kind of panel. I ran into the Fleet Farm and picked up some basswood hobby boards in 3"X1/4"X24" and 4"X1/8"X24". I wanted it to be as light and thin as possible. Light so I can stick it on with 3M double sided tape and thin so there is as much interior space as possible for the wiring. Rather than suffer through the standard carpenter's glue, I opted to pick up some CA (super) glue. Also, since the wood is so thin, there's really no place flat to clamp and it's too thin for any kind of temporary fastener. The cutting was quick with a utility knife and small finish saw with a hacksaw blade. Lots of sanding between each individual piece, but the CA glue made quick work of the layup. Here's where I'm at:
These first two photos are the mostly finished piece next to the new switch and the cardboard mockup. I tweaked the design to match the thin material so I was able to make the finish work a bit smaller than the pattern. I laid out all of the individual pieces on paper so I could get a good idea of how much wood I'd need.

Here's the finish piece with a swab of stain and the switch hole cut to fit. I need to do a full finish sanding now that I can see where the glue tracks are but it's not bad. The basswood soaks up stain like a sponge so it's going to be a bit darker. I'll put a layer of poly on it to make it a bit more reflective. That'll help a lot.

Here's a backside photo to give you an idea of how thick the material is. I glued in some doublers for the screw holes and also on the back to give me some surface area to get a lot of tape on. It's not bad. I also need to drill the top surface in order to get my ceiling wiring pulled down through, but I'll wait until I pull the stock switch, then put it up and see where I need the hole.

I also received, along with the new switch, both of the outside porchlight LED's. I'll unbox them soon and do a bench test of the entire system before I put it in.

One more thing; I covered my mockup last night with white paper to see how it would look and...um....Not so much. K and I both like the woodgrain better. Every fiber of my body was screaming to use some sort of Analin Dye, but then the ugly specter of picking a color (which I am TERRIBLE at) raised its head. I just splashed on some of the same stain I used on the red oak pieces I put in for the cabinets. It's a bit darker but, as I said, it will lighten up considerably as it soaks in and will be brighter once I put on a coat of poly. At the very worst, if I stick it up and don't like it, I can paint it in place without complete disassembly. I built it with a "parting line both top and back. I've learned years ago that building something to fit "exactly" is a fools errand. Once it's up and mounted, the parting line will give me a small groove to squeeze some caulk into. That will finish the edge and also provide a bit more adhesion on the vinyl wallpaper.

WilliamA

WilliamA

I beat it out to the trailer and pulled a porchlight to see how well the new light would fit into the old casting. As it turns out, not too bad. Getting the old led strip out of the casting was by far the most difficult part. It's bonded into the casting with about a gallon of hardened elephant snot which can't be cut, ground, pulled, pried or anything else. It's mostly a case of getting a small flat tip and carving your way in.
First, LuckyJ wanted to know how big the switch is on the backside. Here's a quick photo of the working end:

The new and the old:

Before I ever disassembled my porchlight to start this process, I had noticed that there were some cracks in the porchlight endcaps. As it turns out, the light bracket is quite robust and is cast metal. The end caps are pretty twinky plastic just stuffed in using the same elephant effluence. Getting the end caps off was difficult, but not much harder than, say, untying a pretzel. I won't bother to explain. Take your time. Once the end caps are coaxed off, the next challenge is to dig out the old LED strip. It's slid into a slot in the bracket and of course is also bonded with rubber-goo. It resisted every attempt to free it or slide it back out so I took my angle grinder and carefully cut through it almost all the way (it's an aluminum base) and then pried it up with a screwdriver, breaking it down the middle. Once pried up, I could grab it and pull the whole thing out with a needlenose.

Once I got it all apart, I spent some real quality time getting the goo off. I had to drill a new hole for the wires which go out the center of the new light as opposed to the end of the old one. There was plenty of room inside the casting to run the new wires out and to the old exit hole at the end of the light. All things considered, not too bad at all. Worked out pretty well.

The new light ready to try. I could have mounted it in the casting either with or without the black rubber gasket. I elected to mount it first with the gasket in place. If I decide to take the gasket out so the light sits further in, It's a simple affair to pull the two screws and pull the gasket out. No need to completely disassemble the light.

Here's the mostly complete light. I need to do a bit of gluing of the old end caps and sand a bit of gack, then vinyl-wrap the assembly before putting it back in. I am also going to run the wire bundle through some shrink-wrap inside the housing just to keep things tidy.

More to come....

WilliamA

WilliamA

I spent the evening tuning the porchlight. I got all the broken bits glued back together and did a terrible wrap job of the finished light. I then put a length of heat-shrink on the wiring and installed the light. It's ready to go back on. Tomorrow, I'll first pull the other side and do the modifications to that one, then hook both up and see how things work.

WilliamA

WilliamA

More progress. Here are a few photos:
I first finished the other porchlight. It took much less time than the first one, but was still a bit of a job to do.

Next order of business was to get both of them installed. That was about 2 hours or so. Fishing the new wires into the stock holes took some various trial and error creativity. In addition, I had to re-drill the wiring exit holes in the lights to get things to line up exactly so the wire harness would be long enough. No problem.

I got to work pulling the stock switches, overhead lights and speakers to access the ceiling. I pulled down all the wiring and either capped it or reused it. The long white wire is the ground for the old porchlight switch. I added a bit of wire, capped it and stuffed it back up into the ceiling. The new wiring harness is the solid wire bundle. It comes through the roof over from the passengers' side ceiling switch location, around the ceiling fan, the drivers' side speaker, then fished out into this hole. It's all concealed within the ceiling. If you look closely, you can just see the new 5-wire harness coming out through the wall from the porchlight.

If you look REALLY close, you can see the hot wire spade for the stock porchlight. I've wrapped it in electrical tape. I wanted to pull it down far enough to cap it, but there isn't enough wire. Just the head of the spade is all that I could get hold of, so I taped it and then stuffed it back up in the ceiling. Short of pulling the entire ceiling panel, there's no other way I know of to get at it.
I've also got the light harness hooked to the ceiling chase in this photo with the requisite sooty ceiling from shrinking the connectors.

Here's the new control box stuck up there. I needed to tape it in place so it wouldn't simply hang off the wiring. I have 2 more switches I need to cut in. On the triangular flats either side of the LED controller, I will put 2 more switches. One will be for the interior ceiling lights. I've rewired all of that and tested it before I put the box in so it's just a bit of time spent with an exacto cutting in a switch opening. The switches mount from the front so it will be no problem stuffing them in. I've got the wires for them behind where the switches will go so it's ready when the switches go in. I had wanted to use the old switches but they are simply too big. They're also white which would look tacky up there. The new ones will be black. The second switch (I said 2? Right?) will be on the same spot in the panel but in the rear facing the radio. That switch will be for the underglow light strip. The wire bundle coming down out of the controller mount will go in surface mount low profile white wire chase I always use and make its way down to the bottom of the trailer, where it will run the underglows. With that switch, I will be able to use porchlights alone or with the underglows. When on, they will match the same color and intensity of the porchlights. I received an email saying the light strip had shipped but it's about 2 weeks out.

Let there be light....Yeah....

And more light.....

And more! I'll shoot some video tonight after dark and post it up...

Edited....Video is uploading to youtube. A couple of hours on wifi. I'll post the link late tonight or early tomorrow....

This thing ROCKS! I LOVE it......
WilliamA

LuckyJ

Nice job. Dang, an other mod on my list!

WilliamA

Video is up and live (I think, or so they say, Or it might work, might not, or I got some setting wrong and will have to poke away at it....or something....

https://youtu.be/j4n6DLKFxdM

WilliamA

A few photos and detail of the finished project. I'm out of caulk but I just squeezed (no pun intended) the last bit of it out with what I had. The caulk makes it all look much more subtle and gives a nice "grew there" appearance to it. Once I got things fastened and the new switches in, it all worked after a bit of fussing. I'm incredibly happy with the results. It turned out better than I had it pictured and my "dark night" experiments prove that it's an important aesthetic, functional addition to my outside light retinue.

Switchbox in and caulked. The Sasquatch switch is for the overhead lights. The backside switch is (will be when I get the LED strip) for the underglows. That circuit is all wired, hooked up and terminated at a small junction at the base of the bed.

A muddy photo of the surface-mount runs all caulked and fastened in. Nice and tidy.

A detail photo of the surface runs and caulking.

Natural light photo. It's all much less invasive than I had it pictured. It's busy, but not too busy.

I've wired enough ships in bottles for the near term, so when I got my overhead valance ready to wire, I wussed out and just ran a corner piece of pvc to stuff it into. Now that it's caulked, it looks just fine up there.

I'm putting a bow on this one. Other than a bit of fiddling with my underglow hookup It's a finished project. I've done the underglow thing before and am not concerned about doing that part until it's dry enough out to spend some quality time lying on my back under the trailer. Besides, my LED strip for that is LITERALLY on a slow boat from China. A couple of weeks or so before I can expect to see it.

On to the next project...

But first....If I may pull my hat for a venerable old soul, lost today. I pulled a photo out of my Paris collection... If anyone I've known can come back from such adversity, it's the French. I'll toast to my other homeland tonight for them and their tragic loss....

WilliamA

LuckyJ

Deleted, same as above by mistake.

CampHub

Tough day in Paris for sure.

WilliamA

I received my RGBW led light strip yesterday so I can finish my light project. I am happy with the quality of the parts. I need to snake the wire harness from the bedside where it terminates to the back of the trailer and hook it all up. I'll get to it today. Photos to follow...
WilliamA

Michigan_Mike

Some great mods and contributions William, thanks for sharing! I would like to add some exterior LED lights along my Keder rail on the trailer and am looking for some advice and suggestions. My only concern is that the light strip itself stays adhered to the lower portion of the Keder rail. I would like to install the functional or programmable style lights that are remote controlled and wondering what others have experienced and used?

Thanks!

WilliamA

I snuck out between the raindrops long enough to get a few photos.

To get power and signal to my LED strip under the trailer, I ran my wire from the switch, back through the cabinet face and into the A/C "deadzone". From there, I ran it out the same hole that the power wire for the fridge feeds out. I dropped down and out the vent for the fridge compartment. It meant punching a hole in the screen but I don't expect too many mosquitos will be trying to eat their way into the fridge anyway. I rarely use the kitchen with the hatch closed (it's just too stuffy with the stove running) so it's not much of an issue. In any case, it allows me to get my control wiring through the floor without drilling a hole. I drilled the front of the vent shield and ran my wiring protector through the frame and into the vent shield, then went north up under the fridge. Easy...

The environment here right now (see BBs post on weather) is about the temperature and humidity level of a wet fish belly. I could not get my adhesive strip to stick to the underside of the trailer so I used some tape to coax things up into place long enough to hold it there for now. I'll go back under and put some LED strip clamps on it as soon as the rain quits. Red! Ahhhhhhh!

Blue! OOOHHH!

For total control, I put in a switch to separate out my underglows from the porch lights. It's this one here on the right. It doesn't cut all 5 of the control feeds to the underglows but just cuts the power (12+) lead to the underglows. When it's in the on position, the underglows do exactly what the controller tells the porchlights to do.

WilliamA

WilliamA

@Michigan_Mike said:
I would like to add some exterior LED lights along my Keder rail on the trailer and am looking for some advice and suggestions. My only concern is that the light strip itself stays adhered to the lower portion of the Keder rail. I would like to install the functional or programmable style lights that are remote controlled and wondering what others have experienced and used?
Thanks!

Mike,
As I said in my post above, the options are pretty much endless. There are hundreds or perhaps thousands of controller combo's that I found in my LED research. The most important thing I might suggest is that price seems to be a big factor in function. For example, I used the Patriot LED kit we discussed earlier from Menards for both my kitchen lights and my valance, but I've had many issues with errant signals randomly changing the program. The Jensen remotes were the worst offenders to that. I'm currently running both wired and wireless controllers now and they have both been impervious to outside interference. Again, I paid $34 bucks for the wireless controller in my Jeep and $65 bucks apiece for the wired controllers in the trailer.
Another thing to keep in mind is that they are all rated at amperage output. The brighter and longer the LED string, the more power they pull. I suspect that the longer the wire to them, the more also. You knew that. I spec'd all of my devices for 10A max output. My trailer strings each use an indicated (ampmeter) 1.6A on bright, with different colors using different amperage (interesting!) The lowest amperage I've witnessed is a bit less than half an amp on red with the dimmer set down low. In any case, power is an issue that must be considered. However at their brightest setting on white, they use less amperage than the overhead lights do. As to the dreaded "phantom" draw which I worry about never, I'm sure that they will use some. I tried to detect amperage draw in standby mode for each of them but the power consumption was below the sensitivity threshold of the meter. That's pretty low. Probably on the order of the amount of power a watch battery puts out or less. In any case, I put both of my LED setups on hard-wired switches so for storage, etc, I can just kill power to them completely.

As to sticking the LED strips to the keder rail, there are a couple of things to consider:
1. The led strips don't like bending along the flat plane. The keder rail on your 400 is probably a gentle enough radius that you could get away with it but it's something to consider. If it were me, I'd try it.
2. You're going to need to get power from here to there, or rather inside to outside. For that, there's only one method I'd recommend or use and that's the through-hull watertight fittings I used for my antenna installation.
https://www.westmarine.com/buy/blue-sea-systems--cable-clam-medium-0-83-21-08mm-max-conn-dia-0-44-11-18mm-max-cable-dia--540732?cm_sp=Onsite-Recs--DY--PDP
I'm not a product or supplier snob, but these things are as water tight as a ducks...ahhh..foot.... They come in 3 different sizes as well and are easy and intuitive to use. They also work for pretty much anything else like Cellular antenna wires, CB antenna's and FM. Lots of uses...

For the ultimate in bomb-proof environmental (errant signal proof) controllers, you could check out these guys:
https://mictuning.com/mictuning-4-pcs-rgb-rock-light-bluetooth-music-control-timing-bright-led-for-truck-suv-car-boat_p0381.html
The lights probably wouldn't work for you on the keder rail but the controller could easily be wired for LED strip lights and is pretty impressive. I'm using this guy in my Jeep for the rocklights and running the controller off my Android phone. It's been trouble-free since I installed it. It's also pretty beefy, amperage-wise. You could run a LOT of LED strip lights off of it with no worries about power. I'm not saying you should use it, but if I were looking for a good wireless system controller, it's the one I'd get. It also runs Mac IOS software.

WilliamA

WilliamA

It's a sad day in mudville, sports fans. I have, over the past couple of months, been seeing phantom lights outside my trailer and recently traced it to my new-ish LED porch lights. A bit of investigation has led me to suspect the LED switch for said porch lights has lost its mind and is in need of replacement. Normally, I would be ticked off with product quality, but I am running two of these switches and have had zero trouble with the other one. Truth be told, I was suspicious of this one when I put it in as the board was kind of loose within the switch body and it was a bit "weird" after I installed it. I will contact West Marine and see what they want me to do but in either case, warranty or no, I plan to replace it with the same switch.

I'll get on it.

WilliamA

Fourman110

Just catching up to this chain. Great mod and sorry you're having problems with it Or another opportunity if you look at it that way (I get a lot of opportunities). Gotta get me a squantch light.

WilliamA

@Fourman110 said:
Just catching up to this chain. Great mod and sorry you're having problems with it Or another opportunity if you look at it that way (I get a lot of opportunities). Gotta get me a squantch light.

Yeah....it's not even a thing, just a thing. I expect failures as part of the curve. It still works, just a bit " weirdly"....
But then, the same could be said of me...
WilliamA

LuckyJ

This reminds me of an issue I had when I installes LED replacement light in my SUV cabin. the front LED and somtimes the middle one as well would remind lite ever so slightly (phantom light). Since I am still using the original switch, my conclusion is that the switch would provoke phantom power drain, that was not enough to turn on regular light buble, but enough to drain the battery, and only a low power led could revel this or a multi meter.

Nice find!