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Lights only work on hook up


Matt D

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I have fitted brand new LED lights in my motor home. When I plug into the mains on site they work fine after an initial few minutes of "warming up ??" as they don't work immediately, but once Ive been plugged in for 5 minutes or so they are fine. I can unplug and drive around for the day and plug back in and they work straight away. But if I have not plugged into the mains I get nothing at all out of them. I switch the fuse board to the leisure battery, I set the multimeter on the battery and got a reading of.15.47 volts with the engine switched off. I got a similar reading from the wire that supplies the lights just from the leisure battery. I disconnected one light and wired it into the 2 pin 12 volt socket in the van and it worked perfectly, on the same leisure battery, put it back in place and nothing.

If the light will work when plugged into the mains, and it will work wired into another socket, why will it not work in its normal location ???? Please help, id love to be able to wild camp in Scotland next month, but this has become a real problem.

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Paul- - 2019-08-17 7:09 AM

 

Have you bought the 12 volt LEDs that are used in house lighting and work from a 12v transformer, or the more expensive so called 12v ones which are regulated to work from 10v-30v and used in caravan and motorhomes. (?)

 

 

That might explain the strange behaviour of lights, but not the voltage reading.

I would check the multi meter.

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I've never heard of LEDs that need to warm up.. I wonder what's going on with the battery because,

15.47 volts is too high for it , it will ruin it, or may already have.

 

If there is voltage present at the light sockets but the LEDs don't come on, it could be there's not enough current available to drive them. The multimeter doesn't take any current to work so it will register voltage but as soon as you plug an LED in it pulls the voltage down to near zero. This could be a bad connection, or the lights might not be wired correctly, like all wired in series?

 

Edit: Hang on... But they work on hook up... My money is on the battery is knackered.

 

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Charles - 2019-08-17 9:31 AM

 

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Edit: Hang on... But they work on hook up... My money is on the battery is knackered.

 

 

And that was my first thought, when reading the original post about a minute ago.

 

Alan

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