Miss Emmy had the usual array of almond colored RV light fixtures with incandescent bulbs.
First thing we did when we picked her up was to swap some of those out for LED bulbs. (We had a few left over from our previous coach)
But that didn’t cover all of the fixtures.
Since we want to do some boondocking, we decided to go ahead completely update with new LED fixtures.


Well, that and wanting to get Miss Emmy more prepared for boondocking.

Wrong.
We soon discovered that the original fluorescent fixtures were actually recessed into the ceiling even though they appeared to be surface mounted.
We also found the new fixtures were slightly smaller that that opening.

Once the re-framing was done, I painted it with some basic white craft paint. A $1.50 bottle of paint was far more practical in this case than a whole gallon!
Once the framing was in place, the installation was pretty typical.

Afterwards, we did some testing. The old fixture was a single switch on-off only. Basically, both tubes were either on or off. No in-between. It drew 13 Watts of power.
Our new fixture has 2 switches, one for each tube. When both are on, it draws only 6.2 Watts. Now here's the best part....we're finding that for most of our needs...just a single tube is sufficient, that means using only 3.1 Watts.

The new fixtures were almost identical in size, and Chris only had do re-drill a couple of holes for each to mount the new ones.

We also got the exterior lights replaced with LED fixtures.
So now, we are all set, at least lighting-wise, to do some boondocking. We have drastically reduced our power needs for the evening just by swapping out the light fixtures, which reduces demand on the batteries....and it gave Miss Emmy a little fresher look inside too.
Oh...and it reduced unwanted heat from those lights too, thus reducing need for A/C (and fire/burn risks from hot light bulbs).
Whew! It sure is nice to be long term in a spot so you can do some of these updates!
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