The lights were a chance to get creative. I intended to use nothing but Light Emitting Diode lighting for the trailer, inside and out. For all practical purposes, LEDs don't burn out. There are no filaments to have their lives shortened by vibration. There would be no heat problems from bright lights. LED lighting draws much less current. On the other hand, there were going to be some drawbacks, too. These lights are polarity sensitive. You have got to accentuate the positive and elim-i-nate the negative, if they are going to work. There is not quite as wide a variety of off-the-shelf fixtures for LED lighting. What there was, was going to be a bit more expensive, sometimes.

The marker lights for the trailer were the easiest for me to find. There was a good variety of DOT approved fixtures, and it was mainly a matter of choosing the items I wanted.

The cabin lighting for the trailer was another matter. There is a good assortment of 110 volt LED lighting, but not so good for 12 volt lighting. At least in my experience with this project at this time.

I found lots of smaller "accent" or "courtesy" lights, and got a bunch of these. Some were simple 4 LED fixtures with no diffraction lenses on them. They had a very narrow light angle, and so I used a couple of these inside the shallow front storage space.

I found some other 2 LED fixtures with a slightly wider light emitting angle and some kind of diffraction lens on them. I thought these would work nice for porch lights on the outside of the trailer, by each door. I also used a couple of these for reading lights on either side of the cabin interior.

I found another company which had strips of LEDs in 6" and 12" lengths. These strips also had the capability of chaining together for longer strips of light. They had a 30° light emitting angle and a "warmer" color than the other lights. I got a couple of these for general area lighting inside the cabin.

After some more searching the Web, I found some nice light fixtures at a boating supply company. These were a nice looking fixture, and with an interesting feature. An extra bit of circuitry inside has made these fixtures polarity-independent. I can hook them up any which way, and they work fine. Great idea!

In addition to lighting, I wanted some 12 V outlets for the cabin and the galley. I found some single and double outlets. I thought I'd try to make a combination light fixture and outlet box for the cabin lighting. This fixture would also host the light switch for the outside light by the door.

The light has 2 LEDs, a diffraction lens, and a home made aluminum shield above the light, to give it some degree of protection from bumps and bangs. After the shakedown trip, I will likely change the shield, to deflect the light more downward.

The light is a 4 LED fixture, sold as an accent or courtesy light. It has a narrow emission angle. The light and a switch for it are mounted on a piece of 1" pine, hollowed out in back for the wiring and switch body. Excess wire is tucked into a hole in the paneling behind the light. This front closet space has a light like this on either side.

Two views of the reading lights I made. The fixture is a 2 LED unit like the outside lights. It is mounted on an aluminum frame which will swing left-right, and tilt up-down, for best effect. There is a switch on the bottom of the aluminum frame. The frame is mounted on a wooden block which is then screwed to the wall. Excess wire is tucked into a hole in the paneling behind the wooden block.

These are the finished light fixtures for general cabin lighting. One switch is for the outside light and the other switch is for the inside light. The diode light strip is 6" long, is a "warm" light and has a fairly wide emission angle. You will observe that my "left-right" perception problem has struck again. These lights are intended for opposite sides of the cabin, yet the outlets are on the same ends of the fixtures. What this means is that one of the fixtures will seem "backwards" compared to the other, when it comes time to plug something in.

This was a fun experiment in stamping or molding aluminum sheet metal. The metal was annealed and placed over the hole in the mold. Some preliminary stretching is done with a rounded block of wood and a hammer. The wooden plug is then put in place and struck a number of times with a satifyingly larger hammer until I think the desired effect is reached. As can be seen from the 3 failures in this picture, I had to teach myself what works and what doesn't. A lot of extra metal is not better than just a little extra metal. Lubricate the molds with a bit of paraffin wax. Ten or twelve lighter hammer blows is better than three or four heavy hammer blows to sink the plug into the mold. Check your progress after each hammer blow. Stop when enough is enough, don't go for "just one more." (I was using an 8# sledge for this operation, with an anvil under the whole works.)

This is the "backward" light, in place. From the vantage point of the person in bed, the outlets are on the far end of the fixture, out of sight. Maybe not a major inconvenience, but I tried to be so careful... and then got it backwards, again.

This is a close-up of one of the galley lights and its switch. The light mounts in a 2 inch hole in the paneling. The metal plate for the switch is 3 inches in diameter and is mounted over another 2 inch hole.

With the galley lid open, you can see about where they are in relation to the bottom edge of the lid. The lights illuminate the general galley area pretty well.

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