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So here's a little thing I thought I'd quickly put up.

I got a hold of a whole bunch of Philips 12V 5W LED downlights for $2 a piece and have been thinking of how to use them. Never really been happy with the light output of the interior light in my liberty, so I thought I'd investigate shoehorning one in. Turns out it fits rather well. And it'll burn your face off.

First you've got to pull down your downlight. Pop off that plastic lens revealing the white LED board. Then you take a couple of screws out and remove it while melting the solder on the pins that run from the driver board below. Next you break and chip away the lower plastic body (the cream colour part) with pliers to reveal the driver board, which is covered in this black silicone silastic stuff. It's not too hard to remove the gunk, and it comes off clean. Solder some wires in place of the power supply pins, paying attention to polarity, and you get to this point here.



After modifying the heatsink a bit and removing the old bulb contacts from the light fitting, it all fits in pretty snug.



On the other side, there's this sweet little pocket for the driver board. Its as if its made for it. Solder some wires, easy.



Cover it up with electrical tape, because it bolts up into the metal roof.



Now the interior light is a bit too bright, but that's better than being too dim.

Tell you what though, those 12V LED lights are awesome. Talk about cheap and efficient camp lighting.

Is it a dimmable downlight? If so, add a dimmer

Nice work. How hot will it get now if left on since you've removed half the heat sink?

Cheers

Bennie

That is some serious fiddling going on there, I approve

But also those LED's can get quite hot, might want to do a test on the bench. Something like power it from a 12v battery for 5 mins and check how hot it gets. Wouldn't want hot plastic dripping on you in the car!

Fiddle on boys.

Well, the original incandescent dissipated 5W, the LEDs dissipate 5W but a bigger proportion of it is light, so it should get no hotter than the bulb did. So that means it won't melt the light fitting, but I don't know whether LEDs like getting as hot as incandescent bulbs. I guess I'll find out!

They'll probably be OK considering they're rarely on for more than 20 seconds or so

But yeah not dim able. So no need for one of these haha



Could desolder a row of LEDs if it gets annoying

Nice work.

As for hot, the problem may more be in summer when the roof gets hot, LEDs don't like heat. And remember the LED emission area is really small and they don't conduct heat well, so the damage gets done as the heat is concentrated.

Still at $2 a pop it's a bargain.

Reckon cargo area's where it'll err... really shine?