Yesterday, 5/8/20, my wife made a Facebook post on the GD Owners Facebook page about some recent work we’ve done on our Imagine and there were lots of questions. So, I did a quick write up of the lighting upgrade we recently did. When we upgraded our 5-year-old Salem travel trailer to a new 2020 Imaging 2600RB last November, we were very pleasantly surprised to find how bright the main cabin LED ceiling lights were. No more struggling with dim low voltage week incandescent bulbs trying to work on some small project at the dinette table!! It then became clear on our first shakedown camping trip that although the bright light was fantastic when working on something it was a little too much when seeking a relaxing laid back atmosphere. That set in motion a four-phase trailer wide lighting project. The thinking was to use some lighting and electrical components I had not worked with before and to do it in a way so that each phase was a test of components and learning experience for me to build on for each consecutive phase. I have a working knowledge of both electronics and lighting from my profession as a foundation. The goals of the four phases was to create the ability to dim some of the ceiling lights, add white lighting inside some of the cabinets throughout the camper, add better work lighting over the sink and galley counter and then add some controllable accent/decorative color around the interior of the camper. All of these lights are on 12v DC circuits. In researching what components to use and working out the basic design plan it became clear some of the elements could be controlled with simple on/off switches, but some needed to be remotely controlled because a physical switch was impractical.
Just a word of caution, always check any circuit you are working on with a meter or voltage probe to clearly identify if it is AC/hot, neutral or ground, DC/12v+ or ground and always work on any circuit with the voltage supply confirmed to be turned off.
Phase 1
Phase one was to test the Mi.Light remote control system I had settled on. The Imagine 2600RB has one slide out on the driver side that holds the dinette and a pair of theater recliners. In the ceiling of the slide out there is a decorative lighting fixture over the dinette and an overhead light over the theater seats each with on/off switches at the light fixtures but powered by the same 12v supply. The goal was to add a dimmer to both sets of lights. I decided to add a remote control dimmer in the 12v supply in front of the first light in the chain. This dims both lights at the same time. We reasoned that both sets of lights would rarely be used at the same time so no need to have one bright and one dim and there was still an on/off switch at each light. The first fixture in the circuit was the dome light over the theater chairs. I chose a Mi.Light LS2 Smart Light 5 in 1 wireless controller, Fig. 1 (link below), as the control device and a Mi.Light LG089 remote, Fig. 2 (link below). The LS2 is a controller commonly used in LED strip lighting to control multi-color LED strip lighting. Depending on how it is configured it can control from one color up to 5 colors (RGB+CCT or red, green, blue, warm white, cool white). This was important because I planned to use multi-color LED strips for phase 4 and I wanted to use one type of controller and one remote to operate the entire system. I opened up the ceiling above the dome light over the theater chairs just enough to slide the LS2 into the ceiling and wired the LS2 so the input comes from the 12v DC circuit panel and the output feeds the dome light and the run that continues on to the light above the dinette. The LS2 was configured to drive a single color (the white dome light and dinette light) and programmed to zone 1 on the remote. It can now be dimmed by use of the remote while the individual light fixtures can be turned on and off at their local switches.
Figure 1-LS2 controller
See figure 1 at the bottom of the post
Figure 2-Mi.Light 8 zone wireless remote
See figure 2 at the bottom of the post
Phase 2
Phase 2 was in two parts focused on adding the ability to dim the 6 ceiling light fixtures in the main cabin and 4 ceiling light fixtures in the bedroom and each location had to be dealt with differently. First the bedroom. The bedroom lights were controlled by a wall switch made by American Technology Components, Inc. and was a basic SPST on/off switch that opened or closed a contact on the 12+ side of the circuit. I found that ATC makes a switch that looks identical to my original switch but added a dimmer slider next to the switch, AH-SLD1-5-HS001 (link below). At the time it was available through Amazon but it no longer seems to be there. The switch can be purchased through ATC on their site. The link below is to their catalog site. There is a trick to using this switch since it is a pulse width modulated (PWM) dimmer and requires a reference ground for the switch to work. The switch has three wires, 12+ for supply voltage, load (to the positive side of your light fixture) and a ground. In my instance the ground side of the bedroom light circuit takes a different path than the 12+ supply so I had to locate an alternate ground that was accessible through the wall. Note the slide dimmer to the right of the switch in fig 3.
Figure 3-ATC slide dimmer switch
See figure 3 at the bottom of the post
The second part of phase 2 was to add dimming to the 6 main cabin ceiling lights. These lights were controlled by a rocker switch on the convenience panel. I was doing some searches here on the technical side of the GD Owners Forum and found this thread, https://gdrvowners.com/forum/operati...-awning-lights. Also, a big “shout out” to howson, one of the forum moderators, for supplying a lot of information on where to get some of the parts for this part of the project. On that forum thread you will find details on where to order the special 3D printed plate needed to mount the dimmer into one of the small rocker switch mounting holes on the Convenience Panel. I used the PWM rotary dimmer mentioned in the awning light thread along with the 3D printed plate. In my case, I wanted to keep the rocker switch to easily turn the cabin lights on and off without changing the dimmer setting. I wired the switches in series so the 12+ DC supply first goes through the original rocker switch then to the 12+DC supply side of the dimmer switch that is then connected to the load side of the lights. This dimmer switch has three wires which can make it a little confusing but the directions with the switch show a way to wire it with only a 12+DC and load (the lights) so just follow the directions and you should be fine. I then used one of the open small rocker switch openings right below my main cabin rocker switch to insert the 3D printed plate by snapping it into the open hole then mounted the rotary rocker switch to the 3D printed plate. It is very important when ordering the rotary dimmer that you get the long shaft version so it fits properly with the 3D printed plate. Also, I’m not using it this way but this rotary switch does rotate to turn all the way off so it can be used as an on/off/dimmer switch. I won’t add any pictures here since there are several pictures on the awning light thread and the installation in my case was exactly the same, and yes… I did install a second rotary dimmer to dim our awning lights at the same time. Amazon link to the rotary switch is below.
To be continued
Just a word of caution, always check any circuit you are working on with a meter or voltage probe to clearly identify if it is AC/hot, neutral or ground, DC/12v+ or ground and always work on any circuit with the voltage supply confirmed to be turned off.
Phase 1
Phase one was to test the Mi.Light remote control system I had settled on. The Imagine 2600RB has one slide out on the driver side that holds the dinette and a pair of theater recliners. In the ceiling of the slide out there is a decorative lighting fixture over the dinette and an overhead light over the theater seats each with on/off switches at the light fixtures but powered by the same 12v supply. The goal was to add a dimmer to both sets of lights. I decided to add a remote control dimmer in the 12v supply in front of the first light in the chain. This dims both lights at the same time. We reasoned that both sets of lights would rarely be used at the same time so no need to have one bright and one dim and there was still an on/off switch at each light. The first fixture in the circuit was the dome light over the theater chairs. I chose a Mi.Light LS2 Smart Light 5 in 1 wireless controller, Fig. 1 (link below), as the control device and a Mi.Light LG089 remote, Fig. 2 (link below). The LS2 is a controller commonly used in LED strip lighting to control multi-color LED strip lighting. Depending on how it is configured it can control from one color up to 5 colors (RGB+CCT or red, green, blue, warm white, cool white). This was important because I planned to use multi-color LED strips for phase 4 and I wanted to use one type of controller and one remote to operate the entire system. I opened up the ceiling above the dome light over the theater chairs just enough to slide the LS2 into the ceiling and wired the LS2 so the input comes from the 12v DC circuit panel and the output feeds the dome light and the run that continues on to the light above the dinette. The LS2 was configured to drive a single color (the white dome light and dinette light) and programmed to zone 1 on the remote. It can now be dimmed by use of the remote while the individual light fixtures can be turned on and off at their local switches.
Figure 1-LS2 controller
See figure 1 at the bottom of the post
Figure 2-Mi.Light 8 zone wireless remote
See figure 2 at the bottom of the post
Phase 2
Phase 2 was in two parts focused on adding the ability to dim the 6 ceiling light fixtures in the main cabin and 4 ceiling light fixtures in the bedroom and each location had to be dealt with differently. First the bedroom. The bedroom lights were controlled by a wall switch made by American Technology Components, Inc. and was a basic SPST on/off switch that opened or closed a contact on the 12+ side of the circuit. I found that ATC makes a switch that looks identical to my original switch but added a dimmer slider next to the switch, AH-SLD1-5-HS001 (link below). At the time it was available through Amazon but it no longer seems to be there. The switch can be purchased through ATC on their site. The link below is to their catalog site. There is a trick to using this switch since it is a pulse width modulated (PWM) dimmer and requires a reference ground for the switch to work. The switch has three wires, 12+ for supply voltage, load (to the positive side of your light fixture) and a ground. In my instance the ground side of the bedroom light circuit takes a different path than the 12+ supply so I had to locate an alternate ground that was accessible through the wall. Note the slide dimmer to the right of the switch in fig 3.
Figure 3-ATC slide dimmer switch
See figure 3 at the bottom of the post
The second part of phase 2 was to add dimming to the 6 main cabin ceiling lights. These lights were controlled by a rocker switch on the convenience panel. I was doing some searches here on the technical side of the GD Owners Forum and found this thread, https://gdrvowners.com/forum/operati...-awning-lights. Also, a big “shout out” to howson, one of the forum moderators, for supplying a lot of information on where to get some of the parts for this part of the project. On that forum thread you will find details on where to order the special 3D printed plate needed to mount the dimmer into one of the small rocker switch mounting holes on the Convenience Panel. I used the PWM rotary dimmer mentioned in the awning light thread along with the 3D printed plate. In my case, I wanted to keep the rocker switch to easily turn the cabin lights on and off without changing the dimmer setting. I wired the switches in series so the 12+ DC supply first goes through the original rocker switch then to the 12+DC supply side of the dimmer switch that is then connected to the load side of the lights. This dimmer switch has three wires which can make it a little confusing but the directions with the switch show a way to wire it with only a 12+DC and load (the lights) so just follow the directions and you should be fine. I then used one of the open small rocker switch openings right below my main cabin rocker switch to insert the 3D printed plate by snapping it into the open hole then mounted the rotary rocker switch to the 3D printed plate. It is very important when ordering the rotary dimmer that you get the long shaft version so it fits properly with the 3D printed plate. Also, I’m not using it this way but this rotary switch does rotate to turn all the way off so it can be used as an on/off/dimmer switch. I won’t add any pictures here since there are several pictures on the awning light thread and the installation in my case was exactly the same, and yes… I did install a second rotary dimmer to dim our awning lights at the same time. Amazon link to the rotary switch is below.
To be continued
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