2008 Magna Window Rope Light Upgrade
Yahoo Message Number: 108897
Hello fellow Country Coachers,
I thought I would post an upgrade I just performed for the incandescent rope lights that are in the window valances, on top of the interior trim for the slides, and under some cabinets.
This may not be an issue for some but I personally was going crazy with 40-50% of the incandescent bulbs burning out.I researched possible solutions for quite some time, including contacting Country Coach and reading countless forums.
I wanted an "off the shelf" answer and while I considered having custom rope lights built that would exactly match the diameter and length of the rope lights I was replacing, I wanted to get away from "Custom build" which is what's making this problem hard to solve in the first place.
While LEDs (Warm White) are getting better and better about actually mtching the incandescent "warm white" I started down the path of using a 3/8 inch warm white rope light as a replacement. The problem there is that all the rope lights available out there have lights spaced at 1" which creates way too much heat, and AMP draw, blowing fuses etc...
So I decided to go with the 3/8" LED "Warm White" rope light, and while they are a little brighter than the incandescent, now that they are in and working I'm very happy with them. Thought I would share what I did with others incase you want to go down the same road.
The Incandescent rope light draws 5 Watts per foot while the LED draws .96 Watts per foot, which is a considerable difference. The LED rope light gives off no heat and solved any AMP overload issues.
The 3/8" rope light is too large to fit into the grooves on the valance where the original rope lights are so I had to improvised by mounting the new lights just inside the valance (between the window and the valance).This is working well, providing good visibility from the outside and more ambient light on the inside. It is also not interfering with the operation of the window shades.
To mount them I used rigid tracks that the rope fits into: see image. These are inexpensive and give the rope lights a very straight professionally installed look. There are various options for connecting each section of rope light and attached is a picture of the one I used. One end slips into the rope light while I crimped wire connectors onto the other end, wiring them directly into the existing wiring for the original rope lights.
I would say the job is at a medium difficulty level as some of the valances have to come off and if you do a really good job you need to pay close attention to securing the wiring with tie wraps etc. as was done in the original installation.
Here are some pictures that hopefully will help illustrate what I did.A roll of 150 feet of LED rope light is about $155 which isn't bad I thought. Happy to be more specific with anything.
Hope this is helpful, I'm really happy with upgraded lights that all work and look great.
Rob Willard
2008 Country Coach Magna
Topic: 2008 Magna Window Rope Light Upgrade (Read 2732 times)
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