Does anyone have problems with the LED lighting in the ceiling? I have 5 bun out in the last month and another one burn out twice this year. My dealer told that some brands are having a silent recall

As someone who deals regularly with LEDs in a commercial and industrial environment, the world (or should I say manufacturers) are not ready for LEDs.

There will be several on this site who rave about LEDs, but as you have already experienced yourself (and others as well), LEDs are not what they advertise.

The first problem is heat. Look at those ceiling mounted lamps. They are in a narrow enclosed area of the ceiling with a glass lens on the front. They are LEDs so heat is dramatically reduced from the lamp itself. But it is not protected from the attic heat or room heat in summer or storage conditions.

The second problem is voltage spikes. Even the slightest amount of voltage fluctuation causes shorter (in some cases much shorter) lamp life. Halogens can handle a very wide range in voltage. They are used in dimming applications without special circuitry.

There is also the problem with manufacturers. Most of these lamps are Asian based. IF you can find lamps manufactured in Japan, the are better than lamps from most other countries. Nichia is one of the best on the market. They have been around for longer and tend to use better quality materials.

For now. I've elected to stay with Halogen. They are way cheaper and last just as long. They produce more heat but in reality, we don't leave them on all day. They also use more amps. But we are on shore power 99% of the time (at least for now). It's hard to go from LED to Halogen, but easy to go from Halogen to LED (installation speaking).

I'm sure that you will now hear from others who have had success. But be sure to ask which brands they are using, how long they have had them, how often they are left on and whether they are on shore power or battery or combination thereof.

For me in my line of work, I send a whole lot of the LEDs back to the manufacturer on a regular basis. We've tried a variety of brands and in all kinds of environments. The results are all the same. From the most expensive to the least expensive. They all offer warranty periods. But NONE of them EVER pay for the labor of replacing the circuit control boards or lamp sets. They will provide a new lamp(s) as a replacement every time (as least until the warranty period is up).

You don't have to take my word for it. Do your research on the internet. Make sure you by a brand that has better components. There is not much you can do about heat except stay in temperate zones at all times. There is not much you can do about power fluctuations unless you install special electrical transformers. Expect more of the same and paying out a lot of money in the meantime. Parks don't install special transformers for RV's. It's just an expense that they would not want to take on (even if they knew about them in the first place).

Just my humble opinion. Don't take anything personal. That's not what this is about. This is just my 1 humble opinion. Let's hear from others...

We've owned our Redwood since spring of 2013, and by and large we still use the halogens that came installed in our coach. We had one lamp burn out in front of the fridge which I replaced with an order of LED's from M4 products. I replaced all of the halogens in the bedroom with LED's strictly because of the heat generation. All the other halogens are still working after 4 1/2 years.

We replaced the interior halogen bulbs on our 2013 Redwood six months ago with LEDs from M4 Products and have had no problems although a few bulbs were difficult to install. They were much more expensive than other LED sources but I was convinced by the sales pitch they might perform better than the cheaper brands. The primary reason for the replacements (which cost about $450) was to reduce power consumption while boondocking. I don't know what brand of LEDs Redwood installs in their newer models and I would not have spent the money to replace the halogen bulbs if we did not spend most of our time boondocking.

LED lighting falls into the category of you tend to get what you pay for. Some of the $1 per light from E-Bay should probably stay there while others from places as M4 seem to hold up.
I believe the LEDs RW first switched to had problems and have been resolved in later units. We have been in our '16 39MB almost full time for almost 3 years and haven't lost a single LED while traveling 30K miles over our great American Highways.

I too, had some issues with the oem led’s that Redwood used. It appears that they have solved the issue with better fixtures.

I boondock enough to tell you that I wouldn’t use anything but led’s. I changed all the incandescent bulbs in my Montana prior to owning our Redwood. Early implementation had issues with quality but that was solved with better technology. What an impressive improvement both in quality of light, cool operation and significant reduction in power usage.

Ken

My previous SOB 5er I fulltimed in had 42 Halogen Bulbs and I changed them all out to LEDs. Had a few failures early on and did not like the heat they produced.
We had a couple of the replacement LEDs fail but overall really liked the change to the LEDs.
Our Redwood came with LEDs in the Ceiling Lights, so far they have been ok with only two LED failures in almost 4 years of fulltime use.
Our new 2018 RAM came with LED Taillights and all the interior lights are LEDs. (when looking in the RAM Owners manual at replacement bulbs, for the tail lights it just says "See Dealer")
I do R&D and Technical Support for a Home Elevator Manufacturing and Installation Company and we used Halogen Lamps in our Ceiling Lights for many years but customers started requesting LEDs so we made the switch a little over a year ago. We have been through several manufactures of the LEDs due to quality problems and failures. (we use 4000+ LEDs a year in our Home Elevators)
One of the problems with a Home Elevator is the cabs are not all that large and the high heat produced by the Halogen bulbs was always a complaint. Even though we have had issues with the LEDs in our Home Elevators, our customers like them much better.

I have 2 LEDs in our RW, the ones over the bed. As for the rest, I've tried a few others from very expensive to el cheapo, both advertised "XXX number of hours of life", which in both kinds turned out to be about 2-4 months, now still have the 2 over the bed (only because I bought 6 of them) & halogen every where else.
From reading other forums, EVERYONE has the same problems with LEDs going out inside & they ALL have problems with the LED awning lights.
NO, we don't boondock, honestly don't notice the heat from the halogens, they're inexpensive & can find them most anywhere.
Probably like household incandescent bulbs the halogens will disappear & you'll only be able to buy LED in the near future. Just spent over a $100 on LED household light bulbs in our new little house, the builder doesn't furnish them, too expensive.
Just my .02 cents.

When we bought our 2013 36RL our dealer replaced all the light bulbs (halogen and incandescent)with LED's except for the two above the kitchen sink which i subsequently replaced with LED's.

I've lost a couple since but the rest have worked well. I did have a couple go out because they came out of the socket and dropped onto the glass cover, but bending the pins cured the problem. I ordered some "cheapies" from China, they aren't as good as the ones mentioned above.

We have replaced at least 8 of our LED's. We just can't seem to find the original color. We've tried Cool, warm, blue, yellow and natural. We are about ready to find one we like and just replace all the LED's.

I purchased my replacements from tiera rv. This was after trying to match color and brightness. They look fine.

Hope that helps

https://www.tiararvsales.com/parts

Ken

I purchased my replacements from tiera rv. This was after trying to match color and brightness. They look fine.

Hope that helps

https://www.tiararvsales.com/parts

We talked to Tiara (even went into the office this summer) they said they couldn't tell us what color, because Redwood uses different lights--they said they aren't consistent. Maybe I'll try again and see if a different person could give us different information.

 

Just ordered 6 lights from Jennifer at Tiara and was told Redwood was changed manufacturers, so maybe these will be better?

We're going on three years of near Full Time (in our MB 9 to 10 months of the year) and haven't had a single problem with the OEM LED Lites.