MV Lighting Tips & Tricks

Rat Bastard · Post by **Rat Bastard** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 1:00 am

I have a question for y'all. Which illuminates it's surroundings more? El wire or LED rope? I need help with ideas on re-lighting my MV. You can take a look at this link http://www.flickr.com/photos/libidoloun ... 0081030844

Currently I have 150' of 12v incandecent rope light on it which is barely enough. A 250 watt load too. With that and the other lights and stereo I'm really past my current power availability. I do plan to put a smaller pully on my alternator and/or add a second alternater/battery system to it. I have a pretty beefy car stereo system installed so I'll need to save power. This is strictly a MV/parade vehicle and get's trailered.

My thoughts are to either replace the rope light with LED or El wire. Whichever shines more light. Some parts would need to be lit directly and the fabric would be backlit. (I'll be adding more fabric to the front end too). Another thought was to use the MR16 LED lamps throughout.

I'd like to hear some people's ideas on a powersaving lighting sceme on a budget for my MV. I'm trying to avoid running a gennie onboard.

Thanks in advance. [url][/url][url][/url]

Dork · Post by **Dork** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 10:43 am

EL wire does not provide much lighting. You will be able to see the wire from a distance, but not anything near it. LED rope light should provide more light per $ and possibly per watt than the wire.

For backlight, plain old flourescent tubes, (wrap the bulbs in packing tape so they stay contained if they break) CFL bulbs, or LED christmas lights would work well. Do some hunting Dec 26th for deals.

You might also look into getting a generator. You can get a EU1000 for around $400 used or a EU2000i for around $900 and not have to worry abou the alternator again.

Rat Bastard · Post by **Rat Bastard** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 10:50 am

Thanks for the tip about output. I have a 1000w generator. It's not an EU but it is fairly quiet. Thing is, I'd like to stay with on board power and at 12v. I wanted to do the alternater tricks for 07 but I ran out of time and $. I started this MV last April. So for 08, now that all the structure is there, I can focus on the fun stuff more!

Captain Goddammit · Post by **Captain Goddammit** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 10:14 pm

Most engines idle around 700 - 800 rpm and cruise at at least three times that. To get full output at idle you'll need to overdrive the alternator about 300% and you can't really put that much smaller size pulley on the alternator, but you can drive it with one that much bigger.
If you use a 100-amp alternator and spin it fast enough, theoretically you'll have around 1000 watts to work with.
Maybe use an airconditioner compressor clutch on the big drive pulley. This way, when the engine is running at speed, you can un-clutch the overdriven alternator and avoid throwing the belt, and when you need electricity at idle, switch on the A/C clutch setup and kick in the overdriven unit.

You might even leave the original alternator setup and starting battery alone and use a second alternator and deep-cycle battery for this system.

And if you do that, run battery cables from each battery to opposite sides of an old Ford starter solenoid, and wire the small 12-volt activation terminal from the solenoid to a switch on the dash somewhere... then you can hit that whenever to need to and automatically switch both batteries together to get your rig started when you've run down a battery. You might even wanna try that trick in your pickup truck. A lot of motorhomes come wired like that.

Captain Goddammit · Post by **Captain Goddammit** » Tue Dec 18, 2007 10:31 pm

Oh, and about the lighting... I also have about 150 feet of incandescent rope light on my mutant, and to save power I have it wired through a dimmer so I can cut it back when I want... but I'm looking at a change and also thought about LED or EL wire... and I agree with Dork, fluorescent is the way to go for max light output at a power draw your MV can sustain if you beef up the alternator setup. And it's a LOT cheaper! There's all sorts of new compact fluorescent bulb sizes out, as well as the long tubes, and you can paint them for whatever color effect you want, or cover them.

Expect to see the Land Yacht much more brightly lit next year.

Iron Monkey · Post by **Iron Monkey** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 5:31 pm

You can get solar powered LED Christmas lights from Mayanferry on Ebay. Each strand has its own little PV panel and they hold a charge all night. we used a rack of 'em last year; they work well. Not GREAT, but well.

The lights are cheap, but shipping from China is kinda spendy. I think we payed around 22 a strand. On the plus side, they do come soaked in GBH.

LED rope light is super spendy. 300-400 bucks for a spool if you shop around. It is very bright and definitley the best option, if you got the coin.

Post by **mdmf007** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 8:28 pm

Captain Goddammit wrote:Most engines idle around 700 - 800 rpm and cruise at at least three times that. To get full output at idle you'll need to overdrive the alternator about 300% and you can't really put that much smaller size pulley on the alternator, but you can drive it with one that much bigger.
If you use a 100-amp alternator and spin it fast enough, theoretically you'll have around 1000 watts to work with.
Maybe use an airconditioner compressor clutch on the big drive pulley. This way, when the engine is running at speed, you can un-clutch the overdriven alternator and avoid throwing the belt, and when you need electricity at idle, switch on the A/C clutch setup and kick in the overdriven unit.

You might even leave the original alternator setup and starting battery alone and use a second alternator and deep-cycle battery for this system.

And if you do that, run battery cables from each battery to opposite sides of an old Ford starter solenoid, and wire the small 12-volt activation terminal from the solenoid to a switch on the dash somewhere... then you can hit that whenever to need to and automatically switch both batteries together to get your rig started when you've run down a battery. You might even wanna try that trick in your pickup truck. A lot of motorhomes come wired like that.

dont forget to unclutch it if your on the highway - driving it - overdriving it at highway speeds will certainly smoke them little bearings in the alternator

Captain Goddammit · Post by **Captain Goddammit** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 9:24 pm

mdmf007 wrote:
dont forget to unclutch it if your on the highway - driving it - overdriving it at highway speeds will certainly smoke them little bearings in the alternator

Exactly, that's the reason to make the A/C clutch setup for an overdriven alternator. They make "shift lights", RPM-sensing lights for drag race cars that turn on a bright light at an RPM level that you can adjust. Drag racers use 'em so they don't have to watch the tach, but you could wire the thing to a relay and turn your A/C clutch controlled alternator on and off automatically depending on engine RPM. That would be pretty slick.
Especially since it's almost inevitable that at some point you WILL forget to turn the thing off...

Dustdevil · Post by **Dustdevil** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 11:06 pm

If you are going this hitech, MSD makes an RPM controlled relay. We use one in our race car to turn off the alternator when the engine exceeds 6000 rpms. I do this to gain horse power. The bearings will handle the speed if they are not under load. By interupting the field input (assuming you are not using a "one wire" alternator, you unload the alternator. The MSD relays can be wired either to open a circuit or close a circuit at an engine speed that you can preset with various chips they supply. You could do the same thing with a simple switch to turn off the field input, but then you must remember to turn it on and off. Before the MSD unit we used a micro switch on the throttle linkage to kill the alternator at 90% and above throttle.