Roadtrek Reading Lights
After spending a month in Baja we decided that we needed
more light up front for reading and eating. The following page is
a "how to" article on fixng this problem.
Most of the lights that I found either cost more or did not look like
what I really wanted until I found the following on Ebay. These
are forsale quite often and they go for aournd $10 per pair. They
are aluminum aircraft reading lights. They come with a 12V or 24V
bulb.
When I purchased the lights I did not realize how large the part below
the mounting plate really was.
If you were to cut a large enough how for this base it would stick up
through the oak side tray on the Roadtrek more than an inch. We
had to find a better solution. The base plate is just about 2
inches so I purchase a 2 inch PVC coupling. The outside diameter
was correct but the inside diameter did not allow enough room for the
mounting screws.
I cut off some two inch PVC pipe and glued it into each end of the
coupling. This allowed a place for the screws to take hold.
I drilled a hole in the side and mounted a switch.
The light has a red lense inside that I removed. I also cut a
back plate out of 1/8 inch plastic and sprayed it black. Four
holes were drilled in the back plate. Two for mounting it to the
PVC coupling, two for mounting the back plate to the Roadtrek and one
for a wire to enter the base. Here is an assembled picture.
Now for some wiring. I decided to connect it to the existing dome
light circuit as we will be using LED lights that draw only about 40 to
60 ma each instead of the 1 amp plus that the 12V tail light would
take. I had to drill a hole on each side of the end of the tray
and a hole down through the tray to the light.
Lets look at the mounting.
Now lets look at the finished setup.
The total cost of this setup for two lights was less that $20 but I
allready had the switches and wire. If you are interested in more
information about the LED lights please take a look at the following
pages. LED Lights
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