I thought I would upgrade the lighting in the van and purchased one of those fancy LED strips with IR and multicoloured erm colours. The problem is that it came with a 12v AC adapter which plugs into the unit with the standard pin/plug connector. I had hoped I could wire a 12V leisure straight in but doing so will bypass the IR (if I can even just plug it straight in to 12V). So the question is, can I just strip back the wires on the pin side of the adapter and wire the 12V from the fuse box straight to that? Cheers STu
That should work, they are positive and negative leads and will only work one way round, but from past experience, when fitting high level led brake lights, getting it wrong wont do any damage.
What makes you think its 12 volt ac? do you mean a 240 to 12 volt adapter? Where did the light come from?
Dicky It says on the adapter AC Adapter - Output 12V I know my electrics are poor, are you now going to tell me that it doesn't mean that But yes its currently a 240-12V, I want to cut the end off and wire it up.
where abouts in the world are you ??? this guy done my van his work is fantastic -- phil purdy 07747598727 - just say Dale gave you the number
I had a 12v LED light set where the AC to DC conversion was done in the LED control box and not in the mains 12v adapter. If your is the same then you would need to do some hacking in to the control box to put 12v DC from the van battery in to it, and you might well need a 12v regulator too to make sure it is getting a smooth/exact 12v. Could you post a photo of the label on the mains adapter as some of the markings on it miht help determine if it's AC or DC out. Also, if the control box has any kind of label on the back that might give an indication. Do you have a multimeter? Would take 5 seconds to confirm it with one.
I would bet that's a 240v av to 12v dc adaptor LEDs don't work on ac 12v dc is what u get from ur vans battery
kilmo PeaSoup Thanks chaps, it does say on the battery AC Adapter - Output 12v and yes I have a multimeter Cant get photo up but all text on label: AC Adapter - Output 12v Model: ODL-1240 Input: 100-240V ac 0.6A 50-60Hz Output 12v (three dashes with solid line above) 4A (+) --- *) ---- (-) Star is a dot joining first line snotty IR - Infrared, i.e. for the remote. Cheers Stu
Thanks for the extra info dubster. The symbol with the three dashes and solid line above is the symbol for DC and so that is excellent news in that it's 12v DV out. So, you should in theory be able to chop the wire from the output side of the transformer and connected that to 12v from your van/leisure battery instead. Make sure you get positive/negative the right way round though as they have to be correct for DC. As you have a multimeter I'd suggest checking which wire is which on the output of the transformer so that you get it right. Connecting it the wrong way round for a few seconds normally wouldn't do any harm, but it could and so is best to be avoided. Nick...
So will these run on a leisure battery then? I know nothing about electrics but read "input 100 - 240V" as meaning they needed an input of 100 - 240volts? Surely a leisure battery will give 12 volt?
That's 100-240v input to the adapter. The adapter then chucks 12v out the other end to run the lights. Stu's trying to cut out the middle man. One thing though - if you bypass the IR gubbins, how are you going to control the colours?
If I understood dubsters first message correctly, the LEDs have a little control box the does all the IR and colour changing stuff. A 240 to 12v mains adapter plugs in to this control box to give it 12v DC, and so to run it off the van all he needs to do is feed 12v in to the control box from the vans battery instead of from the mains adapter. Should be a simple case of chopping the wire between the adapter and control box and connecting it to the vans battery.
WHS Just cut the plug off you wont get 12ac transformer it will be 12v dc just get the pos and neg round the right way
I've just bought a TV/DVD combo for my van and was rather happy to find the power supply is 240v ac to 12v dc via a transformer, so I'm simply going to cut the transformer off and wire it directly from my leisure battery (via a fuse, of course), exactly as you should be able to do with your lights Dubster. The diagram on the transformer, which you described as (+) --- *) ---- (-) Star is a dot joining first line simply means that the centre pin on the plug is positive and the outer metal 'sheath' is negative, but as Peasoup says, use a multimeter to be sure. Good luck!
