Honeydew success!

I have been working on the ceiling light fixture in our bedroom in Colectiva for several months. It appeared to me that we were having issues with the ballast in the fluorescent fixture as the bulbs weren’t firing right, and often would not ignite totally, just a low flicker. I tried to replace the fluorescent bulbs with some LED bulbs, which worked for a while, but then even they quit working. I messed with the wiring and fiddled with the fuses but nothing brought the fixture back to life. I knew I had to replace it, but as with many things in a motorhome, I was not sure if it was a 120 volt AC fixture or a 12 volt DC fixture.

Then, when leaving Lexington, the Woman could not get the turn signals to function on the Saturn when connected electrically to Colectiva for towing. She messed with the wiring harness, which has always resulted in fixing the issue, but walked up to me with a sad look and shaking her head – she said that there was a wire broken on the harness. I went back and looked, and there were actually two, one I could repair temporarily but the other I couldn’t. There were no RV parts suppliers where we were, so for the next leg I knew I would have brake lights (maybe most important) and a right turn signal – but no left.

The good news is that when we arrived, there was an RV dealership a mile from our campground, and when we called them, they didn’t have the OEM part we needed, which was a 5 foot straight electronic cord with 4 prong connectors on each end, but they did have a coiled cord with 4 prong connectors they said would fit our Roadmaster tow bar. So I headed over, and sure enough, the 4 prong connectors were identical to the ones on my frayed cord. It was sufficiently long that I knew with enough zip ties I could jury rig it to work.

Also, in the meantime, I had pinged my ever helpful friends at Fleetwood Company and they let me know that the bedroom ceiling fixture in Colectiva was in fact a 12 volt DC fixture. While at the RV dealership, I saw that they had a thin light fixture that even used the same bulbs I already had – 18 inch long thin fluorescent bulbs – and it looked like it might fit exactly the mounting holes in the ceiling from the fixture I removed – bonus!

Well, nearly perfect. The 4 pin plugs fit perfectly and the brake lights and turn signals on the Saturn work even better than before. I was able to rig it up to the tow bar with zip ties – not as pretty as it used to be but works flawlessly! And although the mounting holes didn’t match on the thin light, my trusty drill and four new holes later had it mounted exactly in the indentation where the old fixture had been. Sadly, when I flipped the switch on the wall, the disappointment on my face was probably intense when nothing at all happened.

Then I remembered that all these 12 volt DC fixtures, even if they are run with wall switches, still have switches on the fixture itself. When I flipped that switch, I don’t know whether the illumination from the fixture or from my huge smile was bigger. 100% success all around!

Talk to you soon!