A couple years ago I saw where my brother installed a LED light strip under the awning of his Bounder, along with a dimmer. It came out really nice so I decided I’d do the same thing to my 2001 Coachman Aurora. The internet has many sights selling LED light strips in either waterproof or non-water configurations. Naturally, waterproof is the way to go. These have a self stick backing that is extremely effective if applied to a clean surface. Most let you cut them to length at 3 LEDs increments. I chose the brightest LED chip, 5630.
Another consideration is the type of “light” you want to see. Usually you can choose “warm white”, “pure white” or “cool white”. These are sometimes listed with a “temperature” designation in degrees Kelvin. Warm White is comparable to an incandescent light bulb and is designated somewhere around 3,000 degrees Kelvin. Pure White can be compared to sunlight with a temperature of around 5,000 degrees Kelvin and Cool White is something like a fluorescent light at 6,000 degrees Kelvin. Cool White has more of a blue tint as the Kelvin number increases.
I chose to use a Warm White light strip and a wireless remote controller. That way I could change the level of brightness as the situation required from either inside the coach or outside.
One other note is to insure the circuit you tap into is “filtered” DC from the inverter/converter. The original converter in my coach had both filtered and not-filtered outputs. In my first attempt I inadvertently wired the remote to an unfiltered fuse location. Needless to say I let all the smoke out of the components in the remote due to AC component in the DC circuit! Unless you have an older coach like mine, this will not be a problem.
I’ve been using this configuration for 2 years with no problems. The toughest part of this installation was choosing where to get the power from and how to get it to the light strip. Here are links to both LED light strips and a remote control dimmer. They just happen to be ones I remember
5630 LED strip
http://www.ebay.com/itm/131557126082?_trksid=p11401.c100358.m3753&_trkparms=aid%3D333008%26algo%3DRIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20150112100450%26meid%3Df567921238d848a8b7d435e2fd6ccac1%26pid%3D100358%26rk%3D7%26rkt%3D8%26mehot%3Dpp%26sd%3D151745960222
12V wireless Remote
http://www.ebay.com/itm/161977675355?_trksid=p11401.c100358.m3753&_trkparms=aid%3D333008%26algo%3DRIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20150112100450%26meid%3D544246fba58d40ee9d297887185749dd%26pid%3D100358%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D8%26mehot%3Dpp%26sd%3D281957423494
