Awning LED Lighting
An awning is a great bit of kit to have at the end of the day, when you stop and set up camp. It’s a place to relax in some shade, cook and eat or sit around with a few stubbies and chat with your mates about the day’s trip and your plans for tomorrow. Of course what with it being the end of the day it’s going to get dark pretty soon, and that restricts what you can do. At some point you’re going to want some light, and that can get interesting.
Most of us have probably hung a lantern from the awning frame at some time, which means most of us have probably bumped into a lantern and knocked it down. That’s not good for the lantern. It can get expensive in batteries too (you weren’t going to hang a gas lantern right under a canvas awning, were you?) Another popular bodge is running a work light from the vehicle’s lighter socket and fixing it to the awning somehow but these are also vulnerable to getting knocked down. A better solution would be some sort of light that fixes right to the awning and doesn’t need to be set up every time you camp.
In fact the solution you’re after is an LED light strip. LED technology is causing some big changes in lighting – you’ve probably looked at LED lightbars or spotlights already, and if you haven’t you should. LEDs are bright and energy efficient, which are big selling points. They can be amazingly compact too, and that’s now been put to good use in a new range of awning accessories.
LED awning lights are basically a flexible plastic strip with control circuitry and small, high power LEDs embedded in it. A cable from one end runs to your lighter socket; just plug it in and you’re sorted. The strips can be made in lengths to match popular awning sizes and it’s easy to use an adhesive strip to fix them where you want. With a standard awning the obvious place is along the underside of the end bar or the base mounted on your roof rack (or both; Tough Toys doe a double set, so you can have a light strip at each end.) The strips have a very low profile so it’s no problem to permanently mount them on your awning – they won’t get in the way when you roll it up. Once they’re installed you just set your awning up as usual then when it gets dark plug in the cables.
We’ve had our share of frustrations trying to set up reliable lighting, so we’re a big fan of these LED awning light sets. We’d seriously recommend having a look at them. The light they give off is bright and cool, almost like natural daylight, and getting them set up is dead easy. These are definitely the way ahead.
