Last Updated: 18/02/2024
What an interesting week has been, dealing with Narva and some other company that do sell their products.
I wanted to purchase an LED lights that also has a PIR built in for the front door. After a bit of search I came across the NARVA 87788 (pictured above) feature at Caravanplus.
After examining the few picture I realised that in the back of the lights it clearly state that it is a 12Volts only LED, and yet in the description under voltage it state 9-33Volts. Because I’m running 24 Volts, I was interested in this lights only if it really was 9-33Volts. So I left an email for Mike asking what the true voltage really was as it also did seem a very expensive LED lights. I mean you can buy a separate PIR (12 or 24 Volts) for about $5 dollars and then you have 10 LED’s. While waiting for Mike’s reply, I did contemplate the idea of using instead the Narva 87780 that it is a 9-33 Volts lights, and to purchase the PIR separately…
I also did check the NARVA website and even there I could see the 12Volts sticker and a 9-33Volts in the description. So I decided to ask NARVA the same question I previously asked in the Caravanplus site.
Mike from Caravanplus did reply and confirmed that those 87788 LED are 9-33 Volts.
Unfortunately, Berry from NARVA did confirmed the day after, my suspicion that those lights are actually only 12 Volts as per sticker on the back, and that the description for the 9-33Volts was just being copy and pasted from the 87780 lights.
Barry did changed the description on NARVA website to reflect the true voltage of those lights and removed the 9-33Volts description. I then contacted Mike again and just forwarded to him Barry’s email, so that he could changed the description as well. He did but he still has the 9-33Volts advertised in the actual picture of the lights. I can’t be bother to contact him again, but remember the Narva 87788 is not 9-33Volts, only 12!
I don’t blame Caravanplus or the other NARVA suppliers that still advertise those lights as multivoltage. After all even NARVA had the same misleading technical data on their website, so it probably just got copied and paste form the distributors.
I did however manage to get my hand on one of those lights (on special for $60) to see myself what it could be done to converted to 24 volts. While looking at the Narva wiring instruction, I did manage to find other discrepancies..
By looking at the picture to the right you can clearly see the wiring colours as:
- Red = Positive (+)
- Black = Negative (-)
- White = Negative (-)
But you can also see that in the schematic after the white (PIR) is clearly connected to the battery positive (+). The confirmation of that is in the text below where it state that by using a normal 3 way switch you have the option of having the LED on/off permanently. I don’t know if this is standard procedure for NARVA to give so many wrong information (in writing) out to their customers and suppliers, but I got the feeling that NARVA just buy those lights from China and doesn’t even bother to check what is what..
Just to be clear, if you buy one of these lights, all you need is to have the black to negative and either the red (always on) or white (PIR) connected to the positive, NOT the negative!
You don’t need the switch if you don’t want to, but if you do, any switch that have three positions (top,middle,bottom) to have the light off option or even a standard 2 way switch can be used. Obviously with a 2 way switch you will have the light always on or on only at night with the PIR.
Note that there are still companies out there advertising these lights as multivoltage (9-33Votls)
For example: Automotive Superstore
I hope this will help other customers that do the mistake of believing NARVA descriptions and/or instructions…
Thank you for posting this info. I recently bought a Narva 12 volt annex light with PIR sensor (same wiring configuration as yours but a slimline version) which came with absolutely no wiring instructions. Come on Narva, even the Chinese send their products with instructions even if it needs translating from Chinglish to English.
I put it through a 240 volt wall switch to match an existing annex light .
As I already have an annex light I only need to use the PIR sensor function for this light.
To wire up
Join the negative wire from the battery and to the black negative wire from the light with a screwed electrical joiner.
Screw the red wire from the battery to the C common live terminal on the switch
Screw the white wire (PIR) from the light to the 1 Terminal (load) on the switch
Cap off the red wire from the light fitting and tuck it in the wall cavity in case you decide to use a 3 way switch at a later date.
Test that light is functioning correctly
Screw down wall plate an push on the cover
Job done
Hi Ian
Thanks for sharing your installation…
Thanks for posting this information, l recently purchased a Jayco camper with one of these lights fitted. It was permanently wired on and l was looking for info on how to switch it off/on manually
Hi Mal
I’m guessing if your light is permanently ON, Jayco would have used only the white (PIR) and the black -.
You may want to take the light out (by removing the top plastic cover and unscrew the two screws on either end) and have a look if they completely removed the red wire or just left it in the frame. If you still have all three wires, my suggestion would be to use a three pin, three position rocker switch (like this one), then connect the positive from battery to the middle pin, the red to the top pin and the white to the bottom pin, that it is as per Narva wiring instructions pictured at the top. If you don’t want to buy online, you may want to try Jaycar or any good camper caravan shop..
That will give you the best solution:
Centre position = OFF
Top position = Always ON
Bottom position = (PIR) ON night only
If you only have two wire to the light just (as either the white or the red have been removed), then you can use a single pole single throw switch on either wire and it will do the job to turn it off when you want.
Cheers