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Old 15-01-2012, 13:15   #61
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Re: Mixed Feelings about LED Cabin Lighting

Because humans find tungsten (3200 deg. Kelvin temperature) lighting comfortable to relax in. The higher we go up the kelvin spectrum the more un familiar the wavelength feels. as we go above 5600 kelvin (daylight) it is downright nasty.. you see rudimentary color coatings on modern LED bulbs but the secret sauce has not yet been developed to get an LED bulb to be powerful enough to be a task/reading light ..and.. be a comfortable color temp.
This probably stems on our ancestors looking too long into the fire before the advent of cruisers forums.
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Old 15-01-2012, 13:27   #62
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Re: Mixed Feelings about LED Cabin Lighting

We bought MarineBeam LEDs on line to retrofit our existing overhead lights. This after disappointing results with Dr. LED from West Marine.......one burned out immediately, and the replacement fixtures looked so shoddy compared to our old. MarineBeam is like a small square sheet with 9 led dots on it. Now that all the fixtures are the same, the lighting is good and even. I didn't realize how much our previous uneven lighting (our doing......used different wattage bulbs) was annoying.

Would like to do running lights, but like our old fixtures, and no one appears to make retrofit LED bulbs for running lights (guessing because they can't guarantee the results).
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Old 15-01-2012, 13:40   #63
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Re: Mixed Feelings about LED Cabin Lighting

Marine Beam rates their lights in different ways. They also have a good discussion of 'lumens' In general, I find that for the cabin lights mid-3000s kelvin equivilent is good. They rate Cool White 'CW' at 6700 K warm white 'WW' at 3300. For colored lights they list the wavelength. The link is to their 'Find Your Bulb' site.

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Old 16-01-2012, 09:36   #64
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Re: Mixed Feelings about LED Cabin Lighting

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[...]but the secret sauce has not yet been developed to get an LED bulb to be powerful enough to be a task/reading light ..and.. be a comfortable color temp.
The components to make such bulbs have been available for quite a while now, but they are not exactly cheap. So if you find unsatisfactory light quality in LED bulbs, it is either manufacturers getting rid of old components stock or choosing lousy components for a bigger profit margin.

Modern lighting class LEDs, which are undistinguishable from halogen sources to all but trained eyes, can be readily obtained.
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Old 16-01-2012, 09:45   #65
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Re: Mixed Feelings about LED Cabin Lighting

I cant stand LED or Halogen light. Too harsh for me. Walk into a boat with incandescent light at night and it feels warm and inviting. Just me I guess. I'd rather monitor my light use than live with something I dont like. Maybe over the galley to use only when cooking or something like that...
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Old 16-01-2012, 09:50   #66
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Re: Mixed Feelings about LED Cabin Lighting

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I cant stand LED or Halogen light. Too harsh for me. Walk into a boat with incandescent light at night and it feels warm and inviting. Just me I guess. I'd rather monitor my light use than live with something I dont like. Maybe over the galley to use only when cooking or something like that...
This is pretty much how I feel. That's why we still have some incandescent lights in the boat - the LEDs are for lighting, the incandescents are for mood/guests.
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Old 16-01-2012, 10:24   #67
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Re: Mixed Feelings about LED Cabin Lighting

I've switched over to warm white LED bulbs and fixtures. Don't find them harsh or bothersome anymore than the old incandescents. Made the mistake of buying a couple of cool white LED bulbs when I first started the conversion and they were terrrible. Took them out and went back to incandescent till I discovered the warm white LEDs. The warm white LEDs are not tinted but produce the yellowish tinted light naturally, if LEDs could be called natural.
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Old 16-01-2012, 10:36   #68
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Re: Mixed Feelings about LED Cabin Lighting

If I had to try and use existing fixtures retrofitted with LEDs it would have been difficult to get adequate quality lighting.
Since I started from scratch it was easy...the trick was in the numbers...lots of them.
Also having them dim-able gives me some options in mood lighting.
I'm so glad to be rid of the shadows and clouds.
I really love mine and haven't looked back.
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Old 16-01-2012, 11:56   #69
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Re: Mixed Feelings about LED Cabin Lighting

switched all the lights except the chart table to sensibulbs. It is way better in terms of electricity draw and I never have to nag anyone to turn out the lights because it really doesnt much matter. But you really do want a "normal" bulb for chart reading or the colors dont look right
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Old 16-01-2012, 14:53   #70
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Re: Mixed Feelings about LED Cabin Lighting

What a nice looking interior James! As I noted above, We selected IMTRA warm white replacement bulbs for all interior fixtures. It is bright and not harsh. I think part of the key to success is to install lots of illumination. We could have bought 5 or 7 surface LED's per bulb but selected two replacement bulbs per fixture and 10 LEDs per bulb. Seeing and comparing at the boat show was a great help. I am picky about reading light and especially about being able to see to shave. Chart table also is no problem. I used the Imtra red/white combo bulbes here. They switch red to white and back on double click. The point made about massive old inventory of inferior stuff is spot on. What is difficult to wrap your hands around is that this is technology, not light bulbs. You really need to study the fine points for a while or you may wind up with a really great deal on a TRS80 or 486 Turbo. I light my entire cabin for less than we used to consume on our IC nav lights. As sck5 notes, you can almost leave them all on with impunity. 60 IMTRA bulbs read 0.2 amps at 24 VDC on my Xantrex meter. The Xantrex parasitic losses are greater!
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Old 16-01-2012, 15:03   #71
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Re: Mixed Feelings about LED Cabin Lighting

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60 IMTRA bulbs read 0.2 amps at 24 VDC on my Xantrex meter. The Xantrex parasitic losses are greater!
That doesn't compute. From Imtra's spec sheet for those lights:
Current Draw: 180mA/12V
90mA/24V

So 60 bulbs should be drawing 5.4 amps, not 0.2 amps. By your meter, these bulbs are only drawing 3.3mA (0.0033 amps) each.

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Old 16-01-2012, 15:20   #72
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Re: Mixed Feelings about LED Cabin Lighting

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That doesn't compute. From Imtra's spec sheet for those lights:
Current Draw: 180mA/12V
90mA/24V

So 60 bulbs should be drawing 5.4 amps, not 0.2 amps. By your meter, these bulbs are only drawing 3.3mA (0.0033 amps) each.

Mark

certainly agree with the math. I always question the accracy of a meter operating in the bottom 1% of its range. Still very low power draw.

We will be adding 700 watts of Sanyo solar and a Blue Sky MPPT charge controller by spring. This makes the LED a "who cares" on power use.
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Old 16-01-2012, 15:36   #73
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Re: Mixed Feelings about LED Cabin Lighting

Thanks for the great thread on LED's. Has anyone recently used the LUPO Tricolor mast head system?
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Old 16-01-2012, 16:04   #74
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Re: Mixed Feelings about LED Cabin Lighting

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certainly agree with the math. I always question the accracy of a meter operating in the bottom 1% of its range. Still very low power draw.

We will be adding 700 watts of Sanyo solar and a Blue Sky MPPT charge controller by spring. This makes the LED a "who cares" on power use.
Just some advice - if your meter cannot distinguish between 5 amps and 5 milliamps, then you have a serious problem with it and may want to replace it. This is the range in which you need it to work for it to be a useful battery and energy monitoring tool. Good battery monitors are accurate and precise in this region (well, not 5mA, but definitely in the 0.5-10A region).

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Old 17-01-2012, 07:41   #75
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Re: Mixed Feelings about LED Cabin Lighting

Getting a true reading in such ranges may be a Fluke, is that what you're saying?
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