Alpenglow - LED eplacement bulbs

[Onemoreproject]

My Alpenglow lights came with florescent bulbs. I would like to upgrade to more efficient LEDs. The retrofit offered by Alpenglow is expensive. I am wondering if anyone knows of a plug and play 12v LED bulb that would fit into the socket in the Appenglow lights? I think the ballast would have to be bypassed, but that would be an easy mod.

Thank -you for your assistance.

[SailRedemption]

Originally Posted by Onemoreproject

My Alpenglow lights came with florescent bulbs. I would like to upgrade to more efficient LEDs. The retrofit offered by Alpenglow is expensive. I am wondering if anyone knows of a plug and play 12v LED bulb that would fit into the socket in the Appenglow lights? I think the ballast would have to be bypassed, but that would be an easy mod.

Thank -you for your assistance.

Check out Sailor Solutions and/or Marine Beam for those..

- Ronnie...on the geaux

[laika]

I second marinebeam. Good quality, prices and service.

[ketchcng]

I rewired many of my fixtures or built new ones with scrap hardwood with very reasonably priced items from superbrightled. Com

They have a waterproof stainless 3 string led with sticky tape and whole for mounting in about a dozen colors. Dim able. About $2 each. Draw 120ma or so...


Christian Gould
St. Paul, MN
S/V Sea Dog
Apostle Islands Lake Superior

[redhead]

Thanks for the info. I've been spending way too many Wifi minutes trying to find a reputable company.

[Bill_E]

I've tried a couple of companies and am presently convinced that MarineBeam has the highest quality and highest "real" output. Cheap may not be a good deal. I've seen LEDs that have so much radio frequency output that you couldn't turn on the light and listen to the stereo at the same time because of the noise in the stereo.

I haven't done it lately but I used to email Jeff, at MarineBeam, with all kinds of silly questions and he was great at helping me out.

Bill

[Moontide]

Not quite plug and play but easy and lets you use existing fixtures with no old holes/discoloration of headliner to address. You can find 15' (and probably other lengths) rolls of led light strips in various colors. They have cut marks every 3 led's so you can just cut off a multiple of 3 depending on how bright you want the light. Then just wire into the switch bypassing the ballast.

Saves having to look at the od holes in the overhead, of course that assumes that you like or don't mind he look of the present fixtures.

Bill

[Xlantic]

With so many opportunities to "invest" money in a boat I wonder if it really makes sense to upgrade from fluorescent to LED.

While the reduction in power consumption from incandescent to LED is quite large (from 50 watts to 5 watts for a 500 lumen bulb), the reduction from LED to flourescent is much lower in absolute terms (from 10 watts to 5 watts for a 500 lumen bulb).

Saving those 5 watts per bulb, equivalent to less than one amp, is good but how much should one invest to achieve it?

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by Xlantic

With so many opportunities to "invest" money in a boat I wonder if it really makes sense to upgrade from fluorescent to LED.

While the reduction in power consumption from incandescent to LED is quite large (from 50 watts to 5 watts for a 500 lumen bulb), the reduction from LED to flourescent is much lower in absolute terms (from 10 watts to 5 watts for a 500 lumen bulb).

Saving those 5 watts per bulb, equivalent to less than one amp, is good but how much should one invest to achieve it?

I think it depends on how you will use your boat, and what that power reduction does for you. Me, I have been doing long-distance sailing and racing, and my solar panels only provide about half of the power I need when underway. The deficit is replaced by running the engine, about one hour / day. When racing the engine is out of gear. I carry enough fuel for battery charging, but it's not a great way to run the engine (and it's noisy), so I want to reduce my power consumption.

I replaced my tricolor, and about half of my cabin lights with LEDs. The tricolor makes a huge difference, and we use the LED cabin lights when at sea. Of course we keep the cabin lights to a minimum when sailing so we don't ruin our night vision.

Anyway, changing to the LED lights, and other power-reduction efforts, reduces my engine-charging time. To me that's worth it. You should of course make your own cost-benefit decision.

[SeaSon]

I don't know what an alpenglow is, but I've had excellent success buying led bulbs from China on eBay. Cheap and work great. Just learn your bulb base nomenclature first.

[pbbmorton]

Marinebeam.

Be careful of less expensive LED. RF interference can be significant.

Sent from my SM-G900T using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[transmitterdan]

The power savings of LED over Alpen Glow CFL lights is only a few tenths of an amp per fixture. It is not nearly the big savings as when converting from incandescent or halogen to LED. If the CFL lights are working it may not be worth retrofitting them on the basis of power savings.

[GalleyHo]

One of the advantages of LED's is that you don't have to replace tubes. Also, as fluorescent tubes get to the end of their lives, the light output gradually goes down. You may not notice it until you replace the tube and say, "Wow, what a difference!" Depends on how much you use your boat/lights; but as live-aboards who stay up late and like lots of light, this is a big advantage for LEDs.

Bill