LED light fixtures and voltage

[kmacdonald]

These have always worked great for me:https://store.marinebeam.com/
I use their navigation and anchor lights and cabin lights. No problems in years of use.

[jamhass]

We switched to all LED lighting 7 years ago, with an assortment of high-end, mid-range and really cheap LEDs. The very cheapest rope lights failed, but lasted a few years before they went. We went with high-end units on "mission critical" fixtures (Nav lights, a couple of must-have cabin lights, etc) and they have all lasted nicely with no issues. Most of our cheaper lights have also lasted just fine, but they are generally used in places where they are easy to replace and/or not missed too badly if they die.

Shoot, we even get a couple of years out of the cheap solar yard lights, and it is usually the battery that goes.

[longjonsilver]

Originally Posted by BobLoucks

I replaced all cabin, nav and deck lights through www.ledlight.com they had everything I needed and I didn't have to change bases at all!
Suggest you identify all of your base & bulb types and take a picture of your existing bulbs then send it to them. They will advise you as to what to order, They have nav light bulbs that meet the 2 nm visibility.
Highly recommend these folks.

Thanks Bob, i posted this link on my website.

[rwidman]

Originally Posted by captainwireman

What exactly are you recommending? Can you give an example before I install the interior and exterior lights? Are these components durable? .......?

Atoll posted it in post #2. You want lights with a voltage rating of 10 -30 volts or something similar. The current through the individual LEDs is what causes them to emit light and the drivers for these lights maintain the desired current regardless of voltage fluctuations by turning them on and off at a very high rate that can't be notice with the eye.

[zstine]

I bought these from seller GRV on amazon (GRV has other styles). They are ba15 1142 replacements and I LOVE how they look. And only $3.20 each! Other LED sources like Marinebean, LEDlights, superbrightLED, etc. will charge $10 - $15.... yes, these cheap ones may fail in a few years, but since they are ~20% the cost, and I expect LED prices to fall, I don't mind replacing them ever few years. I'm still going to make out on price.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[skipgundlach]

Originally Posted by jheldatksuedu

If you are practical and want to save some money, build you own, read this.


Honeywell makes an extremely bright 120v LED 4 ft shop light to replace fluorescent shop lights. $34 cost. They have 120 LED's and are almost too bright, they only use 42 watts. I would say they are equivalent to about 8 100 watt light bulbs. They have a 5 year warranty. I tore one apart to see if it is possible to make them work on 12v. The 2 linear LED arrays are made up of 2 sets of 2 each 30 LED arrays, so that they mimic the look of 2 fluorescent bulbs. Each of the 4 arrays has 6 series sets of 5 LED's in parallel. The 4 arrays are wired in series and operate on 72 volts DC, so basically you've got 24 LED's in series at 3 volts each. It should be easy to cut the linear arrays to operate on any multiple of 3 volts. I expect I will also cut the aluminum housing down to the length of the 12 volt arrays and make 3 shorter with more reasonable light output for my application, 12 volt units.

Check out my website for more stuff like this. I will most likely make an almost factory looking fixture for these from the cut down housings, I bought 4 of them.

Welp, it's possible that I overlooked anything to do with LEDs in the list at the top of the page, but would you mind linking to the specific page rather than your website?

I feel your pain, as our early refit was stream-of-consciousness style, rather than the segmented projects my gallery has, now; finding something that I'm trying to show someone a trick about is a treasure hunt, and, so, I've kept a list of starting points for the common issues...

I saw the 4' style lamps that Costco carried and was sorely tempted. Getting significant light out of any fixture has been the holy grail, but - not surprisingly - the amperage needed to accomplish that is commensurate with the lumens generated, and to get anything close to the lumens of a 100W incandescent makes for a draw I'm not happy with...

Thanks.

L8R

Skip

[skipgundlach]

Also...

I bought a 12V single-tube 4' fluorescent fixture from 12 Volt Fluorescent Light Fixtures - Interior Fluorescent Van Lighting - American Van Equipment for my workbench.

It takes the same bulb as your 120V fixture but has a different ballast. My first bulb (with intermittent use, of course) lasted 8 years.

I'm thinking about the fluorescent LED replacement drop-in bulbs (which would remove the issue of controlled voltage) which are starting to appear.

Has anyone had any experience with them, whether in my style (12V ballast) or household style (120V) fixture? I presume this would be an example:
https://www.ledlight.com/t8_led_tube..._beam_g13.aspx

[Blaine]

I second what kmacdonald said. I completely re-lamped my 42' Grand Banks (a 1982) including the engine room with LED's from www.marinebeam.com

I used all of the boat's existing fixtures and the LED's came prewired with double contact bayonet bases. https://store.marinebeam.com/23-led-...un-dome-23-ww/ Beautiful light and as simple as boat projects get. Talk to Jeff at Marinebeam.

[captainwireman]

Originally Posted by BobLoucks

I replaced all cabin, nav and deck lights through www.ledlight.com they had everything I needed and I didn't have to change bases at all!
Suggest you identify all of your base & bulb types and take a picture of your existing bulbs then send it to them. They will advise you as to what to order, They have nav light bulbs that meet the 2 nm visibility.
Highly recommend these folks.

All was not any thing near serviceable and to my standards. Everything was thrown into the garbage with just cause. What I am asking is how to ensure no more than 12 volts will be delivered to my already purchased LEDs even during high solar charging periods.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by captainwireman

What I am asking is how to ensure no more than 12 volts will be delivered to my already purchased LEDs even during high solar charging periods.

There are plenty of budget buck/boost dc converters available on Amazon or ebay now. You could look into fitting one on each lighting circuit for the LEDs to regulate the voltage to 12v no matter what the supply voltage. Not as good as current regulated circuitry but it might be a good half way house, maybe backing the voltage down to just below 12v might not be visible but would help with the life of cheaper unregulated led fittings. One thing to be aware of, some of the dc converters can be a bit RF noisy.

[foufou]

Some of the schemes for avoiding high prices of LED lights may be worth some clever time but one of the advantages of the new fixtures is no socket. Corrosion in sockets was a common problem in older lights. And though I am able to buy inexpensive LED s not gaining the advantage of no socket just doesn't make that decision worth while. F