Engine Compartment Light Suggestion

[SV Demeter]

I ended up installing
http://search.defender.com/search.as...+caged&x=0&y=0

But got it at the local WM. I bought two but Im pretty happy with the one I installed somay take the other one back. Have not looked to see what it draws but its definitely good light to bleed injection, check/change oil and filters, pretty much any engine room work I might need to do and the light appears well built.


Cotemar Im not sure where Seahunter was going... I was not thinking LEDs would be good in an engine room but pretty much anywhere else they are the way to go. My personal preference is for compact flourescents for general cabin lights (Alpenglow) and LEDs in the bulkhead/reading lights. I used Sensibulbs LEDs after lots of reading here and have found the quality of light to be warm and bright.

[Seahunter]

EP, no need for empty apologies. I'm sorry for your misunderstanding of what I wrote. Firstly, I mentioned nothing regarding halogen bulbs (even though you carefully quoted me). As you brought up a specific product; product likes\dislikes on the sensibulb is split about 50/50. Here's the equivalent halogen vs sensibulb tech: Halogen MINI-BAY Base, 12V, 10W, 0.83A; price = $4.99 and Sensibulb: mini-base, 12V, 10W, 0.16 Amps(warm) - 0.2 Amps(cold); price= $40.00. The main difference is the CP vs the amperage. While the halogens produce more CP they use more amps and the sensibulb uses less amperage yet produces less CP (carefully omitted at the sensibulb website). By the by, switches were invented to turned the light "OFF" as well as "ON".
I'll think I'll stick to my incandescent spreader lights that produce 500 lumins @ 2.5 amps sold for $6.99 each as opposed to the LeD ones that produce 360 lumins @ 1.5 amps for $140.00 and drop my hook next to yours. I promise you won't hear my genset over the sound of my stereo.

[SV Demeter]

Originally Posted by Seahunter

EP, no need for empty apologies. I'm sorry for your misunderstanding of what I wrote. Firstly, I mentioned nothing regarding halogen bulbs (even though you carefully quoted me). As you brought up a specific product; product likes\dislikes on the sensibulb is split about 50/50. Here's the equivalent halogen vs sensibulb tech: Halogen MINI-BAY Base, 12V, 10W, 0.83A; price = $4.99 and Sensibulb: mini-base, 12V, 10W, 0.16 Amps(warm) - 0.2 Amps(cold); price= $40.00. The main difference is the CP vs the amperage. While the halogens produce more CP they use more amps and the sensibulb uses less amperage yet produces less CP (carefully omitted at the sensibulb website). By the by, switches were invented to turned the light "OFF" as well as "ON".
I'll think I'll stick to my incandescent spreader lights that produce 500 lumins @ 2.5 amps sold for $6.99 each as opposed to the LeD ones that produce 360 lumins @ 1.5 amps for $140.00 and drop my hook next to yours. I promise you won't hear my genset over the sound of my stereo.

If you say so. I can only tell you what my experience has been and I am very happy with my lighting choices and wouldnt begrudge you of yours for an instant. Hopefully you have better taste in music than you do in lighting!

[Seahunter]

Originally Posted by Cotemar

SV Escape Plan,

I am with you all the way. Did he say he would rather run the generator than replace a regular 10 watt bulb with a 1 watt LED.
Wow.

Show me where a 1W LeD = a 10W incandescent, nonsense. From sensibulb's own website "Very Low power consumption - Uses only 20% of the power of standard cabin light bulbs": that's no where near 90%. Please.

[S/V Alchemy]

Originally Posted by Seahunter

Show me where a 1W LeD = a 10W incandescent, nonsense. From sensibulb's own website "Very Low power consumption - Uses only 20% of the power of standard cabin light bulbs": that's no where near 90%. Please.

Marine LEDs Canada

All I know is that last Sunday the guy who makes these loaned me a few for testing and they are both friggin' bright and pleasantly warm, somewhere warmer than "warm flourescents". I consider that I would want one halogen in the workspace for soldering stuff I couldn't get direct sunlight on, and my Alpenglow for the pilothouse, just because it's a really nice fixture with a "dim red" option.

The rest could be these fixtures. Note the prices...not Sensibulb range.

[Cotemar]

Seahunter,

These are what I have been using.
And as S/V Alchemy states "they are both friggin' bright and pleasantly warm"
The 1 watt LED's are just as bright as the Halgen 10 watt bulbs they replaced.

G4 12v : Led Strips Hero-ledstore.com

Mark

[Seahunter]

Hmm, is "just as" the same as; equal, almost, close to, nearly, exactly or precisely? An equivalent halogen has nearly double the lumen as your 70 lumen replacement, so only a 5W is necessary, while a 10W incandescent puts out 130 lumen. I reiterate, where is the cost benefit? It's the amp/hr draw that'll get you every time; so if you have to light up 10 LeD's to get the same out of a halogen, what's the point? I've tried them and they're just not worth the trouble, especially for the expenditure.

[Cotemar]

Seahunter,

We are not asking you to try them. We could care less.
We have them and we use only 1 watt where you use 10 watts for the same light.
They work great. To each his own. We chews not to run the generator you prefer it.
No worries. I brought my generator home before the unused gas went bad.
I use solar for all my power requirements.
No worries. This is what makes the world turn.
Enjoy be happy.

Mark

[S/V Alchemy]

I quite enjoyed my little halogen bulkhead light in the aft cabin. I didn't enjoy sweating in May as it slowly cooked my right ear and shoulder like fries under a heatlamp. I have Marine Air for that sort of thing.

And Gosling's.

[Palarran]

I've worked in the heating and air business my whole life and personally, I wouldn't leave home without a 110v corded florescent trouble light and magnifier glasses. You can have all those lights installed next to each other but when your trying to thread a bolt into a part hanging upside down, I want the light RIGHT THERE.

FWIW, LED replacement bulbs have been one of my best upgrades this year. What a tremendous power saver. If you look online you can find emitters for under $5.

[S/V Alchemy]

Don't get me wrong here...I have worklights and a Honda 2000 and magnification and all that stuff if I really need to solder two tiny wires together in the middle of the ocean in the middle of a moonless night, etc., etc.

But generally, I very much prefer "a little light in a lot of places", as boats of the cruising variety are generally full of unlit nooks and dim crannies. LED come in many types and can be made "precisely dim" for such uses as lighting inside lockers or cabinets, or lighting companionway steps in red with the dimmest of lights, just enough to see where to put your feet.

You don't even have to hook it into ship's power. A nine-volt battery and a magnetic switch will give you a year's worth of low light inside a locker. Open, it's on. Closed, it's off. Add a proximity switch and a delay circuit and you've got a way to move about the boat's interior at night with self-extinguishing "nav lights" that don't require you to put on your headlamp or bring out a night-vision destroying flashlight.

So I may be unusual here in that I like what's happening in bright, warm LEDs, but I also see a lot of potential for dim LEDs placed strategically around the boat to both orient and illuminate...barely...things you might want to get at in the middle of the night.

You could adhere an LED and battery on the underside of the top of your zippered crash bag, for instance. I can see where that alone would be a comfort in a worst-case, life raft situation.

[Seahunter]

Originally Posted by S/V Alchemy

Don't get me wrong here...I have worklights and a Honda 2000 ...
LED come in many types and can be made "precisely dim" for such uses as lighting inside lockers or cabinets, or lighting companionway steps in red with the dimmest of lights, just enough to see where to put your feet.
You don't even have to hook it into ship's power. A nine-volt battery and a magnetic switch will give you a year's worth of low light inside a locker.
You could adhere an LED and battery on the underside of the top of your zippered crash bag...

All of these are good ideas; most of our "emergency" lighting is self-contained water proof/resistant LeDs. We have one that lights up our companionway right beside our ditch bag.

[S/V Alchemy]

Yeah, that's a good one, too!

The "self-contained" part is critical. Any situation bad enough to need self-contained lights is probably going to involve a breakdown of the boat's electrics, either via water ingress or flooding. I know I'd want the bilge pumps to work then, not the lights.

There's a little kids' toy you can buy at any dollar store that is a tiny coloured LED worn on a little piece of elastic on one's finger. Like so:



Well, you could either mod them for a white LED, or simply use them as is on your little finger to bring light RIGHT UP to the work in your boat! Clip 'em to a hat and you've got a map reading light. At 25 cents a piece, buy a box of 'em.

That's what I mean is a bit of a paradigm shift with LEDs. They are so cheap and plentiful that you start thinking less of "what light" and more of "where would I want light?"

Of course, all these little gadgets can be coated or siliconed to make them more water resistant, if not water-proof.

[Seahunter]

Originally Posted by S/V Alchemy

Yeah, that's a good one, too!.....
Well, you could either mod them for a white LED, or simply use them as is on your little finger to bring light RIGHT UP to the work in your boat! Clip 'em to a hat and you've got a map reading light. At 25 cents a piece, buy a box of 'em.

LOL, now it's getting ridiculous....where is anybody going to store a box of anything on their boat?

[hellosailor]

Extemp, the white papers I've read from LED makers regarding longevity and heat sinking said something like 160F is the critical point for LEDs. Above that they age out real fast.

So yes there is a scientific and measurable basis, and the only questions are:
1) How hot does the top of your engine bay get? Engines run at 140F (salt cooled) to 210F (fresh cooled high performance), and heat rises.
2) How "hot" have you used your LEDs in comparison to that?
3) Starting with prime quality LEDs at a lifetime of 55,000 hours...how far are you willing to derate that for acceptable life in the engine bay? <VBG>

I still like the widespread and diffuse light of an inexpensive fluorescent stick in the engine bay. Preferably one to each side, not one dead center over the top. Anything dead center over the top, just seems to create pools of shadow everyplace you need light.