LED cabin Lights for the Furgal Sailor

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

SC, I'm kinda surprised that you are a "furgal" sailor. I had you more pegged as a jeans and sweatshirt kinda gal, not swathed in furs! Shows how wrong I can be...

Cheers,

Jim

Maybe:

Urban Dictionary: Furgal
A certain type of person. Most commonly the last name of an incredibly cool, loud, caring, blunt, fun, stubborn, clever and outgoing person.

[sailorchic34]

Originally Posted by StuM

Maybe:

Urban Dictionary: Furgal
A certain type of person. Most commonly the last name of an incredibly cool, loud, caring, blunt, fun, stubborn, clever and outgoing person.

Well other then the outgoing part, it might just fit.

[ErikFinn]

Originally Posted by Don C L

Thanks! I can't keep up with LEDs! Somewhat related, my friend put a few of these motion activated ones in various galley cabinets and hanging locker. They are great, no more hunting at night in the dark for a snack, as soon as you open the cabinet the whole boat (practically) lights up! And of course that means no way to sneak anything at night anymore either.
https://www.amazon.com/OXYLED-T-02-A...sor+led+lights

Hi Don,
Do you think that one would be practical used inside a fridge or freezer?
Thanks

[CaptTom]

My problem replacing cabin lights with LEDs were that the new fixtures are all much smaller than the old ones, leaving an outline in the overhead where the old fixture was. I finally ended up with the new model incandescent fixtures and replaced the bulbs with LEDs.

I can't help but think there's a market for marine and RV direct-replacement LED fixtures the same size, and with the same mounting holes, as the old mass-produced fixtures.

[ColdEH]

Originally Posted by CaptTom

My problem replacing cabin lights with LEDs were that the new fixtures are all much smaller than the old ones, leaving an outline in the overhead where the old fixture was. I finally ended up with the new model incandescent fixtures and replaced the bulbs with LEDs.

I can't help but think there's a market for marine and RV direct-replacement LED fixtures the same size, and with the same mounting holes, as the old mass-produced fixtures.

I agree , I looked long and hard for led fixtures that would fit close to the marks left by the original ones and of a colour that I liked. Closest one I found were made by Alpenglow but these are pricey , so I made my own with led pucks made by Bazz and built a teak box around two pucks and two switches so each light has two brightness settings . I love them , the colour is just right , no RF , and they look and fit perfectly into my Bristols teak interior . I have built two of them so far , ten more to go .



Regards


Sent from my iPhone using Cruisers Sailing Forum

[Dockhead]

LED cabin lighting has dramatically fallen in price in the last few years.

I have been experimenting with it since I bought my present boat 7 years ago.

I started out with different G4 LED inserts in my boat's existing Cantalupi fixtures. Some of these were better than others, but none of them had a really natural looking light, many of the old ones had an ugly greenish light. Most of them at least worked ok, except for a batch from SuperbrightLED which literally exploded. I bought a bunch of the then-vaunted SCAD ones (Sensibulb) and was very disappointed -- very little light output, very hot, and short-lived.

Then I started experimenting with MR16 units which have an integral reflector. These require a replacement fixture, but they are not expensive. They are deep and don't fit everywhere on my boat, but I liked them. Much more light output than the G4 ones -- probably the reflector makes a big difference.

Finally Bedazzled starting selling a new generation of these:



12v & 24 volt Replacement LED Light Bulbs - Bedazzled UK

With a plastic lens. Eureka!! This is absolutely fantastic, warm white light, which I can't distinguish from the light from halogen incandescent ones. And they only cost about $10 each!!

On top of that, I found quite decent Chinese fixtures for only about $3 each.

At this price, there was no reason not to redo the whole boat, which I did last spring.

Best of all was being able to throw away most of the horrible Cantalupi fixtures which came with my boat. The cheap Chinese fixtures are nicely chromed and look BETTER than the $200 Cantalupi ones did.

Now I have really wonderful lighting inside my boat, and with so little power draw that my batteries don't even notice.


Some time ago I settled on Bedazzled as my preferred supplier:

Bedazzled LED Lighting Home Page

I like them because all of their units are internally fused (I still remember the exploding Superbrights), and EMI supressed. They are very good quality for moderate money. It's a small company, maybe operated out of someone's garage, but they provide good service and sell good stuff at reasonable prices.

[Captain Bill]

I replaced my G4 halogen bulbs 5 years ago with 170 lumen rated LEDs from Lilyleds.com and all of them are still functional. I paid $7.50 cdn for each of them (12 units). The admiral complained that there were a few places in the boat that she wished there was more light and I found Scandvik 270 lumen G4 bulb at Hamilton Marine for $12 US each and bought 3. They are substantially brighter and we are now at 2 years on those and still going strong. I saw today that Lilyleds.com is offering a 300 lumen G4 for $12.

Comparing these bulbs to standard incandescent bulbs is a little misleading as these LEDs radiate their light in a particular direction where as the incandescent bulb radiates in all directions. In a ceiling mount fixture much of the light from a horizontally mounted incandescent is radiated in directions that do not do anything for lighting the space you wish to illuminate and must be reflected by the fixture which depending on the fixture may not be very effective. The crux of this is that in a low profile G4 fixture typical of boats a much lower lumen rated LED can be just as effective at illuminating the space as a higher rated incandescent/halogen.

[DDabs]

Not very frugal - but I just replaced all my interior halogen reading lamps with the Alpenglow Caribbean lamps, which are LED. I tried putting LED bulbs in the halogen assembly before I bought the Alpenglow and the light was either too cool or didn't have a good spread. The Alpenglow reading lamps are perfect - the color is very warm for LED (2700K) and the light output is much better as well. They change the entire feel of the cabin. ~$120 per light. I am extremely satisfied.

[Jsta_Rebel]

We have replaced all of our interior light fixtures with led's. This particular fixture fit right into our existing teak overhead housings and put off an amazing 220 lumens.Not bad for $20.00 each. https://www.superbrightleds.com/more...Specifications

[Don C L]

Originally Posted by ErikFinn

Hi Don,
Do you think that one would be practical used inside a fridge or freezer?
Thanks

I don't know, haven't tried it! But interesting idea. The ones I linked aren't waterproof, but I have seen others that are but they are fairly large. Here is one as an example:
https://www.amazon.com/Kssfire%C2%AE...waterproof+LED

[Bor the Wolf]

I found a nice looking Aluminium LED bar at Ikea's, called STRIBERG. Designed as cupboard lighting it has a door sensor, but that is useless in my case where I use it as galley lighting. The only problem with this type of lighting is that it's made for exactly 12V an nothing more. Since our batteries and chargers sometimes pump out a lot more I needed to do something, I added an ULDO. An ULDO is an Ultra Low Drop Out voltage regulator. These components are made using power FETs with an ultra low R-on and need a voltage drop of only 0.1V or even less to operate. (12V input becomes 11.9V but anything over 12.1V will come out as exactly 12V). Since they are analog components there is no radio interference, they just burn off the excess voltage. The ones I use are ok up to 28V on the input.

An ULDO has three connections, the Input goes to the Battery+ terminal, the output, goes to the LED fixture +terminal and GND, goes to the Battery- terminal and the LED fixture -terminal. Throw the ULDO in a small plastic junction box and your done. Just make sure the current rating matches or exceeds the current rating of the LED bar. As a bonus, an ULDO has an over current protection build in.

The recipe should work for any kind of "12V from mains adapter" type of LED Fixture. Next to the RV centre, this opens up new options to buy ourselves affordable and good looking LED lighting.

[jheldatksuedu]

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 sets of 5 parallel 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.

I've done all kinds of work like this with LEDs, even replaced all the lights on my 1966 Honda 90 with LED's. You can get a very good LED motorcycle headlight, that would make an excellent spot/search light. I also replaced the running lights on the boat, red was no problem, just use the LED's from a car tail light but finding bright green took a while, until I checked with the county shops and got green "go" traffic lights that have a few burned out LED's for free.

[CGirvan]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

On top of that, I found quite decent Chinese fixtures for only about $3 each.

Would you have a link to these fixtures?

[Uncle Bob]

Originally Posted by CGirvan

Would you have a link to these fixtures?

+1. Me too please.

[newhaul]

Here are the strips I install for customers
10 Pack 12V 18W 72LED 1800Lm 6000K White Light U Shape Light Bar Rigid Strip Lam | eBay