Experience with LED lighting

[Portuguese]

Gentlemen

Have you any experience with LED lighting?
I am thinking about reducing the energy waste in my boat by using LED lamps which are cheap in Brazil.
Any of you have LED lighting? Does it last as they say?

Thank you

 

[N4712]

I've had great luck with my Marine Beam Leds. They replaced cheap ones that kept burning out. None have failed so far!

Are you trying to retrofit existing fixtures?

 

[DavidM]

I just bought a camping trailer with all LED lighting. Each fixture draws about a tenth of an amp which is 10% of an incandescent fixture. They are great.


Newer LED lamps and fixtures have internal voltage regulators that stabilize the voltage. Older ones can burn out quickly if powered with 14+V which can easily occur when charging batteries. Also make sure that you get one with a pleasing color temperature- warm white. Cheaper bluish LED look awful.


David

 

[Portuguese]

The first ones I want to change are the ones in the Engine Room. The boat is new and 60% of the white lights I had are gone

 

[Portuguese]

The thing is that I have no clue what to buy

 

[Moonstruck]

Fernando, you will get all kinds of opinions on cheap or more pricey ones. Like David said you will want the ones with buck circuitry onboard the bulb. That will regulate the current and still operate over a pretty wide range.

Bright white may be OK in the engine room that's probably around 5000 Kelvin. In other places I too recommend the warm white. They would be about 3000 kelvin.

I converted about 4 years ago, and have nothing but praise for them. I replaced a 40 watt 2 mile anchor light with about a 4 wall LED. It came from drled.com. My other lights are from superbrightleds.com.

 

[stubones99]

Has anyone been to Illuminationgear.com website? I know it's a bit off-topic since they only do flashlights, but I am really enjoying my new Eagletac flashlight.

Stu

 

[Bay Pelican]

Have converted almost all the 12 volt lighting to LEDs. I have purchased these online at sites such as Amazon and superbright leds. The trick is to figure out what base you need to replace the current bulbs.
You can start with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_automotive_light_bulb_types
Lampsplus also has a good system for narrowing down what base you need.

As far as color this is a factor of harsh (>3,000) vs soft white(<3000) . The bulbs will be identified as such or will be indicated by Kelvins. These are explained on the websites.

You need to determine the replacement wattage. Most sites will give you the incandescent equivalent.
Here is a good comparison chart:
Compare: LED Lights vs CFL vs Incandescent Lighting Chart

 

[kthoennes]

...
Here is a good comparison chart:
Compare: LED Lights vs CFL vs Incandescent Lighting Chart

Very helpful chart, thanks very much, especially the bottom portion.

 

[FF]

Since LED draw so little power , I think its best to have loads of light and a dimmer to create just the setting you need at any moment.

Big difference ,, dinner for 2 , looking for a contact lens.

 

[Larry M]

You say engine room? We bought 4 channels from TorchStar:

3 3ft Aluminum U Channel for Flex Hard LED Strip Light w Oyster White Cover U02 | eBay

and the LED lights from:

Superbright 5630 White 300 LED Fleixbe Light Strip LED Lamp Car Light DIY | eBay

I cut the LED lights into 1 meter lengths and soldered on a pig tail. The LEDs come with 3M sticky tape to the back, so they stick to the channel. Each channel came with a lense, 2 end caps and 2 mounting clips. I should have ordered another channel since have exactly 1 meter of LED strip left. You could easily cut the channels to 1/2 meter but you would need to order more end caps and mounting clips. Less than $20/light mounted. Nautibear, a TF member, introduced these to me.

 

[psneeld]

Just bought the same setup as Larry for my enine room....the cheapo stirp lights I bought 2 years ago for the saloon are still going strong on my liveaboard.

 

[kthoennes]

Rats - I just got my shipment of 20, 3 watt, warm white led's with a g4 base (2 little pointy prongs) to replace all 20 cabin lights. Bought them on ebay from China to replace those little halogens that can't be touched by human hands and burn hotter than the surface of the sun, and suck at least 10 watts, or 20. The new led's put out a perfect light, nice and soft but still bright enough - but the silicone capsules don't fit in the housings. I can't get the lenses and trim rings back on. Oh well, $23, not the end of the world. Will have to try again with those wafer or coin-shaped led's instead.

 

[Peter B]

The first ones I want to change are the ones in the Engine Room. The boat is new and 60% of the white lights I had are gone

Port, I found the long lengths of strip LEDs great for the ER. They are easily obtained anywhere theses days. Easy as to install, and you can just tack/screw them up along or spiralling around any suitable fixture or vertical floor supports. Apart from their low current draw is they are not hot if you touch your head against them, which was a normal occurrence for me with the original incandescent lights.

 

[Bay Pelican]

Side question, has anyone seen a medium based 12v LED with an output of around 750 lumens (60w equivalent). I have a 110v table lamp I would like to convert to a 12v LED but cannot find an appropriate bulb. I find bulbs at the 500/600 lumen level (40 watt equivalent) but not the higher level.

 

[folivier]

There are some sellers on ebay that are in the states. A few cents more but returns are easier. Makes it easier when trying a few different ones. The G4s are not all made the same. Some of the prongs are shorter, longer, fatter, or thinner, the cards are different sizes, etc. I replaced 70 in my Newell coach. Had to try a couple of different sellers before I found some that would work.

 

[ranger58sb]

The thing is that I have no clue what to buy

We've had good luck with LED replacement "bulbs" from marinbeam.com. We've replaced almost e

 

[caltexflanc]

After fooling around with el cheapo and not so cheapo LEDs I settled on nothing but product from MarineBeam. The quality is very high, they understand boats (in my case issues with Hatteras and 12volt AC) and the service is excellent, you can talk to a real live person who is very expert. They also understand all the issues for nav lights. Highly recommend browsing their web site and if need be calling them for advice.

Marine LED Lights; Cabin, Navigation and Deck | Marinebeam