LEDs

Well I finally got sick of our current cool white Chinese LED's. Some after reading others reviews and experience I decided marine beam would be best fit for us. They are also Warm white which should bring out our wood work instead of keeping it hidden. Will, let y'all know how it's works. It's going to be a little challenge as we have ~60 of them.

If anyone's curious what we chose specifically here they are: G4 LED Bulb 12-LED SMD Back-Pin Force 12

Also converting our Nav lights to theirs also.

Try:

http://www.amazon.com/Equivalent-Ha...F8&qid=1421027792&sr=8-2&keywords=G4+led+bulb

I think it's the same bulb at much less cost.

Drake said:

Try:



http://www.amazon.com/Equivalent-Ha...F8&qid=1421027792&sr=8-2&keywords=G4+led+bulb



I think it's the same bulb at much less cost.

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Those are Chinese lights, they use resistors instead of constant current drivers. Read up on MarineBeams website.

I guess you get what you pay for.

We have a mix of cool white and warm white ebay LED's

For some locations I prefer the warm white, and for some I prefer the cool white.

If you're ordering online, I'd get a few of the warm white prior to committing to the whole boat. We found that the warm white looks a little yellow in some areas, but they do seem to replicate the Halogens they replaced.

I recently replaced most of the G4 halogens aboard with MarineBeam warm white LED's. Some of the remaining halogens are adjacent to the new LED's, the color difference is indiscernible. I've had nothing but good experiences in my dealings with MarineBeam and their products.

All good, but $20 each? Get a buck/boost power supply for $20 and put it in the lighting circuit then you can use cheap Chinese LEDS on the entire circuit. Warm white ones too.

If the Chinese can sell 'em for a buck with free shipping and still make a profit, do you think at $20 somebody might be screwing you?

How often are you on your boat? The purpose of the LEDs is to lower your power consumption when you're using batteries so if the 'bulbs' fail or start to get less intense, stick another $1 bulb in the socket. For $1200, that's lot of replacements, probably last longer than halogens did at more money.

I use Chinese, have boxes of them both colour temps. I use cool in the engine room and warm everywhere else. I don't mind tossing one if it bakes. So far, very few have. I'll keep buying my cheap bulbs as I need a new fridge for $1200.

I initially used the cheap Chinese bulbs. Then they started dimming and flickering; worse than the failure rate of halogens. I replaced them with more expensive bulbs made by IMTRA and haven't had a single problem since. I bought them at Fisheries. Money well spent IMHO.

The IMTRA G4 replacement LEDs also have the extra long back pins, similar to those from Marinebeam. That feature was necessary for them to fit in my existing fixtures.

Xsbank said:

All good, but $20 each? Get a buck/boost power supply for $20 and put it in the lighting circuit then you can use cheap Chinese LEDS on the entire circuit. Warm white ones too.

If the Chinese can sell 'em for a buck with free shipping and still make a profit, do you think at $20 somebody might be screwing you?

How often are you on your boat? The purpose of the LEDs is to lower your power consumption when you're using batteries so if the 'bulbs' fail or start to get less intense, stick another $1 bulb in the socket. For $1200, that's lot of replacements, probably last longer than halogens did at more money.

I use Chinese, have boxes of them both colour temps. I use cool in the engine room and warm everywhere else. I don't mind tossing one if it bakes. So far, very few have. I'll keep buying my cheap bulbs as I need a new fridge for $1200.

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I'd rather not take a shortcut again and put a band aid on it, in the end its easier doing it the proper way. But we all have our preferences how to do things....

drb1025 said:

I initially used the cheap Chinese bulbs. Then they started dimming and flickering; worse than the failure rate of halogens. I replaced them with more expensive bulbs made by IMTRA and haven't had a single problem since. I bought them at Fisheries. Money well spent IMHO.

Click to expand...

I prefer warm white for most places. I was an early adopter, and a few years ago paid quite a lot for some of the replacement 'bulbs'. Back then I did not know about the resister control some used, but I soon discovered that some units became too hot to touch and fairly soon burnt out some of the individual LED's. I ditched those - the whole point of replacing heat-making halogens with LED's was to avoid wasting battery power making a lot of heat when what I wanted was light. Take heed of the Marine Beam info/explanations and at least be aware of the fire risk.

More recently I have bought quite a variety of LED's from SuperBrightLeds, with good outcomes. Their range is great and prices seem reasonable to me. Best idea is a small order of the ones you think are what you need. Try them, and once you know they aren't going to fry the surrounds or be a colour that annoys you then place your large order.

https://www.superbrightleds.com/


Apart from the G4,Festoon or other bulb replacements, I really like their IP68 rated Work lights and Off road lights. I'm using them for spreader lights and deck flood lights, as well as some Off road LED light bars up on the hardtop roof. No issues from rain or salt water so far.

Insequent said:

I prefer warm white for most places. I was an early adopter, and a few years ago paid quite a lot for some of the replacement 'bulbs'. Back then I did not know about the resister control some used, but I soon discovered that some units became too hot to touch and fairly soon burnt out some of the individual LED's. I ditched those - the whole point of replacing heat-making halogens with LED's was to avoid wasting battery power making a lot of heat when what I wanted was light. Take heed of the Marine Beam info/explanations and at least be aware of the fire risk.

More recently I have bought quite a variety of LED's from SuperBrightLeds, with good outcomes. Their range is great and prices seem reasonable to me. Best idea is a small order of the ones you think are what you need. Try them, and once you know they aren't going to fry the surrounds or be a colour that annoys you then place your large order.

https://www.superbrightleds.com/


Apart from the G4,Festoon or other bulb replacements, I really like their IP68 rated Work lights and Off road lights. I'm using them for spreader lights and deck flood lights, as well as some Off road LED light bars up on the hardtop roof. No issues from rain or salt water so far.

Click to expand...

Ours old ones were from Superbright. One thing I noted is that their heat sink wouldn't just get warm, it would be to hot to touch. Also they had a lens glued on, the heat would get to the adhesive and turn yellow.

I also won't miss the flickering.

Things are often cheap for a reason, what's your time worth? Can you afford to do everything twice, thrice, four times?


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N4712 said:

Well I finally got sick of our current cool white Chinese LED's. Some after reading others reviews and experience I decided marine beam would be best fit for us. They are also Warm white which should bring out our wood work instead of keeping it hidden. Will, let y'all know how it's works. It's going to be a little challenge as we have ~60 of them.

If anyone's curious what we chose specifically here they are: G4 LED Bulb 12-LED SMD Back-Pin Force 12

Click to expand...

We recently finished our switch to LEDs, using those "Force-12" G4 discs on our final remaining 3 circuits... which are all dimming circuits. In the process, I also moved seven existing 9-LED G4 discs so I could replace those with the 12-LED discs in the head, simply for more light. The new ones work fine, color temp is good, and the increased light (lumens) when fully on is useful. Ideally, they'll deal with heat better than some of our previous G4 discs.

N4712 said:

Those are Chinese lights, they use resistors instead of constant current drivers. Read up on MarineBeams website.

Click to expand...

Drake said:

I guess you get what you pay for.

Click to expand...

Xsbank said:

All good, but $20 each? Get a buck/boost power supply for $20 and put it in the lighting circuit then you can use cheap Chinese LEDS on the entire circuit. Warm white ones too.

If the Chinese can sell 'em for a buck with free shipping and still make a profit, do you think at $20 somebody might be screwing you?

How often are you on your boat? The purpose of the LEDs is to lower your power consumption when you're using batteries so if the 'bulbs' fail or start to get less intense, stick another $1 bulb in the socket. For $1200, that's lot of replacements, probably last longer than halogens did at more money.

Click to expand...

In the process of finishing our switchover to LEDs for our three dimming circuits, I ended up moving and/or removing some existing circa 2009 and 2010 LED discs from mastlight.com (purchased back when mastlight existed).

Several of those older ones showed evidence of excessive heat in the back plane. Several of the older ones have a few individual LEDs that won't light. There's a significant difference in the physical "stuff" on the back of the new discs.

We are on the boat a lot, during "the season."

-Chris

My understanding is, all leds use resistors unless you add enough of them in a string to equal a resistor. Lots of them. Leds run at 'about' 3 volts so you have to get the voltage down from whatever your system provides. All of them produce heat. You have to get rid of the heat which is why all arrays have a heat sink of some kind. Look at an LED flashlight, they are almost always aluminum for that reason.

What an LED is not tolerant of is fluctuations in voltage. Our systems run from approximately 12 volts to 15 volts (I'm simplifying) depending on whether you are charging much or not. If you read the specs on the bulb, the cheap ones are usually rated for 12 volts. More voltage produces more heat and the diodes don't like that, it shortens their life and they flicker before they fail (frequently). Expensive bulbs sometimes have circuits that control the voltage that reaches each led. You can do that yourself with cheap bulbs and a voltage controller in the circuit ("buck and boost") that lets cheap bulbs last forever (on a boat) and then there are as few failures as a $20 bulb.

If a $20 bulb is not able to stay cool, it too will fail quickly. If you stick one in a lamp that was intended for halogen and also has a lens cover (to limit the uv exposure from halogen) your expensive bulbs will burn out faster too. 50,000 hour claims are under perfect conditions and will likely never be attained on a boat.

Buddy, not sure what your trying to prove. I'm happy with my choice as many others are that's that. I'm not wanting to band aid a problem then have to worry about it later. I already learned that. I will pay 20 bucks a bulb and be happy as a clam. That's that.

N4712 said:

Ours old ones were from Superbright. One thing I noted is that their heat sink wouldn't just get warm, it would be to hot to touch. Also they had a lens glued on, the heat would get to the adhesive and turn yellow.

I also won't miss the flickering.

Click to expand...

Hmm, interesting. None of those issues with any of the Superbrights I've bought.

Like some....I tried the $4 a pop cheapos...they lasted and now after a year...not one single led is out on 8 fixtures.

they get hot but not as bad as incandescent and I went with the extra brights with more leds than the expensive ones.

I was skeptical, but so far so good.

Probably hard for some wealthy people to understand what lengths some people will go too to save a few bucks. To each his own. Time is money or money is time you choose. Just don't beat people up for their ideas.
Good boating all.

freshalaska said:

Probably hard for some wealthy people to understand what lengths some people will go too to save a few bucks. To each his own. Time is money or money is time you choose. Just don't beat people up for their ideas.
Good boating all.

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Me and XS had the same disagreements with me on my last LEDs thread when I put the Chinese ones in. I guess he thought I forgot.

The thing is I don't Want to make the mistake TWICE. We have around 60 lights and changing them involves pulling all the ceilings down which is PITA, so I'd like this to be the last time I pull them down. Don't even try to pull the wealth card...

psneeld said:

Like some....I tried the $4 a pop cheapos...they lasted and now after a year...not one single led is out on 8 fixtures.

they get hot but not as bad as incandescent and I went with the extra brights with more leds than the expensive ones.

I was skeptical, but so far so good.

Click to expand...

Glad they worked for you, mine weren't far off in price at around $3 a piece If memory serves. Maybe I got a bad batch.

At first I liked the idea of cool white in the cabin but it didn't grow on me, I think we're better off with warm.

Insequent said:

Hmm, interesting. None of those issues with any of the Superbrights I've bought.

Click to expand...

Maybe I was subject to a bad batch. What style were yours?

N4712 said:

Glad they worked for you, mine weren't far off in price at around $3 a piece If memory serves. Maybe I got a bad batch.

At first I liked the idea of cool white in the cabin but it didn't grow on me, I think we're better off with warm.

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Yes...hate the bright white but crew needs the light and contrast.

Hope they work too...mine melted the backing like most...found just laying them in the old cheapo fixture on the glass works fine...thought the heat would cook them but good so far.

psneeld said:

Yes...hate the bright white but crew needs the light and contrast.

Hope they work too...mine melted the backing like most...found just laying them in the old cheapo fixture on the glass works fine...thought the heat would cook them but good so far.

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Heat wasn't a big problem, a little extra AC time does t hurt the genny. What style pin setup are yours?

N4712 said:

Heat wasn't a big problem, a little extra AC time does t hurt the genny. What style pin setup are yours?

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They would have been sockets not pins, but couldn't find what I wanted in the socket type so I wound up just cutting the leads and hard wiring them.

The bulbs I have bought from Superbriteleds.com have all had buck drivers on board. Out of 40 bought there was one early failure. I called them. They mailed me another without sending the bad one back. I have not noticed that they have been hot. I just converted all the lights in the RV to LED also.

psneeld said:

They would have been sockets not pins, but couldn't find what I wanted in the socket type so I wound up just cutting the leads and hard wiring them.

Click to expand...

Ah ok.

Moonstruck said:

The bulbs I have bought from Superbriteleds.com have all had buck drivers on board. Out of 40 bought there was one early failure. I called them. They mailed me another without sending the bad one back. I have not notices that they have been hot. I just converted all the lights in the RV to LED also.

Click to expand...

What type were they? Ours were little potted diodes with a lens glued on with a cylindrical shaped heatsink.