12V led vs incandescent

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cappy208

cappy208

Guru
Joined
Oct 24, 2013
Messages
1,219
Location
USA
Vessel Name
Slip Aweigh
Vessel Make
Prairie 29
an anyone illuminate the differences in battery life between using LED vs regular bulbs while at anchor? I was concerned while out roaming around, not that I killed the house batteries, but just wondering if it's a valuable investment to change over to LED.
 
Greetings,
Mr. c. Can't give you numbers but compare the # of amps used by each. Should be a BIG difference thereby making LED's much easier on your battery capacities. I think LED's also have a much longer lifespan so yes, you pay more but they last longer. I seem to recall some question as to whether or not LED's met USCG standards for navigational lighting but that may have changed.
 
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cappy, LEDs are about 1/10th the current draw vs. a tungsten filament, and run a lot cooler. But house lights are usually a minor part of the load on the battery bank.

I've been changing over because the spectrum, the quality of the light is better for my purposes. I put 4000K x 8 element LEDs in the galley; it went from night to day, huge improvement!

I put 2700K elements where I wanted softer lighting in the "salon."

Next, I will go to white/red elements around the lower helm for night running.

Check 'em out at a boat show this winter, they usually have good deals at the shows too.
 
RT Firefly said:
Should
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That's what I'm discovering. Had my nephew (a licensed electrician) come over and put some new lights in living room. I am completely astounded at the differences in energy ratings in LEDS! I figure if they are so good in the home they would be awesome aboard. Seems too good to be true.
 
GoneFarrell said:
But house lights are usually a minor part of the load on the battery bank.
Click to expand...
Unless the 'boss' wants to have the salon lit up like the living room all night.

The water and sanitation system are known to be used. If I could figure out a better fridge system nirvana may be in reach. Until then more ice in the cooler will be used. I absolutely loathe being the first one in the morning to have to start up the Engine to charge up the batteries. It's always the trepidation of the first turn of the key....... click.
 
cappy208 said:
an anyone illuminate the differences in battery life between using LED vs regular bulbs while at anchor? I was concerned while out roaming around, not that I killed the house batteries, but just wondering if it's a valuable investment to change over to LED.
Click to expand...

LED's typically use 10-12% of what a conventional bulb uses for the same lumens.. totally worth is to save batteries in my book.. I converted ALL the bulbs in my Ocean Alexander to LED and would never go back.
HOLLYWOOD
 
@Gonefarrell: I will investigate the K figures. Something new to digest.

@Hollywood: Time to look at new tricks!

Thanks all :)
 
One caution...

We replaced some saloon, pilothouse, and stateroom reading lights with LEDs that were supposed to give equivalent light as the replaced incandescents but at significant power savings.

I'm assuming that we did reduce our power consumption but we also made other improvements at the time, particularly a new fridge, so don't really know.

But the lighting is significantly dimmer than before, to the point where I may have to redo the bulbs again.

Not on the boat now so can't give you the bulb/LED actual rating comparisons.

But something to watch for.
 
Cappy - Say goodbye to incandescent bulbs. Most countries are in the process of phasing them out due to their extreme inefficiency. The technology is centuries old.

Brazil and Venezuela started phasing then out in 2005. Australia and Europe began in 2009, and I'm fairly sure the US is beginning to phase them out this year as well. We all know you guys don't like interfering with the free market, but sometimes a change needs a little push along even if the benefits are glaringly obvious.
 
gaston said:
I converted my boat lights to LED and the wife forced me to return them to incandescent the LEDs were too white and not suited to the boat so she said :banghead:
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Interesting thought. Are 12V LEDs 'dimmable'? This happened to me tonight. I had to install a dimmer on the Kitchen switch to make it palatable. Are all LEDs dimmable?
 
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About LED you need to choose them depending on what kind of light you want to get. In the galley I want to clearly see what I am doing just to avoid cutting my fingers so it is cold white ( more blueish and strong light). However in the living room or the master cabin I prefer something softer so it is warm white ( more like an incandescent light giving a yellowish color). In the galley I have led strip while in the cabin it is led buld replacing standard incandescent bulbs.
Something to be aware, you have led bulbs working in different voltage so be sure to get the one that suit your usage (12v vs 110v).
For the saving, as an example take an anchor light, typically 30w, let say you light it during 10h it is 300wh just for your anchor light. Replace it with an equivalent led bulb of 5w and you will consume 50wh, 6 time less.
For light that are not intended to be on for a long time it does not make a lot of difference. But for light you intend to keep on the whole night long, the difference may be really huge.
One hint, here led bulbs are quite expensive. I bought some from chinese maker and it was like 5 to 10 times cheaper. Yes quality may not be the same but considering the price difference if one is dead it really does not matter and anyway they all come from oversea.
 
cappy208 said:
Interesting thought. Are 12V LEDs 'dimmable'? This happened to me tonight. I had to install a dimmer on the Kitchen switch to make is palatable. Are all LEDs dimmable?
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No not all, it will depend on the electronic behing the led itself. Some are and some are not.
 
Bill's right...it's the light temp that makes it a glaring light. I have 6000K LEDs in the ER and they put out great working light. They'd be WAY too bright for living quarters.

In the habitable spaces, I've used 2700-3500K LEDs and they're very comfortable. Someday, I'll replace the 3500s for 2700 as I like the softer, yellow lights for those spaces. I like the red/whites for the salon where I have my lower helm. They work great for keeping bugs at bay on a warm night but cast a skanky bordello look that some find appealing. :eek: :socool: :hide:

My lighting budget dropped to about 1/10th of my prior amps according to my SOC. It's been a huge difference...especially when I forget and leave the ER lights on overnight or all day long at anchor.

I also changed my anchor light to a photocell controlled LED. The aftermarket bulb dropped the current to 0.04A! That's less than 0.5 AH on a 10 hr night. It's not even noticed on my SOC. I'm usually the brightest anchor light in the anchorage.

I haven't bothered with changing my nav lights to LED since my engines are running and alternators charging during their operating hours.

PS. Don't forget your florescents. They can be replaced easily with LED strip lights. We did ours with leftovers from a kitchen under-cabinet installation. They are dimmable, warm white and work very well!
 
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I replaced 5 interior 25w 12v Edison screw incandescents, all 5 would draw less than one incandescent. Replaced the anchor light too, huge saving, especially as I installed an extra switch to turn off the 2 sets of instrument panel lights which were illuminating with the Nav Light switch "on". And it is bright.
 
We've gone all LED on boats, in home and in businesses. Many lighting proposals for energy savings that have been submitted to me over the years increased another cost such as incurring substantial labor or on Fluorescent destroying ballasts. We began just replacing all bulbs that burned out with LED and replacing any others in the set. Then we switched out everything left. I hate for a light to be out so I'm saved 80% of those incidents now. In businesses it saves so much labor over the course of time too. We've replaced all Fluorescent as well. Now there are no savings there, but so much more potential capability. When we get around to changing fixtures and not just bulbs it will be even better. Love that they're dimmable and directional in nature so a lot of potential. That leaves a lot of work still to be done on them and a very slow process. A lot of ballasts to eventually be removed and rewiring to be done. We did complete changeovers in one store and it worked out very well. It is costly but it's going to be done sometime so might as well move in that direction.
 
Follow the herd, it is right on this one. In the Eastern Caribbean where almost all boats anchor out all the time, the switch to LEDs has been universal. A few boats continue to use incandescents in fixtures which are rarely turned on, but otherwise use LEDs or fluorescents. The savings may not equal that of more efficient refrigeration, but it is painless.
 
cappy208 said:
@Gonefarrell: I will investigate the K figures. Something new to digest.
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As others have said, color temperature can vary according to purpose. We put a "rope" of ~5000°K "natural" white (sometimes aka "cool" aka "bright") LEDs in our engine room; great for task lighting. The rest of our interior LEDs are 2700°K "warm" lights, softer and more suitable for living spaces. The red LEDs, with fewer diodes on each disc, that we put in the flybridge lighting is better for night vision. The 3NM anchor light is probably ~5000°K and it's very BRIGHT! MUCH brighter than the original 3NM incandescent.


Conrad said:
But the lighting is significantly dimmer than before, to the point where I may have to redo the bulbs again.
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Yep, this is one where brightness measurements like lumens or candela can guide the purchase.


gaston said:
I converted my boat lights to LED and the wife forced me to return them to --- the LEDs were too white and not suited to the boat so she said
Click to expand...

That those pesky Kelvin color temperatures, again. Easily fixed.


cappy208 said:
Interesting thought. Are 12V LEDs 'dimmable'? This happened to me tonight. I had to install a dimmer on the Kitchen switch to make it palatable. Are all LEDs dimmable?
Click to expand...

All LEDs aren't, but many (maybe most, these days) are... and it depends more on what you dimmer mechanism is. There are (IIRC) three different kinds, and the more common recent one seems to work with most LEDs. At least it did in our case.


Two other issues to take into account are heat and voltage.

The earlier G4s that we installed in the interior and some of the red LEDs began to lose individual diodes, most likely from voltage swing on the boat. The replacements were from marinebeam.com, units said to be able to deal with 10-30VDC current... so there's enough play in there for both 12V and 24V systems, even at bulk-absorption charge voltage.

The earlier ones were also showing signs of excessive heat on the backplane, when we replaced those. The bits and pieces on the backplane of the new marinebeam systems appeared to be much more complicated than the earlier ones. I've forgotten most of everything I knew about circuirty 50 years ago, so I dunno what all that was... but presumably these new ones won't burn the boat down.

-Chris
 
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hollywood8118 said:
LED's typically use 10-12% of what a conventional bulb uses for the same lumens.. totally worth is to save batteries in my book.. I converted ALL the bulbs in my Ocean Alexander to LED and would never go back.
HOLLYWOOD
Click to expand...

Moi aussi. And there are legal LED nav lights and anchor lights out now as well.
We don't have huge battery reserves or a generator other than an Airbreeze wind gen, so it was important for us. No regrets at all.
:)
 
AusCan said:
Brazil and Venezuela started phasing then out in 2005. Australia and Europe began in 2009, and I'm fairly sure the US is beginning to phase them out this year as well. We all know you guys don't like interfering with the free market, but sometimes a change needs a little push along even if the benefits are glaringly obvious.
Click to expand...

The US passed legislation phasing out incandescents in 2007 (George Bush signed the bill). The timetable got jacked around with, and there are exceptions for specialty bulbs and high-efficiency incandescents (halogens), but run-of-the-mill incandescents are mostly gone from the US.
 
GoneFarrell said:
cappy, LEDs are about 1/10th the current draw vs. a tungsten filament, and run a lot cooler.

I put 2700K elements where I wanted softer lighting in the "salon."

Cappy,

Agree with Farrell. Our amp draw went from 10 to .1 in the main cabin as measured by the digital ampmeter. The lower kelvin temps give a warmer light as so many have said.

I used the Mr. Cheaps brand from eBay at $.99 each. I bought extras but never needed them.

Rob
Click to expand...
 
RT Firefly said:
I seem to recall some question as to whether or not LED's met USCG standards for navigational lighting but that may have changed.
Click to expand...

Ohh, I see a big discussion coming. Every navigation light on my sailboat, including anchor and steaming lights were LEDs. Even the for-deck floods. When I take possession of my Trawler next week I will start converting every light possible to LED. One BAY15D incandescent bulb consumes 25 watts, the same illumination from LEDs (Dr. LED SMD LED Replacement Bulb from Defender) consumes .2 watts. It's a no brainer.
 
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There are very few "win-win's" in day to day life where everyone comes out ahead. LED lights are one. We conserve energy in a very painless way. No sacrifice. We save money. We save the time and effort of changing so many burned out bulbs.
 
Last I checked, if you replace the whole assembly with a USCG led assembly it was fine. But replacing just the bulb was not as not the original fixture has been modified. Not agreeing , just stating what I found when I went to all LED. Also keep in mind RF noise if installed near electronics/pilot house etc. Cheaper LEDs don't have the voltage regulating circuits that allow the voltage swings like the higher quality (&price) ones. Just my experience as stated.
 
This is an example of what I used to convert interior overhead lighting fixtures from 1157 to LED...

product_20_big.jpg


I removed the old 1157 socket to make room for the LED , glued the element board to the reflector, wired it in to eliminate the socket connections.

The light is broadcast at a wide angle, doesn't really need a reflector like the stick-shaped ones that are built onto an 1157.

This kit has parts to make an easy connect to existing sockets, but I found that the old socket was in the way of best placement for the LED elements.
 
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Greetings,
Mr. Sea... "...the whole assembly with a USCG led assembly it was fine." That was something along the lines of what I vaguely remember. Just the LED alone did not comply with USCG regulations if installed in an existing socket. As I said, the law may have changed...

I am NOT questioning the effectiveness/performance of an LED, just mentioning what I perceive the law to be. I really don't think the USCG is going to board and inspect your nav' lights but...
 
Only time I can imagine the compliance issue coming up is during an accident investigation after a serious night time/limited visibility collision.
 
LED Lights

As Don mentioned, don't forget the anchor light. It stays on all night and may be your biggest draw - particularly if you forget to turn it off during the day. Most of your interior lights stay on just a few hours while the anchor light may be 8 to 12 (or more).

Paul
 
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