12V led vs incandescent

18 LED's in my last boat from Ikea, way cheaper than so called marine lights (photos here). that was 11 years ago and the new owner reports they are still good. I made the exact same conversion on DIRT FREE two years ago ..... love them.

I got the LED replacements for my interior lights (and added some additional ones) off eBay or other internet sources. With a little looking you can find reliable LEDs for little money. Granted, some may require some modifications to the light fixtures for the LEDs to fit.

The replacements for my USCG specified lights (nav, anchor) came from a source that advertised USCG compliant replacements.

The interior lights were less than a buck a piece (sometimes much less). After 3 years, there have been no issue or failures.

The USCG compliant ones were in the multitudes of dollars.

LED lighting is still maturing. There is a lot of crap out there, and some good stuff too. We still have to be diligent sorting it out.

About 9yrs ago I put LED in my my boat, several different brands, some expensive, some cheaper. Some turned out good, some not so good. And it did not correlate well to price.

I just finished building a new dirt house. Electrician installed all new LED bulbs using the std screw-in base. He had done the vetting and said they were good. And they are. Very good light. When I got the house powered up, just for giggles went around and turned on EVERY light then checked amp draw at power feed with a clamp meter. Something like 40 bulbs?? and total draw of about 2amps!!! WIN!! Place looked like a christmas tree.

So back to the boat. I'm planning a minor refit in the boat shed this winter and intend to revisit interior and nav lighting. Keep the good ones, but upgrade the crappy ones. A little shopping on the net leaves me with the impression that the boat world LED offerings are still in flux. I guess we still need to do a good bit of vetting.

Anyone settled on a good vendor that covers the LED marine market? Seems to be a bunch out there, but some may just sell Ebay type crap but have a fancy website...

We've had good luck with Scandvik. We purchase them from Lewis Marine. If you're buying retail, BOW has them as well. Scandvik is pretty widely carried in other areas too.

For home and business, we've purchased from Smart Energy Solutions http://savenergys.com/ . There is a tremendous difference in quality of LED and I'm not sure how one can really know.

Ski I wouldn't know the difference between a good or bad LED. With that disclaimer out in the open superbrightled.com has met or exceeded all my expectations at a price I've been happy with.

CPseudonym said:

Ski I wouldn't know the difference between a good or bad LED. With that disclaimer out in the open superbrightled.com has met or exceeded all my expectations at a price I've been happy with.

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I've purchased from them as well and been satisfied, before finding a good local source. Look at warranty's as well. Minimum of 2 years, preferred 5.

Like a lot of "marine" stuff, the prices on LED replacements can be very high compared to the non-marine equivalent. Yeah, for USCG approved LED replacements, ok fine. But LED replacements for common interior lighting bulbs that cost more the $20 ea. C'mon!

Right now some companies are just gouging.