AC and DC engine room lights?

[TONTOROSS]

Originally Posted by djmarchand

I think that going all DC LED lighting makes sense. But you need to pull all of the old AC wiring back to its origin. I wouldn't just terminate with a wire nut or something.

David

X2. I'm replacing ALL AC lighting with LED. Truly makes a difference.

[diver dave]

I love the old fluorescents on shipwrecks. You can use the 4 foot tubes as light sabers and fight your scuba buddy.
But, as far as USING fluorescents onboard, its so 50's. These things emit RF energy, contain mercury, and just have no real place in the modern world. LED's have eliminated their dominance in energy efficiency, and there are even drop in LED tube replacements.

i don't see any need to run AC around either, since LEDs will work on low voltage DC just fine.

edit: just save one incandescent for when you take a lightning hit and every semiconductor fails.

[dhays]

Originally Posted by Larry M

Bill: Here’s a thread on installing led lights in the engine room. Post 5 picks up where Nautibeaver, a 68’ Nordlund, installed 1 meter long, low proflie lights for pretty cheap. We did the same after seeing his results and couldn’t be happier.

http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s...hts-14859.html

I had problems with the DC lights in my aft lazarrette when that thread was going on. I ended up ordering the cheap LED strip lights and fixtures for them. Then I found out that the light issue I had was stupid operator error. I am still thinking about mounting the strip lights on the sides of my ER to give more light on the side of the engine. Sometimes I need to use a flashlight to check the level of clean oil.

Suck to get old.

[Moonfish]

We had the same set up you had when we bought the boat. Had a friend who had some extra AC LEDs he bought at Home Depot, so those replaced the old fluorescent fixtures. Then replaced the DC lights with LEDs from Doctor LED. They are very bright and have red light as well.

[wkearney99]

I've just replaced the DC engine room lights. There's 5 of them. I used a red/white switchable 'dome light' replacement board from Marine Beam.

Replacement was pretty straightforward, just remove the four screws holding the cover in place and swap it out. The replacement uses the same sort of socket, with a short bit of wire connected to the board. Plug in the socket first, peel the sticky tape off the back of the board's foam, tuck the wires up above the board and then wedge the board into the housing.

The hardest part was squirming around to the ones outboard of the engines. I picked up a foam folding work pad a while back and it's offered perfect cushioning to get to everything.

I used a laser thermometer to check the temps before and after. I did the first one with the lights having been off (for better than a month). Temp on the fixture was 85F. After having the replacement installed for about an hour the temp read 85.4F on the board itself. That's hardly any heat at all.

I left the rest of the lights illuminated to get them up to temp. Having run for about an hour, the temp on them read 149F on the housing!

The one thing I didn't take was a picture with the room lit the old way vs the new. I'll try to get a shot of the new lights.

[wkearney99]

Now I'm debating the fluorescent fixtures. I finally managed to find a source from Aqua Signal for a direct, drop-in replacement assembly. For which they want ~$80 plus shipping from Germany. Oh, and there's only TWO in stock at the factory and it'd be 7 weeks lead time to have more made. Apparently these are more commonly used over there using 240V so getting 110V is uncommon.

I never like getting into custom-built gear for what may be replaceable items. If/when you need another it ends up with even longer delivery cycles...

So I'm going to entertain the idea of using LED replacement tubes and re-wiring to skip the ballast. I've done that in other fixtures so it's not a big deal. Changing out the fixtures entirely would likely introduce other wiring labor and I'd rather avoid that. If just because I'm not looking to make work for myself. But also because when you start moving wiring around you often invite unexpected complications...

[wkearney99]

I should add these red/white switchable units require no wiring changes. You toggle between red and white using your existing on/off switch. They default to red when they've been off. If you want white you just toggle the power off/on and they come up white. You need to leave them off for ~3 seconds and then they'll revert to red.

Coming on red helps avoid losing night vision. I went with these to allow for any unexpected night-time forays into the engine room.

[wkearney99]

Originally Posted by diver dave

I love the old fluorescents on shipwrecks. You can use the 4 foot tubes as light sabers and fight your scuba buddy.
But, as far as USING fluorescents onboard, its so 50's. These things emit RF energy, contain mercury, and just have no real place in the modern world. LED's have eliminated their dominance in energy efficiency, and there are even drop in LED tube replacements.

i don't see any need to run AC around either, since LEDs will work on low voltage DC just fine.

edit: just save one incandescent for when you take a lightning hit and every semiconductor fails.

Heh, agreed on getting rid of the fluorescents. Don't know that I'd play the lightsaber game, what with the mercury and all, but yes it'd be a laugh.

Fair point about lighting and chips. It'd be interesting to hear from anyone that had been hit by lightning if it also fried their LED lighting. I'm guessing it'd be just as likely to fry regular bulbs too if they'd been on during the strike.

[sdowney717]

I have caged lights with clear lens glass that screws into the bases.
They were setup as DC incandescent and they were awful, dim, expensive bulbs using lots of power. they also seemed to burn out soon.

I changed the wire to AC with ground. Connected to AC power. Screwed in 120vac LED 60 watt bulbs, and huge improvement in light output, nice and bright. Existing white handle Carling switch on the panel rated for DC or AC, so it worked fine.

I have 2 inverters and a gen, so as long as I have DC power, I will have AC power.
Either inverter can with simple push of a switch be turned on to run the lights.
All outlets (which includes these engine room lights), I wired up with a DPDT on-off-on 20 amp switch.

I can select the second inverter to power all outlets and lights or leave switch to the default of a user selected shore-gen-first inverter as the power source.

Second inverter is maybe 400 watts was a Minuteman PC UPS that I modified, first inverter 3000 watts. I use the second inverter to run my NAV PC. It can also run all my LED AC lights and my LED TV and charge up the phone at the same time. I put a couple wall mounted AC reading lights on swing arms in the main salon, with the 60 watt LED AC bulbs, gives lots of nice warm light.

[Mako]

Am curious if anyone has converted the entire boat to 120/230VAC instead of 12/24VDC lighting fixtures. Domestic LED bulbs are available anywhere in the world but DC bulbs/fixtures are tougher to replace, plus our inverters are rather reliable these days.

[sdowney717]

Originally Posted by makobuilders

Am curious if anyone has converted the entire boat to 120/230VAC instead of 12/24VDC lighting fixtures. Domestic LED bulbs are available anywhere in the world but DC bulbs/fixtures are tougher to replace, plus our inverters are rather reliable these days.

I have wanted to do that. And you can get cheap dimmable LED bulbs to work with easily obtainable parts and fixtures anywhere.

My existing overhead lights, there might be enough room to use an AC 120v LED corn cob bulb with a double bayonet base, B15D. They would also be dimmable. And put out more light than the 12vdc bulbs. The AC power can also be GFCI protected, so no shock hazard.