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One of the first things I did on my old boat was replace the existing bulb fixtures with LED light fixtures. It made a huge diffence in my energy budget. I could run 6 led lights and only use the same ammount of or slightly less engergy than one of the old bulbs used. Also there was little to no heat generated by the LED's which was nice here in South Carolina as it is pretty warm most of the year and it kept a little more heat out of the cabin. The downside of the LED fixtures I got is that they were a cool white color an though they generated a lot of light I never felt comfortable reading by them. I could but you just barely had to strain to do so.
They are the J U M B O High Powered 24 LED Aquarium, Reptile & Dome & Utility Lights on this page http://superlumination.com/fixtures.htm
He gave a pretty glowing report on them so I purchased one of them to test on Valkyr. You can purchase for 2.99 an adapter base that allows you to just replace the stock bulbs with one of these. When it arrived we tested it in the galley fixture and it in my opionion was actually slightly brighter than the stock filiment bulb. I purchased 8 more LED units and adapter bases to replace the rest of the bulbs on Valkyr. At about 18 dollars cost per fixture between the cost of the LED and the base it is a bit pricey but with the goal of energy independence while living at anchor it seems practical. It should reduce power usage for interior lights by 80 to 90% and actually increase light output by some small ammount. The beam in the fixtures is 120 degrees so it is not a real narrow spot light like a lot of leds are so this was a good thing. The LED I got a warm white that puts out about 90 to 110 Lumens all in one direction. I was very impressed with the test bulb I got. The brightness was awesome and the light color wasn't the typical LED white but very much like the original bulbs only or I should say maybe a bit crisper. Thats not a very good description but about all I can come up with.
One problem I did run into is that the socket in the fixture and the base with the bulb in it didn't align the LED pointing straight down at the counter. Instead it was pointed about 30 from verticle back torward the companionway. This isn't a problem with a stock bulb as it isn't directional like a LED is. I ended up disasembling the fixtures to see if I could rotate the socket to allow the LED to point straight down. It was actaully a fairly simple process. There is one set screw that holds the socket into the base. I removed it totally, rotated the socket and will use a drop of superglue or other adhesive to fix the socket in place instead of a set screw.
I am looking forward to replacing all the bulbs this coming weekend and seeing how it looks with them all running at night.
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I got all the bulbs switched out about 6 weeks ago and the new bulbs just light the whole boat up if they are all on. No problem reading by them either. all in all I am very satisfied with them.
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I thought I would update this thread.
I just ran accross these products... thought it might be interesting
for
some of you 🙂 They are a waterproof high power LED
http://www.oznium.com/marine-led-light
interesting light maybe for mounting on the spreaders?
I actually have 12 inch non waterproof version of these that I haven't installed yet on valkyr.. When I tested it, it seemed very bright to me.. No real world experience with it though.
http://www.superbrightleds.com.....2Fwlfa.htm
[Image Can Not Be Found]
J U M B O
High Powered 24 LED Aquarium, Reptile Dome Utility Lights
This is just an expansion of my first post on these LED fixtures.
I've
actually used these in my old boat.. they just sip power but they also
are not that bright. Even only a 3ft or so away from one directly under
it I have to strain just a bit to read by it. Also it is a very cool
white light with the super white one. however for non detailed area
lighting they work great and are waterproof.. they sell them to use
underwater in aquariums. They also have a very long pigtail on them to
tie into power with. They are pretty inexpesive. I also got some of
these in red on my last boat to use as night light when going below from
on watch so that you could heat water or get a bite before going back
on watch and not ruining your night vision. For light quality I like
some of the newer brighter bulbs out. Howver these are good and a bit
cheaper than most of the newer ones.
http://superlumination.com/fixtures.htm
If you go to any of these sites you should look around... There are a bunch of products that they have that would work as drop in replacemtents to a lot of normal bulbs on our boats as well as a lot of cool products that would adapt to boat life 🙂
Be creative.
It would be cool if I could get some kickback from these companies 🙂 lol. I've sent a lot of people to them over the last couple years. These are the ones that seemed to have the best pricing that I could find. In general there are about half or less of the cost of the same products or similar products other places. However it has been close to a year since I did a exhaustive search for comparitive pricing.. If anyone else has a favorite vendor that sells LED Lighting cheaply then post a link on this thread.
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Scott Carle said:
One of the first things I did on my old boat was replace the existing bulb fixtures with LED light fixtures. It made a huge diffence in my energy budget. I could run 6 led lights and only use the same ammount of or slightly less engergy than one of the old bulbs used. Also there was little to no heat generated by the LED's which was nice here in South Carolina as it is pretty warm most of the year and it kept a little more heat out of the cabin. The downside of the LED fixtures I got is that they were a cool white color an though they generated a lot of light I never felt comfortable reading by them. I could but you just barely had to strain to do so.
They are the J U M B O High Powered 24 LED Aquarium, Reptile & Dome & Utility Lights on this page http://superlumination.com/fixtures.htm They are totally waterproof and designed to be used underwater if needed.
Well a few years have passed since I bought those fixtures...technology has improved. I had a friend that went on a LED testing spree that found these bulbs
http://superbrightleds.com/spe......htm#OTHER
He gave a pretty glowing report on them so I purchased one of them to test on Valkyr. You can purchase for 2.99 an adapter base that allows you to just replace the stock bulbs with one of these. When it arrived we tested it in the galley fixture and it in my opionion was actually slightly brighter than the stock filiment bulb. I purchased 8 more LED units and adapter bases to replace the rest of the bulbs on Valkyr. At about 18 dollars cost per fixture between the cost of the LED and the base it is a bit pricey but with the goal of energy independence while living at anchor it seems practical. It should reduce power usage for interior lights by 80 to 90% and actually increase light output by some small ammount. The beam in the fixtures is 120 degrees so it is not a real narrow spot light like a lot of leds are so this was a good thing. The LED I got a warm white that puts out about 90 to 110 Lumens all in one direction. I was very impressed with the test bulb I got. The brightness was awesome and the light color wasn't the typical LED white but very much like the original bulbs only or I should say maybe a bit crisper. Thats not a very good description but about all I can come up with.
One problem I did run into is that the socket in the fixture and the base with the bulb in it didn't align the LED pointing straight down at the counter. Instead it was pointed about 30 from verticle back torward the companionway. This isn't a problem with a stock bulb as it isn't directional like a LED is. I ended up disasembling the fixtures to see if I could rotate the socket to allow the LED to point straight down. It was actaully a fairly simple process. There is one set screw that holds the socket into the base. I removed it totally, rotated the socket and will use a drop of superglue or other adhesive to fix the socket in place instead of a set screw.
I am looking forward to replacing all the bulbs this coming weekend and seeing how it looks with them all running at night.
Good deal on these lights Scott
could you be a bit more descriptive on which one fits the stock lights on a DE
also could you point me to the "base" you talked about and maybe a little sketck or even a photo of how you did this project.
I woulld like to change all lighting on my boat to led.
Thanks
Martin
SV DE38 "Sea Pirate"
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http://www.superbrightleds.com.....i-pin.html
I don't have the specific part number written down on the bases. however at the bottom of the web page you will get to if you follow the above link are some bases for M4 bulbs. the section is labeled
G4/MR16/MR11 to BA15 Adapter
You will need to take an existing bulb to west marine or an auto part store and match the base to a standard replacement bulb and look at the model number of that bulb. Then you will need to pick the appropriate BA15 base type from the led site to match that. If I remember correctly I called the LED people and told them what the replacement bulb was and they told me which base I needed.
They also have entire bases that you can buy that you could pull the existing base out of the fixture and replace the entire thing with a G4 base. Personally I like just getting the adapter to fit the existing base. That way if I'm some crazy place that doesn't have LED bulbs I can just pull the LED bulb and adapter out and put a standard filament bulb back in.
Since I bought the G4-xwhp10 bulbs and installed them on valkyr it looks like they have come out with a G4-xwhp15 bulb that is about 30% brighter with 15 high power leds on it rather than the 10 that I got. It draws .2 amps compared to the .195 amps that mine do so power draw is almost the same.. It has a 120 degree beam at about 160 lumen for the warm white color.. I think mine puts out about 110 lumen or thereabouts. I Love ours and would get them again but if there is a brighter alternative I would jump on it. If I buy replacements it will be the new brighter 15 led replacements.
Sorry to took me so long to get back to you. I was at the hospital on the 15th becoming a new daddy. 🙂
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[quote="Scott Carle"]
I thought I would update this thread.
I just ran accross these products…thought it might be interesting
for
some of you:) They are a waterproof high power LED
http://www.oznium.com/marine-led-light
interesting light maybe for mounting on the spreaders?
I actually have 12 inch non waterproof version of these that I haven't installed yet on valkyr.. When I tested it,it seemed very bright to me.. No real world experience with it though.
J U M B O
High Powered 24 LED Aquarium,Reptile Dome Utility Lights
This is just an expansion of my first post on these LED fixtures.
I've
actually used these in my old boat.. they just sip power but they also
are not that bright. Even only a 3ft or so away from one directly under
it I have to strain just a bit to read by it. Also it is a very cool
white light with the super white one. however for non detailed area
lighting they work great and are waterproof.. they sell them to use
underwater in aquariums. They also have a very long pigtail on them to
tie into power with. They are pretty inexpesive. I also got some of
these in red on my last boat to use as night light when going below from
on watch so that you could heat water or get a bite before going back
on watch and not ruining your night vision. For light quality I like
some of the newer brighter bulbs out. Howver these are good and a bit
cheaper than most of the newer ones.
http://superlumination.com/fixtures.htm
If you go to any of these sites you should look around…There are a bunch of products that they have that would work as drop in replacemtents to a lot of normal bulbs on our boats as well as a lot of cool products that would adapt to boat life:)
Be creative.
It would be cool if I could get some kickback from these companies:) lol. I've sent a lot of people to them over the last couple years. These are the ones that seemed to have the best pricing that I could find. In general there are about half or less of the cost of the same products or similar products other places. However it has been close to a year since I did a exhaustive search for comparitive pricing.. If anyone else has a favorite vendor that sells LED Lighting cheaply then post a link on this thread.
WoW! thank you so much for Red Led Lights, i really appreciate it! and i just got my lights for the gauges right now, so hopefully i will have time to go out and get them done.
alright so now i bought the cubby hole light, lol but i don’t know how to install it, i will make a search to see if n e one did it, plus viro said he will do my lights for me!!!!thnx guyswill show pix when done! [Image Can Not Be Found]
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They are a waterproof high power LED: http://www.oznium.com/marine-led-light
As they're waterproof … perhaps the cool white 6500K marine LED lights may be used as spreader lights and possibly a white steaming light but, have yet to work out how to use a similar white for an all-round anchor light.
Asked Oznium if their red,green and white 6500K lights are legally acceptable as port,starboard and aft navigation lights … they replied,'We have no way of knowing marine requirements so can't really answer that question. A lot of people use our lights on their boats with no problem.'
There's an interesting LED assortment at Scintiluna.
Martin – DE38 Cutter s/v Eclipse
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Ok the link to scintiluna leads to a link to amazon and they have the same bulbs and adapters that I used on Valkyr for less than half the cost from when I got them superbrightleds.com 3 or 4 years ago
and
There is actually several versions from about 120 lumens to almost 300 lumens. I have the 120 lumen versions and they are actually brighter than the stock filiment bulbs that were originally in the boat.
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They are a waterproof high power LED: http://www.oznium.com/marine-led-light
here is an interesting and low cost option if your more do it yourself:) I think this is the bulb that is in the above fixture. I wonder if you put the voltage regulator below decks on the wire to it and just potted this think in epoxy and glued it to the under side of the spreaders as is how it would work:) It would be low profile for sure:)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/160866104750
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1pc-20.....5d3b76593f
think these things get pretty hot.. operating temps are up to 120 degrees Celsius.
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Hello again.
I am concerned that the standard navigation lights on my DE38 are too low and/or too small/dim, so I am looking at replacement alternatives. LED is undoubtedly the way to go so I wonder who else has gone through this decision.
For the P/S lights the height above the water may be OK if the lights are very bright. The alternative location are: Bowsprit mounted two-color, mast head try-color or light boards. It's probably simple enough to get a larger/brighter stern light and keep stern cap rail location.
Thoughts? Experience? All advice will be gratefully received.
Fair winds?
Bob
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We did the LED thing on Valkyr.. mounted on front of pulpit up front we just replaced the bulb in a regular fixture with one I bought at west marine on sale for 14 dollars or so. works great. Same on rear, I think we just replaced the bulb in a standard fixture already there. It was mounted to a board that was clamped over the top of the dingy davits. We moved it to the aft edge of the 200 watt solar panel we installed over the davits. Removed the board to do that. Also works great. Never got around replacing the mast head bulbs. Unless the fixture is busted I would totally just replace the bulls.. cost you under 30 dollars. A decent 3way led fixture is going to be pricey for up there if you get a good quality one. Or it was a year an a half ago last time I checked.
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Scott
I see that the LED units are pricey. I do not have a mast head anchor light at all, so must put one in and will go for a LED fixture.
Contemplating going the whole hog with a combo tri-light (RGW) nav light with white all round above or below. These are pricy, but what the heck!
I really don't like the standard DE fixtures which are pretty low down and rather small, so something has to give. The all in one mast head unit at least gets the job done. But is it too high! Never happy.
Cheers
Bob
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I don't think there are any standard DE fixtures. I'm willing to bet anything installed at the factory was replaced many many years ago. I have an AquaSignal? maybe lol... on the tip of the bow pulpit. Also have a crazy complicated mast head tri signal with custom control panel, is many years old but I would be scared to even guess how much it cost as it had to be very high end back then.. Looks really old school now though.
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