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/specs/G4%28B%29-xWHP10-D.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.
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