How to upgrade to LED cabin lights ?

[DaveB]

That is true, need a soder pencil and soder to do it.
Dave

just to add a note, I to used superbright led in the cabin, and running and anchor lights. and had to send some back because i thought they were bad bulbs, they werent. some of the bulbs are polarity sensitive. or if they don't light just switch the wires on your fixture and they will then function fine.

[Y.B.Normal]

I also had to switch the polarity in my lights. Appearently the factory doesn't always wire the lights correctly.
It may be overkill, but I replaced all my cabin light LEDs and also use 3 5-LED AA battery operated lights in various locations in the cabin for spot lighting. This way, if my daughter (or the skipper) leaves a light on for a long time, the house battery won't go dead. I also use the AA lights when the boat is stored or when I don't feel like switching on the main battery.
As posted in other places, you can buy these for under $3 each at Home Depot.

[Irafatsar]

I wasn't going to say anything but my entire boat was wired backwards. I couldn't find exactly where they did it so I had to just switch the leads to the battery. I had to cut and splice the in line fuse going to the panel. So is that double protection having a in-line fuse going to a fuse box with four separate fuses?. Is it a boat thing?

[curtis from carlsbad]

Thanks to everyone. I will double check that the oil reservoir isn't cracked. Response to Rich : The mechanic told me originally that he thought the oil on the skeg was normal but I wanted a diagnosis anyway and agreed to pay the computer diagnostic fee. He said the fee wouldn't be covered under the e-tech warranty unless a problem was found. I didn't want to risk my family out to sea with a bum engine so I just had to be 100% sure.

Response to Sub Ed: Remember the good old rig the control room for red then black days? (When going to PD).

[Boblee]

LEDS are polarity specific they are a diode that emits light as power passes though.

Laika the dome lights are like those in your car or truck and usually have a switch on them marked on/off/door and usually this switch is in the negative and the negative wire from the light goes to the common on the switch but by changing this wire to to one of switched terminals and the negative to the battery to the common you just wire the negative from the new red light to the other switched terminal which allows you to to have either or neither of the lights on but not both, easy.
I just don't know how much light they will put out as the marker lights aren't here yet, the 91 led's are at least twice as bright as the original fittings and a nice soft incandescent colour all it means is that for light you go to the one position but slide the switch either way.
Curtis
I don't believe oil should be leaking from your tank and you will find it is a warranty issue and yes it shows up on the cavitation plate as it leaks down the back (towards the boat) of the tank would have thought this fault would be fixed now as my motor was a 2006.

[Laika 26X]

Response to Sub Ed: Remember the good old rig the control room for red then black days? (When going to PD).

Curtis,

That's EXACTLY where I got the idea from! Spent MANY hours bent over the chart piloting in and out of the Firth of Clyde surfaced at night to avoid those Soviet AGM's! Taking bearings, plotting fixes, running DR's every 3 minutes (for an 18 hour stretch once!), all with the Control Room "Rigged for Red". Thank goodness I was 17 at the time, but my back still feels it!! Rig for Black at Periscope Depth was awesome, I had just a tiny red light to read the chart! Nothing else showing but the red instruments and occasional cigarette glow!

Boblee,
Ahhhhh....now I get it. Mr. Dunn seemed satisfied with the light output, that’s good enough for me. But if I’m that unhappy about it, I can always swap back the original incandescent. You can bet your bottom dollar the technology is only gonna get better anyway. I‘m a PCB Design Engineer for a company that makes hardened computers and displays for the military. I can tell you the LED technology is just scratching the surface of it’s golden age.

All,
FWIW, the Running Light LED’s I purchased from marinebeam.com are not polarity sensitive, and can be installed either way. They are designed in that manner. You can confirm this with Jeff over there.

“Sub” Ed

[milest]

hi,
I changed all lights inside and outside of cabin to "powerled" and "SMD" 5050 led strips.. now when I turn on all the lights on, İt takes about 3 Ah..remember only one cabin light takes 1.25 Ah (P=I*R) 10 watts bulb drived by 12.5 volts.Soon I will send the pics to the Mods page.
Safe sailing......

[elvatoli]

I bought some replacement lights (SACD) and a reading light fixture LED from Sailor Solutions and they are working fine

Hector

[opie]

Milest,

Sorry to be picky, but I hope to add to the discussion with a couple of technical notes. If any errors below, someone will let us know...

power = p = I(squared) x R
V = I x R

p = watts (that is the same as V x A if no power factor as in a purely resitive load)
(if so, then p = V x A
I = amps
R = resistance
V = volts

if regular incandescent cabin lamp is 10 watts resistive, then p =10watts = V x A, and therefore, if 12.5 volts, then A = 800 ma or 0.8 amps

Ah or amp hours is just amps x hours used or the capacity for such.

LEDs often run about 20ma for 1 LED and more ma for more LEDs. The SMD 5050 strips run 80 to 300 ma.



http://www.ledlightdisplay.com/SMD-5050 ... -LEDs.html

I think what you are saying is that you find you have a 3 amp load with all your lights on. And 3AH usage for every hour used. That is equivalent to 10 to 37 quantity of the SMD 5050 LED lights. That is a great increase in lighting with a great reduction in amperage, as the original 2 cabin lights in the MacX used 20 watts total or 1.6 amps.

[Hamin' X]

No power factor correction needed with DC circuit. Voltage is is normally represented by E. P(Watts)=I(Amps) * E(Voltage). Your P=I2R formula is usually used to determine loss, while P/E=I is used to determine device current usage. You are correct in the Ah usage.

~Rich

[David Mellon]

I just ordered three for my interior lights, my V berth is used for stowage only. I look forward to a reduction of glare as well as lower power usage, thanks for the posts!

[Boblee]

OPIE
My 90 led lights are rated at 300ma and on my ammeter thats roughly what it shows but when I hook the standard lamp supplied with the boat up it goes to at least 1.5 amps but a bit hard to tell, if all the lights are on (5 led's) it registers about the same as the standard globe which sounds about right.
I would imagine the standard globe would be about 18W but it's not marked, the 91 led fitting gives a far superior light to the standard which I always had trouble reading with and couldn't keep on due to the current draw.
By using the switch supplied on this fitting it gives a quick and easy to find light (white led) to live with and by sliding it the other way (red led) it's great for finding things or checking radios etc without attracting insects when moving in and out (or destroying night vision), at present I have one above the rear berth port side and one above the bow side of the table but will shortly replace a reading lamp I had installed earlier on the starbord side above the rear berth also.
It probably doesn't need 91 led's but they don't stock one with less so will just have to put up with too much light the v berth light and the head are both 36 led globe types in the standard fitting but will probably change one to the board type .
Not too sure about one led using 20ma as that cetainly doesn't gel with the 90led fitting (300ma) or even the 20led board which uses 200ma it appears they are all different and most importantly have different light outputs so maybe they should be rated in m amps and lumens.

[milest]

OPIE,

Sorry you are right...I mixed up the formulas...I used powerleds (2 for 1 cabin light) but for the same 20 w bulb lumen (around 250) 3 poweleds can be used as serial (9.3 volts) connected.I made a spot with 3 powerleds and it takes 250 mAh.I used square 4 led PCB and ON/OFF/ON switch; 2 for normal 2 for ambiance lightning

[opie]

Milest,

You show me yours and I'll show you mine...... videos or pics, that is. I put in LED lighting like many are doing and it looks very nice. We left the incandescent original lights in place but we almost never use them now. I put an LED spot over the stove and one over the table and 36 LED mood lights on both sides of the boat under the "lip" of the interior shell about waist high. I'll take a video in the next couple of days.

As for the details in your reply, I just can not sit on my hands and not ask questions. Sorry.

"I used powerleds (2 for 1 cabin light)" - can you give a model number and website for this item?

"3 powerleds can be used as serial (9.3 volts) connected" - what does this mean? You can serial LED's or parallel them and when in series each will drop some voltage across them. Are you saying you dropped about 4 volts over the LED's leaving 9.3 votls?

"I made a spot with 3 powerleds and it takes 250 mAh" - Not sure what way you measured this. If the LED's are in series, that means the 250 ma goes through each LED and that seems way high. And, I have to protest the use of mAh for any LEd rating. mAh can not be used for this purpose as the "h" or "hours" part of the three letters stands for just that, "time." Either used time or potentially used time. A DVM measurement of a LED milliamps will not read any "hours." Am I missing something? (You will get old and fuzzy brained like me someday...)

"I used square 4 led PCB and ON/OFF/ON switch; 2 for normal 2 for ambiance lightning" - What is a PCB? Details or web link please. Wiring diagram would be nice.

Thanks, and thanks for putting up with these questions...

[Kelly Hanson East]

Just one addition to the tech stuff. The formulae for current draw and power (energy per unit time, usually Watts) are all correct above.

Dont try to infer direct 'brightness' comparisons between standard bulbs and LED bulbs based on watts, however.

LEDS are much more efficient wrt to electrical power to brightness (technically called luminance) than standard bulbs (which is basically the reason people convert to LEDS)

A rough-order-magnitude guide is that an LED is about 10x 'brighter' per electrical power consumed than an incandescent bulb