Interior Lighting

[Neil McDonald]

Having thought about installing Sensibulb LED's to replace the five power hungry Xenon MR11s in my cabin, (Yes I know that the Sensibulbs will not fit the MR11 fixture) I have now decided to use Alpenglow dual power (7W & 9W) fluorescent fixtures instead. Surprisingly the Alpenglow's lumens/amp (approx 700) is very nearly a good as the Sensibulb's (approx 800) and my judgement is that a couple of the Alpenglow units strategically located on the cabin ceiling will give much better area lighting.

I am now looking for neat looking small diameter white plastic duct that can readily be "glued" to the ceiling to hide the power cables feeding these two units. Before everyone jumps in to comment on my lighting selection, I would appreciate ideas on where to find and how to attach such a cable duct system.

 

[Steve Dion]

Neil: I replaced all of the recessed lights in my Hunter Vision 36 with AlpenGlow. Bob made custom units that ended up being direct replacements. I now have the ability to control each light seperately and also got the Red LED option too. I also had AlpenGlow units on my H'31. They are very bright is easy on the batteries.

For those other lights a photo would help.

 

[Neil McDonald]

Cable Ducts

For those other lights a photo would help.

Steve, This is not meant to be a change-out. I am keeping the Xenons because they are very nice to use in a marina when power consumption is not an issue. What I really need is a ceiling mounted cable ducting system for the new fixtures.

Did you find that two Alpenglow units provided adequate lighting for the main cabin?

 

[Steve Dion]

Yes! We one over the settee and one over the sink (that was on a '85 H'31). I would think if you had one over the sink area and another over the table you would be good to go.

Everyone that was aboard the boat always commented on the amount of lighting.

I am trying to figure out what to use for our reading spots. Alpenglow has some nice ones, but I as not sure about the style. I saw some nice units at the boat show this week from Imtra, but they were about $130 ea. A little rich for my blood.

 

[Brian Schwerdt]

Neil,

I used a standard wiremold conduit to hide the wires when I installed a solar charger on my boat. This is the same stuff used in houses to add wiring to existing walls, and can be found at any hardware store. Some can be painted to match the surface color.

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs...langId=-1&catalogId=10053&productId=100657480

 

[duality]

http://www.gesecurity.com/portal/si...30730?selectedID=7130&seriesyn=true&seriesID=

mike

 

[Ariel]

Neil,

I don't know the interior configuration of your boat, but I offer our examples of interior lighting for ideas for your boat.

To make the boat more "livable" (we spend six months or more on our boat each summer) we installed Alpenglow units in the area under the side cabinets in the main cabin for reading and for general light (see attached pictures taken at night). The lights project a wide light area that provides light around the cabin and, being close to the seat has ample light for reading. Being under the cabinet, there was an easy way to route wire from the lighting circuit without having exposed wire.

We left the original lights alone as we found that we never use them any more.

Alpenglow also has kits so that you can replace old lamps or convert lamps to 12v compact bulbs. You will see two lamps that I converted from 110v to 12v. These are the one in the corner and the one on the table that we use when dinning.

Our boat had a 15 amp circuit breaker for cabin lights and more than adequate wire size for the addition of more lamps but this should be verified for each boat.

We have Sensibulbs in the aft bunks for reading but find the Alpenglow light color far more attractive in the main cabin.

Hope this helps or gives you some ideas.

Dave
s/v Ariel

 

[Stu Jackson]

In answer to your question, Neil

We used plastic wiremold material from Ace Hardware. See: http://c34.org/projects/projects-aquavite.html

Scroll down and check out the photos of the lighting upgrade we made.

 

[Neil McDonald]

Thanks

Thanks everyone. The Wiremold 300 series seems to be the best option and is available locally from Home Depot. Having seen Dave's very nice lighting pics, I am now wondering if I should consider indirect lighting instead of overhead!