I'm sure I'm not the first to slobber over LEDs, but in this case these upgrades may be a niche that others can use. My boat has no double red/white fixtures, so these upgrades allow me to take advantage of the benefits without any modification. Including fantastic additional illumination, 1/10th the power usage, no heat, ability to use existing fixtures while preserving night vision, and increased reliability.
I put a new Marinebeam bulb in one of the bulkhead lights. It's a dual LED, red and warm white. All the technology is in the bulb. Turn on the switch, it's red with 3 red LEDs. Turn the switch off and on and it changes to warm white with 6 LEDs. The white is brighter than the old 18 watt incandescent, but uses only 1.6 watts. The red part uses just .6 watts. And no heat. The old 18 watt bulbs in these lights were little heaters.
The white is brighter even than my Imtra tower LED bulb in another fixture, which is rated at 2.5 watts and double the lumens! How can this be? Genius - the Marinebeam has all of the LEDs firing down, instead of omni. Yet it still floods. Perfect for this fixture type.
And it's only $17. Plus freight.
I also changed the control panel lights to red LED. The old ones were std incandescent 3 watt wedge bulbs, behind red plastic lenses hidden under the hoods. These new wedge LEDs are red, so I removed the old lenses, which were burned and cloudy anyway. The bulbs use 2 watts total for all 3, and put out enough light to illuminate the galley, doubling as a galley red light fixture.
I found them at "Super Bright LEDs".
I also got festoon bulbs from them for the 2 aft overheads. $7 ea. They really light the place up. Much more than the old 10 watt incandescents. That's just those 2 fixtures on in the pic. These LEDs also only fire down, thereby emitting all of their light from the fixture, instead of depending partially on reflection inside the fixture. Yet you can't tell any emission character difference by looking at the fixture/lens; you'd swear it is an incandescent.
And it's a nice warm light.
And the overheads use 1 watt each now, instead of 10 each.
I put a new Marinebeam bulb in one of the bulkhead lights. It's a dual LED, red and warm white. All the technology is in the bulb. Turn on the switch, it's red with 3 red LEDs. Turn the switch off and on and it changes to warm white with 6 LEDs. The white is brighter than the old 18 watt incandescent, but uses only 1.6 watts. The red part uses just .6 watts. And no heat. The old 18 watt bulbs in these lights were little heaters.
The white is brighter even than my Imtra tower LED bulb in another fixture, which is rated at 2.5 watts and double the lumens! How can this be? Genius - the Marinebeam has all of the LEDs firing down, instead of omni. Yet it still floods. Perfect for this fixture type.
And it's only $17. Plus freight.
I also changed the control panel lights to red LED. The old ones were std incandescent 3 watt wedge bulbs, behind red plastic lenses hidden under the hoods. These new wedge LEDs are red, so I removed the old lenses, which were burned and cloudy anyway. The bulbs use 2 watts total for all 3, and put out enough light to illuminate the galley, doubling as a galley red light fixture.
I found them at "Super Bright LEDs".
I also got festoon bulbs from them for the 2 aft overheads. $7 ea. They really light the place up. Much more than the old 10 watt incandescents. That's just those 2 fixtures on in the pic. These LEDs also only fire down, thereby emitting all of their light from the fixture, instead of depending partially on reflection inside the fixture. Yet you can't tell any emission character difference by looking at the fixture/lens; you'd swear it is an incandescent.
And it's a nice warm light.
And the overheads use 1 watt each now, instead of 10 each.
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