cabin led lights

Spyro said:
Replaced all my festoon bulbs with cheepies from ebay several years ago. They cost pennies, only one failed and it was a dry joint on the board fixed in 2 mins with a bit of soldering. The rest are as bright as the day I put them in. I can now confidently leave lights on and now worry about using up loads of battery juice.
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Ditto- including the pesto anchor light. Only point I'd make is that when I used a glue gun to place SMDs into the camper flouro cases, they were warm enough to come loose and drop onto the diffusers where they happily remain.

2014-04-13 08.48.53.jpg
 
Chris_Robb said:
Just a quick pointer to newcomers to LEDs.

The colour of the light is referred to as a Kelvin (K) factor ie the equivalent heat of a tungsten filiament . The higher the figure the whiter or colder the light is. I would use for living areas Warm white - the warmest available is 2700K for sitting areas - and 3000K for working areas - both will do - but I think 3000K a little harsh - but still acceptable over white -( 4-5000K) and cool white Pretty horrid (6-7000K) Horrid Horrid!
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Each to their own, but I would think carefully before buying "warm white" 2700K. We are generally a bit attuned to yellow lighting having all been brought up on incandescent, and perhaps some of us have been scared by low CRI cold white LEDs which can look awful. If you get good quality LEDs and fixtures I would strongly urge you to get 3000K minmimum for interior lighting, and perhaps be brave and go to 3200 or 3400. Then let your brain adjust to the fact that this is nicer than the yellow/amber of "warm white" of the olden days.
 
Graham_Wright said:
Look at this;- http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/321466726991

I bought a couple of these for our camper van. They take standard SMD strip leds (which are available in a variety of colours). They are discrete - perhaps too discrete. The packaging is expensive (reasonably so). If you want more than one, order together.
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Ohh, that's nice. You're giving me ideas! :)
 
Graham_Wright said:
Look at this;- http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/321466726991

I bought a couple of these for our camper van. They take standard SMD strip leds (which are available in a variety of colours). They are discrete - perhaps too discrete. The packaging is expensive (reasonably so). If you want more than one, order together.
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Ah - that's better - I was not happy with the ones that had a sticky stripo on the back - which intevitably would come unstuck. So thanks for that - just redoing our kitchen and wondering how to mount them!
 
jfm said:
Each to their own, but I would think carefully before buying "warm white" 2700K. We are generally a bit attuned to yellow lighting having all been brought up on incandescent, and perhaps some of us have been scared by low CRI cold white LEDs which can look awful. If you get good quality LEDs and fixtures I would strongly urge you to get 3000K minmimum for interior lighting, and perhaps be brave and go to 3200 or 3400. Then let your brain adjust to the fact that this is nicer than the yellow/amber of "warm white" of the olden days.
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Quite a personal thing I think. I find the cool whites difficult to see/read by - something to do with the single wavelength light? I cannot see a thing in my engine room with 4000k lights, so am replacing them. Just recently we have been changing all the main lights in the house and I bought some at 3000k and some at 2700k. Her in doors made me take all the 3000K ones out and replace them - this in living areas rather than work areas. I agree with you that for Kitchen or work place 3000k may be better - but whiter still? I am not sure. As you say you get used to it........
 
Chris_Robb said:
Ah - that's better - I was not happy with the ones that had a sticky stripo on the back - which intevitably would come unstuck. So thanks for that - just redoing our kitchen and wondering how to mount them!
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I experimented for years with LEDs and been happy with the downlighters that I recommended before from Banggood in China.
Last year I got some warm white LED self adhesive strip lighting that comes on a 5m roll for about £5
I've stapled 2m lengths to two narrow wooden battens and place them along the saloon sides behind the panelling above the cushions.
The light is diffused and gently illuminates the cabin sides and ceiling.
This LED strip is great for dark lockers, cupboards and engine bay, just cut it to the length required.
Remember to buy some connectors they are cheap enough and make life much easier when fitting the strip.
The effect is really nice and is lovely at night, for a £5 worth experimenting with and for another £1 or so you can get a dimmer switch
 
Graham_Wright said:
Look at this;- http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/321466726991

I bought a couple of these for our camper van. They take standard SMD strip leds (which are available in a variety of colours). They are discrete - perhaps too discrete. The packaging is expensive (reasonably so). If you want more than one, order together.
Click to expand...
Thanks for that.

They also seem to be abailable in a bunch of other profiles:

I like the rounded ones.
 
Camelia said:
Does anybody know where I can get some white/red lights for night vision?
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prebit do some eyewateringly expensive ones. Some of the ones listed here are red/white:
http://www.prebit.de/index.php/en/products/boat-lights/recessed-lights.html
I have a small one above my chart table. Calibra Marine (who will be at the London boat show) sell them:
http://www.calibramarine.com

However I've spent the last half hour browsing the RGB strip lights which Mud mentioned in post #10 and wondering what could be accomplished with one of those and an arduino (using their 3 quid remote would appear to be the easier solution but who wants an easy solution?)
 
laika said:
prebit do some eyewateringly expensive ones. Some of the ones listed here are red/white:
http://www.prebit.de/index.php/en/products/boat-lights/recessed-lights.html
I have a small one above my chart table. Calibra Marine (who will be at the London boat show) sell them:
http://www.calibramarine.com

However I've spent the last half hour browsing the RGB strip lights which Mud mentioned in post #10 and wondering what could be accomplished with one of those and an arduino (using their 3 quid remote would appear to be the easier solution but who wants an easy solution?)
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These are thoughts I have been having. I am also wondering about how they could be 'potted' for exterior use. It would be cool to be able to put the boat into 'red alert' at night. It would also be cool to have strips along the spreaders to light up the deck for work at night or to look flashy at a regatta or whatnot. Mostly it would just be fun to fiddle with the tech!
 
Mud said:
I also experimented with waterproof RGB 5050 LED strips, which worked with a remote control. Although I could turn my boat into a discotheque ( or whatever kids use nowadays), the lights didn't last long in the marine environment.
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Do you think the damage was due to damp/salt air or variable power supply from batteries?

Does the panel think that concerns about voltages when the engine is running are overstated, or if not, what are people doing to regulate voltage they supply to their LEDs? I've experienced no problems with my LED bayonet and festoon replacements, but wondering if cheap LED strips might not be so forgiving.

I'm particularly thinking of doing this as part of a project for doing interesting things with an RGBW strip (possibly turning the boat into a discotheque) so not afraid of building from components (although my electronics skills are rudimentary). Don't want to waste power or have a big fixed voltage drop which turns 12.7v into less than 12, just want to protect the LEDs from over voltage.

And finally...any obvious gotchas in using a simple transistor controlled by a pwm pin on an arduino for dimming (apart from frequency being high enough to avoid visible flicker)?
 
Chris_Robb said:
Quite a personal thing I think. I find the cool whites difficult to see/read by - something to do with the single wavelength light? I cannot see a thing in my engine room with 4000k lights, so am replacing them. Just recently we have been changing all the main lights in the house and I bought some at 3000k and some at 2700k. Her in doors made me take all the 3000K ones out and replace them - this in living areas rather than work areas. I agree with you that for Kitchen or work place 3000k may be better - but whiter still? I am not sure. As you say you get used to it........
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Chris I think the problem there is CRI not K. After all, daylight is 5000k+

Cheap LEDs including the cold white ones make a spike of R, G and B light, and when those 3 wavelengths land on human retina a signal goes to our brain saying "white". But if you plot the wavelengths on a graph, you see a spike of R, G and B, but no light at all in say orange or purple. In contrast, the light from the sun (and a halogen) contains no wavelength spikes - it contains a roughly equal amount of every light wavelength, so when you plot it as a graph it is roughly straight line with no spikes of R, G and B.

High CRI of an LED means it makes a flat line not 3 peaks. The brain still gets the "white" signal, but when you see the light reflected in a real room or off say human skin the look is completely different and more like daylight, bringing out all the colours and textures without the flatness and ugliness of low-CRI light that is trying to reflect off the colour of human skin when all it has to [play with is spikes of R G and B with nothing in between. I'd suggest it is this factor that made the white lights you refer to look horrible, not their colour.

You can get lucky and find high CRI leds at low prices, but (and I'll get shot now...) you really need to be in the zone of £50 per light fixture, and then you get LED light that truly feels as good as halogen. Say 85-90% CRI. The choice of 2700 vs 3200 is then a secondary matter (personal choice as you say) but when you get the richness of colour and texture that high CRI lighting gives many people prefer 3000-3200
 
laika said:
Does the panel think that concerns about voltages when the engine is running are overstated, or if not, what are people doing to regulate voltage they supply to their LEDs? I've experienced no problems with my LED bayonet and festoon replacements, but wondering if cheap LED strips might not be so forgiving.

I'm particularly thinking of doing this as part of a project for doing interesting things with an RGBW strip (possibly turning the boat into a discotheque) so not afraid of building from components (although my electronics skills are rudimentary). Don't want to waste power or have a big fixed voltage drop which turns 12.7v into less than 12, just want to protect the LEDs from over voltage.
Click to expand...

When I installed a couple of 5050 LED strips under the side decks of FF I used similar aluminium strip light holder as mentioned above and installed one of these... http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DC-Buck-Step-Down-Converter-DC-5A-Regulator-Voltage-Current-Adjustable-WT-/171915752854?hash=item2806fa3596 on each lamp in a small project box. I set them to max 11.5 V IIRC. (They are also able to limit current but I wasn't quite sure how that bit worked.) The LEDS didn't seem noticeably less bright at 11.5V than they were at 12.5 V.
One thing I did find with a long length of strip (2 metres) was that it was necessary to drive it from both ends, otherwise you get a noticeable drop off in light at the 'far end'.
 
jfm said:
They're cheaper here http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/151711864...49&var=450913549129&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT and they have several choices of paint finish and profile. I know they are shipped from Poland but I have bought several from them and found them very reliable and they deliver within a few days - the 2m lengths all come in a strong cardboard tube.
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Anyone know of any switches that would go with these?

I want to mount some behind a fiddle, ontop of some lockers, with an on/off switch, but failing on the switch part.
 
gregcope said:
Anyone know of any switches that would go with these?

I want to mount some behind a fiddle, ontop of some lockers, with an on/off switch, but failing on the switch part.
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pretty much any switch will do the job so surely you are better -for aesthetic reasons- just matching your existing light switches or adding an extra gang to an existing 2,3,4 gang, if you have modular switch plates like vimar or gewiss
 
jfm said:
pretty much any switch will do the job so surely you are better -for aesthetic reasons- just matching your existing light switches or adding an extra gang to an existing 2,3,4 gang, if you have modular switch plates like vimar or gewiss
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My existing fittings are all recessed into the GRP headlining, and hence have blade connections bit like these;
Screen Shot 2016-01-05 at 07.21.04.jpg

I want a surface mount on/off that is small, has covered/discrete connections, so that I can glue/velcro it to the fiddle and hence be hidden.

Something that fits in the end of that fitting would work well.

PS this is on a Starlight 35 sailing boat of 1996 vintage, so no vimar/gewiss :-)
 
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