pongoglo
Active Member
Being on a cheapish pontoon mooring with no shore power I am probably not alone in finding this extended and pretty miserable winter a bit of a pain. In addition to finding some sort of safe and viable heating solution when down on the boat for the odd weekend I have found that battery drain has become a real problem even with a fairly effective 5 Watt solar panel fitted to keep the engine start topped up.
Two problems probably caused this, a dodgy float switch on my bilge pump which I am convinced somehow got stuck in the 'up' position due to the large amount of rain wev'e been having, and secondly the excessive use of cabin lights due to the dark and dull evenings which have also come our way. The first problem I think Iv'e probably fixed with a complete strip down and rewire of the float switch assembly (why oh why do they come with the wires so short??), but the cabin light issue remained. Drawing 15 watts apiece the voltmeter visibly plummeted every time I switched them on.
The solution? Obvious. Finally to grasp the nettle and switch to LED's. A quick Google followed, and inevitably Ebay too, and the answers began to present. Firstly (and inevitably..) I found that I had two entirely different sort of bulbs in my dome type cabin lights, although all 15 Watt. In the forepeak and amidships, the BA15D bayonet type, and over the chart table/galley area which I use most a festoon. Sods law had it that my festoon socket is 44mm, which is the hardest type to find in warm white which I wanted, unless you order off Ebay and get from Hong Kong, but fortunately I read elsewhere that the 42mm type should fit just as well, so I bought one of these which with a small amount of bending fits just fine;
Purchased from here;
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/111023977...eName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2648
Not bad at all for 4.79 GBP (I upgraded to First Class post for 29p because I wanted to get in done). I now have a 1.7 Watt LED replacing my 15 Watt draw.
For the other two it was slightly more problematic because I had to replace BA15D bayonets with G4 so I needed adaptors,
For which I went here, and were even cheaper at 1.99 GBP a piece - much to my surprise.
http://www.jmgoods.co.uk/acatalog/BA15d-to-G4-Double-Pole-Bayonet-Adaptor.html
And finally the bulbs themselves;
I needed 'all round' G4's and again wanted warm white which was slightly more of a struggle to find from a UK source, but again Ebay came good from here;
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/140924084960?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649
So there we have it. To my pleasant surprise and since I last contemplated this project the price of LED bulbs has fallen dramatically, and for a little under fifteen quid, I have now upgraded my interior lighting which should save me massively in battery power and with a stated life of 50,000 hours per bulb should in theory last me a little while yet. So the next project? The nav lights, and especially that dreaded masthead which seems to fail at will.....
Two problems probably caused this, a dodgy float switch on my bilge pump which I am convinced somehow got stuck in the 'up' position due to the large amount of rain wev'e been having, and secondly the excessive use of cabin lights due to the dark and dull evenings which have also come our way. The first problem I think Iv'e probably fixed with a complete strip down and rewire of the float switch assembly (why oh why do they come with the wires so short??), but the cabin light issue remained. Drawing 15 watts apiece the voltmeter visibly plummeted every time I switched them on.
The solution? Obvious. Finally to grasp the nettle and switch to LED's. A quick Google followed, and inevitably Ebay too, and the answers began to present. Firstly (and inevitably..) I found that I had two entirely different sort of bulbs in my dome type cabin lights, although all 15 Watt. In the forepeak and amidships, the BA15D bayonet type, and over the chart table/galley area which I use most a festoon. Sods law had it that my festoon socket is 44mm, which is the hardest type to find in warm white which I wanted, unless you order off Ebay and get from Hong Kong, but fortunately I read elsewhere that the 42mm type should fit just as well, so I bought one of these which with a small amount of bending fits just fine;
Purchased from here;
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/111023977...eName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2648
Not bad at all for 4.79 GBP (I upgraded to First Class post for 29p because I wanted to get in done). I now have a 1.7 Watt LED replacing my 15 Watt draw.
For the other two it was slightly more problematic because I had to replace BA15D bayonets with G4 so I needed adaptors,
For which I went here, and were even cheaper at 1.99 GBP a piece - much to my surprise.
http://www.jmgoods.co.uk/acatalog/BA15d-to-G4-Double-Pole-Bayonet-Adaptor.html
And finally the bulbs themselves;
I needed 'all round' G4's and again wanted warm white which was slightly more of a struggle to find from a UK source, but again Ebay came good from here;
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/140924084960?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649
So there we have it. To my pleasant surprise and since I last contemplated this project the price of LED bulbs has fallen dramatically, and for a little under fifteen quid, I have now upgraded my interior lighting which should save me massively in battery power and with a stated life of 50,000 hours per bulb should in theory last me a little while yet. So the next project? The nav lights, and especially that dreaded masthead which seems to fail at will.....
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