Spyro
Well-Known Member
Thinking about conserving battery juice and replacing my festoon bulbs with LEDs. Anyone purchased cheap LEDs from Ebay? Seems they are around £1 each
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Cheap led festoon bulbs
- Thread starter Spyro
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elton
Well-Known Member
There are cheap, high quality LED bulbs, and there are cheap, useless LED bulbs.
Caveat emptor.
Caveat emptor.
Boathook
Well-Known Member
I purchased some from boatlamps http://www.boatlamps.co.uk/ . Possibly not the cheapest but they all work and were delivered within a few days. Not many lights left to do now.
snooks
Well-Known Member
Did the same, again with Boatlamps, only slight problem I had was that the biggest they do are 42mm iirc and the gap between the metal bits was 44mm. But I bent them into shape and they have been working faultlessly. They use 1/10th of the power so I can now switch all 8 lights on and use the same power as switching just one reading lamp.....Two lights have two bulbs which is too bright to relax under, but great when you want to find something or somone not under a reading lamp wants to read.
Spyro
Well-Known Member
gljnr1983
Well-Known Member
I got the cheapest white light bulbs from ebay 2 years ago and they are still working fine,the only problem is the white led turns the green lense blue on the nav lights.
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nigelmercier
RIP
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gljnr1983
Well-Known Member
Hardly "working fine" then
And it's lens.
Yes they are all working fine as i bought a green festoon led for the green nav light when i noticed the blue problem.
I can only put my big bad spelling mistake down to the late hour that i posted the quick reply.
RobBrown
Well-Known Member
I purchased my LED festoon replacements on Ebay here:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1-x-12-SM...late-Interior-Dome-Festoon-Bulb-/270897469636
Have been in place 3 months and work well. as 9 cell leds, they are actually slightly brighter than the original festoons and a good warm white. Excellent price I think, especially including the modest delivery charge, tho I was able to purchase a set of 6 with a small discount from single unit price. Power saving is substantial, I ended up replacing every incandescent in the interior of my boat with LEDs, including Bad's. So no replacing or rewiring of any fitments involved. Took 5 mins and total cost for 7 lamps, 3x 2 festoons & 4 bayonet was about £30 inc postage. One of the best & easiest upgrades I have ever done!
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1-x-12-SM...late-Interior-Dome-Festoon-Bulb-/270897469636
Have been in place 3 months and work well. as 9 cell leds, they are actually slightly brighter than the original festoons and a good warm white. Excellent price I think, especially including the modest delivery charge, tho I was able to purchase a set of 6 with a small discount from single unit price. Power saving is substantial, I ended up replacing every incandescent in the interior of my boat with LEDs, including Bad's. So no replacing or rewiring of any fitments involved. Took 5 mins and total cost for 7 lamps, 3x 2 festoons & 4 bayonet was about £30 inc postage. One of the best & easiest upgrades I have ever done!
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Spyro
Well-Known Member
Thanks. That's the type I'm talking about. As they're so cheap I've ordered a couple to see how they perform.
ex-Gladys
Well-Known Member
I bought one about 3 years ago, to replace the last interior incandescent in the boat (heads light), can't remember where form, but it was a couple of quid including the postage, only works one way around (others are bridge wired to make them direction agnostic) and it's absolutely fine.
Davegriff
Well-Known Member
Replaced all cabin lights with 99p Ebay leds some time ago, absolutely no problems. There's a lot of BS around the expensive so-called 'marine' leds - probably exactly the same things in reality, though I suspect the cheapo ones are 'seconds'.
snooks
Well-Known Member
Look at the specs, and you'll see it's not "BS".
What are the operating voltage range of the cheapo ones? How about their light output over that voltage range?
The more expensive ones have a wider operating voltage and stay at a consistent brightness over that range. And that's before you start taking into account how long the lights stay at their certified output and colour temp.
Increase the voltage (such as when charging batteries) on the cheap ones, it increases the brightness, which increases the heat produced.
If you don't want to spend money, fine, but don't be so quick to write the difference off as BS, unless you know this for sure
I've bought cheap stuff, and it's usually cheap for a reason
What are the operating voltage range of the cheapo ones? How about their light output over that voltage range?
The more expensive ones have a wider operating voltage and stay at a consistent brightness over that range. And that's before you start taking into account how long the lights stay at their certified output and colour temp.
Increase the voltage (such as when charging batteries) on the cheap ones, it increases the brightness, which increases the heat produced.
If you don't want to spend money, fine, but don't be so quick to write the difference off as BS, unless you know this for sure
I've bought cheap stuff, and it's usually cheap for a reason
nigelmercier
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- Live in Kent, boat in Canary Islands
I had a cheap LED light that go so hot it melted the solder and fell out of the circuit board, luckily!
Plevier
Well-Known Member
As the ebay cheapos are aimed at cars, presumably they are set up for about 14V rather than 12V. Were you going above that?
I take the point about brightness variation but if someone is prepared to live with that, isn't the charging voltage scare a bit overdone?
snooks
Well-Known Member
There was a YouTube video posted by Boatlamps that showed exactly this, so I knew it was possible. Worrying it has actually happened
dylanwinter
Well-Known Member
Otter
Well-Known Member
Replaced all interior bulbs with cheap eBay LEDs last year, they have worked faultlessly. I replaced one nav light bulb with an expensive repacement LED bulb as a trial. It failed after a week, cost £16, all the awful nasty cheap reliable ones cost about £1 each.
Spyro
Well-Known Member
Interesting and informative vid, thanks.
When you said the bulb went did you realise they are polarity consciuos?
Rigger Mortice
N/A
I've been using LEDs in the boat for years. As times go by the technology changes (very quickly with electronics) and I've upgraded. I just buy whatever takes my fancy at the time.
You can just as easily end up with expensive rubbish as cheap rubbish and I have my doubts that there is much point in buying the latest as soon as it comes on the market; within two or three years it will be old hat.
The latest ones I've bought are far better then the early ones but I'm now looking at converting those lights to Cree LEDs which are becoming much cheaper.
You can just as easily end up with expensive rubbish as cheap rubbish and I have my doubts that there is much point in buying the latest as soon as it comes on the market; within two or three years it will be old hat.
The latest ones I've bought are far better then the early ones but I'm now looking at converting those lights to Cree LEDs which are becoming much cheaper.
