Fluorescent Tubes v. LED's

yeah and that is a very biased opinion, taking extremes, most compact flourescents are around 65 lumen per watt, high end leds over 150, but for the regular ones we buy 35-50 lumens per watt, strip flourescents 80-110 lumens per watt.

Street lights use low pressure sodium, very monochromatic at around 230 lumens per watt, experimental sulphur plasma ones and cermaic metal halide lights are in the back ground but only useful for lighting large areas.

Ie if you have an older boat and are not worrying about cosmetics or rf then long strip lights are by fast the best option, compact florescents may outdo many leds as well.

Put it this way, why do the led suppliers rarely if ever state the lumen output of their lights?

I'm certainly not saying leds are a bad thing, i have converted all 28 lights on my boat to leds, i checked with a light meter and current meter yes i am using about 1/5 of the power, but getting about 60% of the original light, after digging deep i found the leds output to be 38 lumens per watt, about 4x more efficient than the original lights but less than half of strip floros and and about 66% of compact florescent.
 
stevensuf said:
To the guys who think leds are more efficient than flouros, think again, a poor flouro light will have about 80 lumens per watt and while high end leds are getting over 150-180 lumens per watt, these leds are not in the lights you are buying, mostly they will be about 50 lumens per watt, about 5x as efficient as the bulbs you are replacing, but still far less efficient than flouro.
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Where are your figures from? A quick flick through bedazzled site shows most of them to be around 70/80 lumens per watt.
 
stevensuf said:
To the guys who think leds are more efficient than flouros, think again, a poor flouro light will have about 80 lumens per watt and while high end leds are getting over 150-180 lumens per watt, these leds are not in the lights you are buying, mostly they will be about 50 lumens per watt, about 5x as efficient as the bulbs you are replacing, but still far less efficient than flouro.
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However, the point is that by using LEDs we are able to have sufficient light (almost the same as we were getting from the flourescents) for 10% of the power usage as measured by the battery monitor. Surely that means that they are more efficient?

If we want more light we can turn all four LEDs on in the cabin and are still using less than half the power consumed by one flourescent strip. A significant power saving for more than adequate lighting.
 
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nigelmercier said:
Do you have LED replacements for strip lights?
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By strip lights I assume that you are referring to the glass tube with an incandescent filament connected between the end caps. If so these can be replaced with flexible or rigid LED strips, generally some hands on fitting may be required! I am unaware of any commercially available lamp specifically designed as a direct replacement for this type of lamp.
There are of course a multitude of LED tube products available with varying lengths, designed to direct replace fluorescent lamps. Some however may need the internal control gear of the fluorescent fitting to be disconnected.

Regards
 
Bit baffled by some of this.
I have 2 fluorescent lamps in the cabin; they give a MUCH better light (for roughly the same current) than the incandescent filament lights originally fitted. No problems with them, cheap and cheerful.
I have noticed no effect on radio. (Presumably, if it happens at all, this will only be evident on receive (marine VHF, or ordinary domestic radio)? But then, the aerial for marine VHF is at masthead, so a long way away from any interference from the lamps.
 
re bedazzled, id take his figures with a huge pinch of salt, the US dept of energy did a study in 2011 of several hundred aftermarket leds fixtures, they averaged 36 lumens per watt. the leds on sale at bedazzled are mostly the same ones on fleabay at under a pound each, a quick look at that site says it all, hey don't trust me, you can get a light meter in maplins for 30 pounds, or you can google the leds used and find there real outputs, Lets just say the chinese are very liberal with the outputs they quote for leds.
 
stevensuf said:
re bedazzled, id take his figures with a huge pinch of salt, the US dept of energy did a study in 2011 of several hundred aftermarket leds fixtures, they averaged 36 lumens per watt. the leds on sale at bedazzled are mostly the same ones on fleabay at under a pound each, a quick look at that site says it all, hey don't trust me, you can get a light meter in maplins for 30 pounds, or you can google the leds used and find there real outputs, Lets just say the chinese are very liberal with the outputs they quote for leds.
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Well i ain't that bothered to go for a light meter. :) Much as i love maplins.

But where did you get the figures from? Most seem to use 5050 diodes but a quick google didn't come up with much about the actual diodes.

Back in the real world they are plenty bright enough. I had a floury tube but the radio noise was awful so it went, replacement led tube seems as bright and from memory slightly less power.

Doubt the ebay thing, if there are LEDs with decent current control circuits for a quid I'd love to find out where they are.
 
Conachair said:
Well i ain't that bothered to go for a light meter. :) Much as i love maplins.

But where did you get the figures from? Most seem to use 5050 diodes but a quick google didn't come up with much about the actual diodes.

Back in the real world they are plenty bright enough. I had a floury tube but the radio noise was awful so it went, replacement led tube seems as bright and from memory slightly less power.

Doubt the ebay thing, if there are LEDs with decent current control circuits for a quid I'd love to find out where they are.
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So would I, please let me know where I can buy constant-current controlled LEDs for a quid.
 
12v Flourescent light fittings

I certainly would not buy flouro fittings. LED are far more reliable.
A flouro light running on 12v actually runs on about 100v generated by a switching transistor and transformer. In my experience these are quite unreliable, I suspect the transformer being wound with very fine wire is very susceptible to corrosion in a marine environment.
I certainly agree flouro on 12v are a thing of the past. OK if yours are working OK, but don't buy new ones.
olewill
 
there are tons of them on ebay for under a pound, search for g16 led, the warm whites or daylight ones are best, the cool whites are far too blue and sore on the eyes, though for nav id suggest you do more homework.
 
nigelmercier said:
This is what I meant, do you stock them?
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I do supply 300mm LED tubes in warm white (best for interior use). These lamps are the equivalent to the old 12 inch type, which are often fitted to common boat fluorescent fittings. They are 6W and give out more light than 3 x 8W fluorescent tubes. Email me for prices and any further information as they are not yet published on the website (coming soon).
 
nigelmercier said:
I have to disagree with you: warm white lamps are the spawn of the devil! Why would anybody want a light that imitates a candle, rather than the sun?
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Well I’m glad that you don’t hold any firm views about warm white lamps!

It’s actually all about personal preference. Many people think warm white lamps are best at replacing existing halogen lighting, simply because it has a warmer glow to it due to a slightly yellow tint. The light temperature of a warm white led is similar to incandescent lamp at around 2800-3200K.

Cool White does indeed produce a light which is very similar to daylight and is often described as having a slightly blue and some say harsh tint. For some people this is undesirable in certain interior areas while other people prefer it. It's your choice. I personally prefer warm white inside and tend to think cooler white light works better to highlight a feature or illuminate external areas.
With fluorescent fittings it was often difficult to procure warm white 300mm tubes therefore white 6000-7000K tubes tended to be Hobson’s choice.

My wife finds cooler white light rather unappealing, something to do with highlighting every blemish…I won’t say any more on this, in case I get myself in hot water....!
 
Have been experimenting for a couple of years.

My Kitchen at home is best suited to Cool White in the ceiling GU10s with loads of glare, so that the under cabinet warm whites do the detail work lighting.

In the boat, we now have Ikea Warm White adjustable angle overheads, far better than original halogens, Warm White BA15S in the bulkhead shaded lighting , but cool white under cabinet galley lighting 970mm long.

Shaving light in Shower is also under cabinet cool white 350mm long

We also have BA15S Reds for night lighting in the heads, galley and saloon.

We also have patio LEDS, kinda blue, in the cockpit pedestal which are floor downlight, and for the cockpit table.

We messed about with about 4 different suppliers from ebay Chinese and German supply. We have marked one supplier as being better quality.
 
In the boat, we now have Ikea Warm White adjustable angle overheads, far better than original halogens, Warm White BA15S in the bulkhead shaded lighting , but cool white under cabinet galley lighting 970mm long.....

Do be careful using products designed for the home. I'm seeing this more often recently and its potentially DANGEROUS. Please ensure that you understand the implications of modifying lighting products.

IKEA lamps are designed to be used with a mains powered driver that regulates the DC output voltage to exactly that of the lamp. On a boat we don't have regulated voltage it can swing by up to 30%, depending on the particular boat battery and charger characteristics.

LED lamps are current operated devices.Tests I have done on similar lights shows that at 13.8v (typical engine charging voltage), the current flowing through the lamp under test was 50% more than when 12v was applied. Given that modern battery chargers can increase voltages to around 16v when in equalizing mode, my tests at that voltage showed that the current through the lamp had doubled and got very hot, hence my concern. The light output will vary with the current as will the heat produced by the LEDs.

Boat-owners really can unwittingly open themselves to risk. At best, using unprotected lamps results in premature lamp failure and at worst the lamps can result in fire on their boats. What would IKEA say? I'm sure we can all hazard a guess.
 
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