LED Cabin lights

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ex-Gladys

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Having watched threads here for years concerning the above, thought I'd share my experiences in hunting for same for Gladys, now she's having the headlining done. I finally came across these:

Labcraft

They are a neat fitment that stand off from a surface about the same amount as a conventional light, and at £18.99 from these people (as opposed to £23) they are cheap enough too. Designed for vehicle/caravan use so able to put up with >12v - I test ran one with the charger on and reading 13.8V.

The switch is neat. Although it doesn't show on the picture there are two concentric metal rings around the light. touch across those with a finger, and the light comes on or goes off.
 
They look very swish,

Checking the spec sheet I see that they are rated at up to 14V - that could be an issue for someone fitting them to a boat with a smart battery charger or alternator controller that tend to charge at somewhere between 14.4-14.8V

It would probably be okay but it might be worth checking with the manufacturer
 
LEd are getting better, but they have significent drawbacks. Most cheap LEDs have very poor colour rendering ie they only emit light in part of the visible spectrum. The trick is not to look at the light , but to look at the items/area being illuminated.

Osram and Philips will not sell LED's with a CRI of less that 70 as they are regarded as unusable. The problem is that when you get to a CRI of around 80 (Similar to a good fluorescent tube) the efficacy is down to about 30 lumens per watt. (Fluorescent tubes are at about 80 lumens per watt). LED's are expected to reach 50 lumens per watt over the next couple of years. So they are not there yet.

It is quite true that there are some warm white LED's available right now and they appear similar to the halogens they replace, but the light output is significantly lower and the light is quite strange to live/read under.

Led's will one day be the source of cabin lights, I have no doubt about that, but for now you will get a huge reduction in load, but you might not be entirely satisfied with the quality of light.
 
No comment as yet, because the headlining isn't finsihed, and so the lights are yet to be fully installed. I tested in our galley area on saturday and given the choice between this and the old "turn the glass" light, this is white as opposed to yellow, and seemed to give a better light, but that's without the white headlining to reflect off.
 
I fitted 2 labcraft orbitals whilst renewing the headlining. I flush mounted them into the panels.

The touch switch arrangement is neat, but does not always work - I sometimes have to resort to shorting them with a metal object - I seem to have very dry skin.

They draw about 0.3 A between the two of them, and give ample light of most use use - certainly enough to eat and drink by. I have kept the corner lights should I need more light to read by.

John
 
[ QUOTE ]
The switch is neat. .........there are two concentric metal rings around the light. touch across those with a finger, and the light comes on or goes off.

[/ QUOTE ] Or a bit of condesation or dampness. I hope for your sake they will work but they sound quite inappropriate for a boat.
 
lick your finger?!

VicS makes a valid comment, but if you were so inclined it wouldn't be hard to bypass the fancy switch and put a little switch in line.
 
I agree with Tosca. I have replaced the festoon bulbs with LEDs in my saloon but they are not as comfortable as their older cousins. I've tried LED halogen bulbs too but they're rubbish. Decent (reading) light in our saloon is a constant source of problem for me and I have yet to find a solution that doesn't involve spending around £100 (this is the amount I estimate I would have to spend in order to get the same amount of lumens from my ceiling mounted saloon lights).

We're heading off into the Indian Ocean next year so I'm hoping by the time I get to the far east decent LEDs will be two-a-penny and readily available!
 
I just bought a pack of 3 led lights for 4.99! They take 3 AAA's each and have a self adhesive patch on the back. They look ideal for over bunk reading lights and installation will be a breeze!

I got them from Mailspeed's shop in Warrington, but I don't see them on their website. They may be useless but it seemed worth a try at that price.
 
[ QUOTE ]
lick your finger?!

[/ QUOTE ]
Sometime works, but not always.

[ QUOTE ]
VicS makes a valid comment, but if you were so inclined it wouldn't be hard to bypass the fancy switch and put a little switch in line.

[/ QUOTE ]
Agreed. In fact I was going to do just this, but decided in the end to leave the lamps alone, and see how they work out. There is a master switch for the saloon lights, so they are normally all off during the day.

In practice I have found that we leave the leds on all evening, so only need to switch them on/off once a day. I will probably leave them alone now - I really don't want to bring the headlining down again to make any changes.

John
 
Having a somewhat minimalist electrical setup on my wee boat, I bought a pack of the AAA battery three LED lights with sticky backs.

In their favour, they are not expensive, the batteries seem to last well, and they provide some light where there was none.

Against them, they do not provide a lot of light, and as others have said, the quality of the light is cold and severe. I wouldn't like to read for long with them.

They do what they say on the tin, but don't expect too much of them. Best thought of as emergency lights.

Tim
 
Bejasus - those lights look great. Annoyingly I just bought four identical spots, except they are halogen. I didn't think things through and they are fitted with GU4 bulbs, not the standard GU5.3, which I thought I could replace with LED alternatives (not available in Turkey), so now I have 20w spots that each eat up 1.5amps, and I can't find 10w alternatives. My own fault for impulse buying.

That said, they are fantastic reading lights so just having one on at a time is acceptable for us.
 
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