Osram Dot it

[Georgio]

You have probably seen these little LED lights in B&Q etc.

I was wondering about buying a couple and adding a red filter/cover to make them usable for finding my way around the boat at night (internally). However I recall hearing something about this being problematic as the type of light produced by LED's does not like being filtered. I'm sure this was mentioned in a discussion about Nav lights.

Have I imagined this??

 

[Jonny_H]

We have bought some, and painted the lenses red with cheap nail varnish (from Superdrug I think - 99p!)

SWMBO was very impressed, ableit slightly concerned, with my skills at using nail varnish /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Work very well - you need a couple of coats to make it 'red' enough, but looks very neat. Without any filter they give off quite a blue light, but seem fine with red nailvarnish on them.

Jonny

 

[VicS]

No you have not imagined this. About all you could do is buy one and try it but maybe for the boat and running off 12v there are other solutions. Mabe a cluster of red 12v leds would be adequate.

 

[dazautomatics]

We purchased some 12 LED garden lights for the last boat (The tiny ones 13mm) and fitted them near the floor, they made the most amazing floor lights, a bit like runway lights! We used these on many night passages and save skin on a few occasions.

I also linked them into the compass light switch to save a extra switch.

I never thought of nail varnish but sounds like a good idea, I spent ages trying to positioning them so the wouldn’t dazzle us at night!

A good tip used from an Oyster 71 we looked on at the boat show the previous year .

Darren

 

[NFCN]

I'd agree. Without being unduly paranoid about power consumption, I've fitted about a dozen around my yacht, mainly to provide downlighting. Several are red for passge making (including a couple above the chart table), and while I've not used nail varnish I've found permanent felt tip pens to do a good job. I've left one or 2 on by accident - but hey, Halfords to a great deal on multi-buy AA batteries...

Only problem has been finding sufficientlty strong velcro to defeat gravity. Any alternatives (won't glue or screw in for fear of permanent marking) welcome.