The great LED ripoff

[Bobobolinsky]

I've got cheapo push on battery lights scattered around the boat for emergency lighting. The six in the saloon are driven from an L78, battery less and work as well as the others. I'm probably going to fit ropes as recommended in the other LED thread in the lounge

 

[rotrax]

I'm getting to the point of needing to start fitting lights in my new boat, and I want to go with LED's. However, as well all know, marine LEDs are an absolute rip off.

ebay is full of much cheaper (circa £8) light units, but they have a drawback. They need a 12v (exactly) supply, and deviations outside of this reduce their lifespan, which is the standard line you'll get from any marine LED retailer trying to flog you their £60 light.

So, I had a thought, and wondered if a electronics guru (David?) can advise. Back in the day, when I used to play with soldering irons, I often used a 5v regulator chip. Well, how about using a central smoother circuit near the boat switch panel, and regulating the supply of 12v to the cheap(er) LEDs?

http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/linear-regulator/0453568/

£3.65 from RS components. That one will handle up to 3amps, or £14 for a more realistic 7.5amp chip. 7.5amps is a lot of LEDs.

Sound like a reasonable solution?

Cheers,

Nathan

I use EBAY LED's-m16 type mostly-and in three years have had no failures. Probably because our boat has a 500+amp hour battery bank, but more importantly, the engine is not run with the domestic lights on, apart from the chart table, galley and heads which have marine units. The boat is used most weekends and for weeks at a time in the good weather.

 

[maxi]

Most, if not all Ultraleds products are rated to approx 16v or above. I have certainly not had any over-voltage problems over the past few years, using their products.