Warm white LED bulb replacements: Are there any "proper" warm whites out there?

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mihtjel

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Warm white LED bulb replacements: Are there any "proper" warm whites out there?

Having recently purchased half a boat, I've taken to researching the little things I want to get done before next summer's holiday on it. One of them is an improvement in the lighting: The current main cabin lights are two lights with two 5W BA15S bulbs in each. While the light from them is pleasant, they are also a 20W power draw that could hopefully be reduced a bit.

However, as I've come to look at LED alternatives, I'm stumped by the lack of a choice available: There's 6300K cool white bulbs, and there's 3100K so-called "warm white" bulbs. I think of 3100K as more of an office-quality neutral white light. Certainly not something I would normally put in a living space.

I have seen 2700K 230v halogen-spot-replacement bulbs, so the LEDs are certainly produced in that colour, but I have yet to find some actual bulbs for boat lamps that are of a pleasant colour temperature.

Am I too picky in wanting warm lighting for the dark wood interior of my (half) boat?

What have you done on your boats?


Any hints and links to suppliers are most welcome.
 
You can get 2700k 12V halogens but not sure if they will be in the fitting you want. I've been looking at options to replace my MR16 halogens at home with LEDs and came across them but I've only just started thinking about replacing the boat lights with LEDS.

I'll rummage around and see if I can post some examples - LEDHut have a lot, try there in the meantime.
 
If you try and get a "warm" light from LEDs you reduce their efficiency to the point where you might as well fit halogens.
My lighting only takes 6% of my daily power budget, the capital cost (and the fact I've plenty of spares) makes it totally uneconomic to even consider LEDs.
I do use them for torches - genuine 1000 lumen CREEs. There are many to whom the colour of the light is immaterial - they just want as much as possible and 3000K light is perfectly OK.
 
Saguday said:
- LEDHut have a lot, try there in the meantime.
Click to expand...

+1 for LEDHUT; excellent products, service and delivery:

eg their G4 leds have a 4 diode config to accommodate any pos/neg connection and give the best "light" delivery in all the ones that I have tried

10% further discount via Quidco and secret Santa
http://www.ledhut.co.uk/santa
 
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I fitted an LED strip behind the grab rail along each side of the saloon. The self adhesive ones with an LED every 50 mm. They give a great diffuse light for low wattage. The ot her saloon lights are pretty redundant. They don't interfere with the function of the grab rail which acts as a light shade. I would recommend this and may light up my engine bay so I can have great viz whilst doing servicing and repair
 
Must admit, I personally don't like them too yellow, would rather aim for something a bit closer to daylight but the amazing thing is there is now so much choice so you can pick what you want. 2700k is the same (standard) colour temp as an incandescent bulb.

Charles, I'm not aware of any significant efficiency differences between the different colour temp LEDs, in general white LEDs are the most efficient of the lot anyway. There's different ways of producing white light so it may be differences between these various technologies rather than the colour temp per se.
 
Halo said:
I fitted an LED strip behind the grab rail along each side of the saloon. ...
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I think this is one of the main advantage of LEDs - it's not just doing a like-for-like replacement of existing fittings and saving a few watts, it's being able to fully illuminate relatively inaccessible places in a boat for no increase in consumption - places that previously had maybe one weedy 10W lamp that lit up one small area and the rest in shadow and darkness and needing a torch to peer into. Heaven knows there are enough of those on the average boat.
 
mihtjel said:
Having recently purchased half a boat, I've taken to researching the little things I want to get done before next summer's holiday on it. One of them is an improvement in the lighting: The current main cabin lights are two lights with two 5W BA15S bulbs in each. While the light from them is pleasant, they are also a 20W power draw that could hopefully be reduced a bit.

However, as I've come to look at LED alternatives, I'm stumped by the lack of a choice available: There's 6300K cool white bulbs, and there's 3100K so-called "warm white" bulbs. I think of 3100K as more of an office-quality neutral white light. Certainly not something I would normally put in a living space.

I have seen 2700K 230v halogen-spot-replacement bulbs, so the LEDs are certainly produced in that colour, but I have yet to find some actual bulbs for boat lamps that are of a pleasant colour temperature.

Am I too picky in wanting warm lighting for the dark wood interior of my (half) boat?

What have you done on your boats?


Any hints and links to suppliers are most welcome.
Click to expand...
Try boatlamps or searolf. We have boatlamps replacement BAY15 lamps in all our previously incandescent fittings and they are warm, bright and very parsimonious on the watts...
 
I strongly recommend that you stick to branded product, i.e. Philips, Osram, GE, Sylvania,Toshiba, Megaman if you don't know the brand don't buy it. The big manufacturers understand colour and it is not just colour temperature that is important it is also colour rendering, thermal control (or colour shift will occur and short life). The list goes on. I sell lighting for a living and my website has just about all you will need.

http://www.cp-lighting.co.uk/Lamps/LED

If you want warm white lamps I strongly recommend that you choose 2700K and if you want a white light 4000K. Personally I only use 2700K in a domestic setting, however if you do want cool white I would avoid like the plague 6000k+ they are just so harsh, but my tastes are not the same as everyone else's.
 
Tried to replace 50 watt halogen MR16 bulbs in house with LED but mother in law says too dim! It appears to me that warmer lights are easy on eyes but not so bright.

Has anyone found a bright equivalent for MR16s. Problem is I need about 20 so don't want to buy ones that will be unacceptable.
 
In my opinion, all this colour temperature stuff if a load of bull. The sun surface is at 6000K but a 6000K light is very harsh and bluish. A tungsten bulb operates at above 3000K yet appears yellowish. Warm white lights look OK to me and the system I have installed is similar to the one described by Halo in post #8. The power rating of the 3 metres of tape I have used is a total of under 6 watts and the light output is around 600 lumens, which is well above the total light that was given out by the previous 20 watts of fluorescent fittings. Maybe they were past it, they were certainly old.

I would echo the advice to buy from a reputable source, such as boatlamps or searolf. The stuff they sell is usually protected against the inevitable over-voltage that a boat system is subject to. I am having to add voltage regulators to my system as several sections of the strips have become unreliable, giving intermittent light. By the way, this strip stuff comes in length of up to 5 metres, but it can be cut at 50 mm intervals. Each 50 mm section contains 3 LEDs, not one.
 
Wight Dawn said:
In my opinion, all this colour temperature stuff if a load of bull. The sun surface is at 6000K but a 6000K light is very harsh and bluish. A tungsten bulb operates at above 3000K yet appears yellowish.
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Colour temperature refers to the colour of an ideal black body which radiates according to Planck's Law. The sun's photosphere and a tungsten filament are not ideal black bodies.
 
JumbleDuck said:
Colour temperature refers to the colour of an ideal black body which radiates according to Planck's Law. The sun's photosphere and a tungsten filament are not ideal black bodies.
Click to expand...

One is tempted to ask what am ideal black body actually is, but the danger of leading this thread into Lounge territory deters me. (I do know the physical definition by the way.)
 
A good reliable and cheap source of leds is
Banggood
They do a whole variety of bulbs both 12 v and mains,mastheads, etc
About 6 months ago I replaced all my kitchen gu10 spots with their warm whites.
 
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