Cabin light bulbs

[AndrewIC]

I’m on my third set of LED bulbs.... I was an early adopter, and the first generation (lots of little domed LEDs hand-soldered onto little PCBs) just weren’t very good, and then some of them went phut. The second set came from a well known chandlery, and were bright enough but caused terrible FM radio interference, and I can’t live without the radio! The latest set came from Bedazzled a few years ago, cause no interference, are nice and bright, and still going strong. I also converted some old Labcraft Crystalite fluorescents with LED “discs” from Bedazzled, and am very pleased with the results.

[jake_crew]

I bought the twin pip, single filament bulbs at my local caravan emporium.

[BWM]

8 hours ago, AndrewIC said:

I’m on my third set of LED bulbs.... I was an early adopter, and the first generation (lots of little domed LEDs hand-soldered onto little PCBs) just weren’t very good, and then some of them went phut. The second set came from a well known chandlery, and were bright enough but caused terrible FM radio interference, and I can’t live without the radio! The latest set came from Bedazzled a few years ago, cause no interference, are nice and bright, and still going strong. I also converted some old Labcraft Crystalite fluorescents with LED “discs” from Bedazzled, and am very pleased with the results.

I didn't realise that they could interfere with FM signal, the last automotive one i have left is in the back cabin and i've found the radio is affected but didn't think of that!

[magpie patrick]

Even as a seasoned veteran of the forum I'm slightly taken aback by the level of response! This is everything that makes this forum worthwhile! I need to take all this in...

 

@David Schweizer and @alan_fincher thank you for your offers. I'll pm you when I get the chance, today I need to earn a living! 

[Stephen Jeavons]

22 hours ago, magpie patrick said:

Juno's having a gradual refurb,  and one job is to replace all the lights with LED fittings, but on the basis that can wait until the ceiling comes down (I need to replace, probably in the spring) I've got the existing lights going again. There is the curious case of electrics "recovering " of their own accord so in the end all they need is new bulbs. The originals (first photo) have two contacts and a single element but all I can find is two contacts and two elements, which are actually rear and brake light bulbs. In most of the fittings these work but are dim as the rear light element comes on.

 

It appears I can't mix old and new as when I turned the bathroom light on (old) all the others went off. Now I've put a twin element one in the bathroom they all work but the bathroom one is lighting the brighter filament! 

 

The pins are offset, not symmetrical, and the twin filament ones have the pins furthe from the contacts so are tricky to fit. 

 

So, simple question, any idea where I can get twin-contact,  single element bulbs? 

 

And any other comments...? 

 

 

I have exactly the same units in my back-cabin. I converted them to centre contact fittings (bought from Vehicle Wiring Products). You will need to ground the frame of course. I bought some LED bulbs but the ones I got had an array of LEDs all around the central part of the bulb. I found that the LED's generated too much heat and with the reflector in these fittings, actually blew the LED bulb (it literally disintegrated from the heat). I reverted to a centre contact 5W car type bulb and have had no problems.  I don't think the design of this fitting lends itself to LED bulbs

Stephen

Edited September 9, 2019 by Stephen Jeavons

[WotEver]

1 hour ago, Stephen Jeavons said:

I found that the LED's generated too much heat

Interesting observation. LEDs don’t generate heat. None at all. However their control electronics can; particularly if that consists of nothing more than a wasteful, heat generating resistor. 

[alan_fincher]

2 hours ago, Stephen Jeavons said:

I have exactly the same units in my back-cabin. I converted them to centre contact fittings (bought from Vehicle Wiring Products). You will need to ground the frame of course. I bought some LED bulbs but the ones I got had an array of LEDs all around the central part of the bulb. I found that the LED's generated too much heat and with the reflector in these fittings, actually blew the LED bulb (it literally disintegrated from the heat). I reverted to a centre contact 5W car type bulb and have had no problems.  I don't think the design of this fitting lends itself to LED bulbs

Stephen

Interesting comment, as when I looked into this in 2013, any of the ways of converting these particular lights to LED without modifications didn't yield a very satisfactory result.

I also put some considerable effort into a full conversion that did away with the BA15D connector, but it wasn't entirely trivial.

 

Others argued that perfectly good conversions would fit the original fitting, but I wasn't happy with the result.  (Things may have moved on since though).

Here's what I did back then, and both our current boats still haver lights converted in this way, all using LEDs from UltraLEDS, all of which have been completely faultless over lots of years.  The arguments by some as to why it was overkill are also in this thread.

 

 

[Stephen Jeavons]

4 hours ago, WotEver said:

Interesting observation. LEDs don’t generate heat. None at all. However their control electronics can; particularly if that consists of nothing more than a wasteful, heat generating resistor. 

Precisely, I mean of course the LED bulb used generated the heat. Obviously the resistors within the bulb structure were to blame rather than the LED chips themselves.

Nonetheless, in this application in a closed, confined space with a metal reflector above they didn't work for me. There may well be other smaller more suitable LED bulbs out there. 

[Psychalist]

As mentioned above, it's BA15D that you need as in 15mm bayonet with two contacts. Be careful as many adverts seem to confuse the offset bayonet pins and the contact variants in their descriptions.

 

3W LED seems to be about the equivalent for an existing 21W incandescent (about 250 lumens). Higher and lower output bulbs are available. Though they come in warm and cool white variants, it may take some trial and error to find one you're satisfied with. I got the warm white variant of this one:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bonlux-Contact-Replacement-Interior-Lighting/dp/B018S9KN5G?ref_=ast_bbp_dp - the light is quite yellow. Expecting the cool ones any day for comparison. Also available on eBay with very dynamic daily pricing: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bonlux-2-Pack-Ba15d-LED-Bulb-DC-12V-Warm-White-3000K-Double-Contact-Bayonet-SBC/193017235383 Note the numbers in the description "1076 1142 1157" - these appear to be the wiring and socket type designations, though I couldn't find out a great deal in searching for information. Advertisers appear to slap an abundance of numbers and key words into their adverts to improve search performance but it is misleading. I think 1142 is the correct wiring - the contacts are pos/neg and the casing isn't part of the circuit. 1157 is probably not correct and is a stop/tail light variant as seen in this advert, which also states their bulb is a BA15D when it is actually the BAY15D with offset pins:

 https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/e11400.m43.l5919/7?euid=66d8c3e93eb046b4a653c4414d2b67b1&bu=43065765237&loc=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fvod%3Fitemid%3D312359809699%26transid%3D939933269021&sojTags=bu=bu

The bulbs in the two links at the top work for our ceiling lights (like yours).

 

It appears to be a bit of a minefield. Good luck.

/G

[AndrewIC]

10 hours ago, WotEver said:

LEDs don’t generate heat. None at all.

<pedant alert> They do. Just not very much.

[ditchcrawler]

12 minutes ago, AndrewIC said:

<pedant alert> They do. Just not very much.

well 3 watts has to go somewhere

[WotEver]

11 hours ago, AndrewIC said:

<pedant alert> They do. Just not very much.

Yes, I know. But in the context as described by the poster to whom I was replying it’s effectively zero.

 

An LED is around 15% efficient, compared to 5% in an incandescent lamp. Importantly though, an LED gives off zero IR heat (compared to about 85% with incandescent) and the power is much less to start with (around 10% for the same light output). So while a 40W incandescent lamp will give off around 33W of IR heat and 5W of direct heat (a total of 38W), the comparable 3W LED will waste only around 2.5W as heat. (And none of it infrared)

 

 

Edited September 10, 2019 by WotEver
Make it tidier

[mrsmelly]

Is there room to fit recessed lamps? Limekiln chandlers do a nice complete unit that are MUCH cheaper than such as bedazzled and the like. They take the voltage ups and downs without problem. I have about 30 or so all been fitted a couple of years and not a single blink as yet. In foreign measurements they are 65mm wide need a 58mm hole, they only need a 12mm depth. Doddle to fit and only £7 each.