LED lighting

[Guest whould be dhutch]

On emilyanne we currently have three types of ligting

 

- Low energy Flurecent roof lihts, which do most of the lighting

 

- "high enery" filament spots, which are never used, because they drain more juice ive had hot dinners

 

- ans a 240v flurecent in the engine room, and two table lamps, which are hardy on, becuase we normal dont have 240v

 

 

So this is mainly due to the boat being pushed into service well before it was fitted out,

 

What i would like to do is basicaly replace all but the low voltage flurecents, so i though i could do it with LEDs, because there very low energy, bright, and very 21st centruy!

 

So, does anyone have any experence with LED lighting?

- can i get LED "bulbs" for my 24v spots, or for my table light (which i would rewire for 24v

- and how many LEDs would i need to light a 8foot long engine room, well enought that i can work on the engine

 

 

 

 

thanks, daniel

[stuart]

A simple google search turns up plenty of results have you tried it?

 

http://www.superbrightleds.com/specs/1156_...2-24V_specs.htm

 

http://chinasuppliers.alibaba.com/search/c...s/LED_MR16.html

[dor]

For bulbs see bltdirect.co.uk also.

 

Incidently I have a wall-mounted spot light which I assumed would be quite high wattage. On closer inspection it is actually a fairly standard looking SES silvered spot bulb but with a halogen capsule inside, rated at only 10 watts. It produces a lot of light! However I've not come across these bulbs anywhere else. It's been in the boat at least 4 years, since before I bought it.

[John Orentas]

For efficiency and reliability fluorescents are by far the best bet, I used to sell a kit for a 20 watt PL lamp with all components and a bullet-proof electronic controller.

 

I have a caravan type fitting in my bathroom, 14 watt 'D' tube. Had it about 8 yrs now that is very good. It fires up instantly even on reduced voltage (a good test for this type of fitting).

 

Second best are tungsten halogen downlight type units. Avoid any with wierd looking lamps, you will have trouble replacing them.

 

LED's are only usefull for local or feature lighting.

 

 

John Squeers

[Richard Bustens]

Hi

I just bought a rope light from B&Q to fit on the roof dropped section to give some washing to the walls.

but it is so good it lights the lot up

1 rope light £30 and is 49' long so it goes down one side of the main room and kitchen across the roof and back down the other side.

I have made the dropped section of the roof with a 3'' lip so you can not tell that it is there just the light flowing out

It is so bright i have had to drop it down so only 1/2 the bulbs light

[Gary Stacey]

Is the rope light dimmable?

 

Gary

[Richard Bustens]

dont know Garry i have not tryed that but it has 8 diferent sequences and one is all on and one is 5 on 5 off etc the rest i think were chase ones so i have not bothered with them

[stuart]

Hi

I just bought a rope light from B&Q to fit on the roof dropped section to give some washing to the walls.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Are you going to follow this up with an xmas tree and a blow up santa?

 

 

Santa...

[Richard Bustens]

Only if you insist.!

[timboharticus]

www.maplin.co.uk have an interesting lighting and LED section.

 

LED applications are becoming widespread and the LEDs are getting more useful, giving a bright white light.

[Justin]

Hi

I just bought a rope light from B&Q to fit on the roof dropped section to give some washing to the walls.

but it is so good it lights the lot up

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Is the light 12 volt ? or do you run it off the inverter?

 

justin

[Richard Bustens]

Hi Justin it is 240v so it will have to go on the inverter mains side.

As i said i only got it for a bit of mood lighting but it will replace the lot full on.

[maffi mushkila]

LED applications are becoming widespread and the LEDs are getting more useful, giving a bright white light.

 

The bowels of a C-130 are quite dark even in the middle of the day. A 5 LED torch from Drapers is a must. Far superior to a Maglite beam.

[Martin]

So much of the efficacy of LED lights seems down to the reflector/lens arrangement.

I bought two torches from Maplin - a little tiny single LED job which runs from three watch batteries; and a 10 LED big job which runs from 2 AA size cells.

There is a lens on the front of the small one but nothing except plain glass on the big one.

I use the small one every time now.

The big one gives bright light but there is no focus and therefore no beam.

This is fine if you want to light up the cupboard where the water pump is but the little one - which has a greater "throw" - is a much better bet for lighting a dark towpath.

The only advantage over a standard torch is battery life which is huge - for usability, give me a Maglite!

 

I bought these torches to assess the quality of the light before choosing to fit LEDs in the boat - needless to say, I have gone for fourescents again.

[John Orentas]

Martin is quite right, the secret is always in the optics, I used to design searchlights for a living. With an effective optical system it is possible to increase the apparent brightness of a lamp by an amazing degree.

 

Given that a light source radiates in 360 degrees and in 3 dimensions. Using reflectors and other optics you can attain a 2 degree beam, therefore a factor of 180 increase, and that is only 2 dimensions.

 

It only goes to show you can't compare torches and room lighting. LED's are efficient and they have improved in output and colour in recent years. But one watt still isn't up to much, they have some way to go yet to be serious room lighters.

 

John Squeers

Edited November 24, 2004 by John Orentas

[DHutch]

ok, so LEDs are yet good enought to light a room

 

- and the rope lights out, becuase we dont have 240v avalable, hardly at all

 

- i might order a couple of the bulbs from superbrightleds.com, or try and see if could get somthink like that in the UK, for the spot lights

 

- for the engine room it looks like i should just get some more flurescents

 

daniel

[John Orentas]

Daniel.

 

What does look good on boats is concealed lighting, when I was fitting out my first boat, my bible was The Narrowboat Builders Book, a serial in Waterways World, I have it in front of me now. Similar to the recent one but I think much better. It ran from July '84 to April '85. Good god I didn't realise it was 20 years.

 

It followed the fitting out of the boat 'Kottingham' from buying a shell to it's commissioning cruise. I wonder what happened to it. Writen by Chris Lloyd and Andy Burnett it contained what where and are still lots of original design ideas, they look as good now as they did then.

 

One of the themes was the use of the use of pelmets running the full length of the cabin, apart from hidding the curtain rails it also contained the wiring in a small trunking, it conveniently concealed the difficult transition between-cabin side and deckhead and it contained the fluorescent tubes and control gear. It was so successful I used the same system on my second boat, though I have since updated the lighting to PL lamps with 'bulletproof' electronic controllers. (my first ones were DIY kits from the infant Mapplins).

 

If you want anymore info, including the fluorescent controllers let me know.

 

John Squeers.

 

P.S The pelmets themselves are 6" skirting boards 'Taurus'.

[Justin]

ebay has a load of led lights listed dont know if they are the ones you are after or if the price is any good might be worth a look.

 

justin

[ChrisPy]

Daniel.

 

What does look good on boats is concealed lighting, when I was fitting out my first boat, my bible was The Narrowboat Builders Book, a serial in Waterways World, I have it in front of me now.  Similar to the recent one but I think much better.  It ran from July '84 to April '85. Good god I didn't realise it was 20 years.

 

It followed the fitting out of the boat 'Kottingham' from buying a shell to it's commissioning cruise. I wonder what happened to it.  Writen by Chris Lloyd and Andy Burnett it contained what where and are still lots of original design ideas, they look as good now as they did then.

 

One of the themes was the use of the use of pelmets running the full length of the cabin, apart from hidding the curtain rails it also contained the wiring in a small trunking, it conveniently concealed the difficult transition between-cabin side and deckhead and it contained the fluorescent tubes and control gear.  It was so successful I used the same system on my second boat, though I have since updated the lighting to PL lamps with 'bulletproof' electronic controllers.  (my first ones were DIY kits from the infant Mapplins).

 

If you want anymore info, including the fluorescent controllers let me know.

 

John Squeers.

 

 

P.S  The pelmets themselves are 6" skirting boards 'Taurus'.

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I have visions of those dreadful bright linear lights at either side of an aircraft cabin. Have you been able to improve on that?

[DHutch]

well, im not redesigning the whole boat!!

 

- also i dod some research on LEDs, and theyer acctually LESS effiecent at producing "lumins per watt" than Flurecents, or ever halogen incandesancts.

 

- so it looking like i'll put some flurecents in the engine room

 

- get some nice 24v halogen spots, and some halogen bulbs for the table lamps (or get some new lamps)

 

daniel

[timboharticus]

Lumens/Watt probably depends quite considerably on the type of LED.

 

I've just been playing around with my push-bike and purhased two LEDs. One was a blue LED which was supposed to be very bright and cost £2.50 but had a very narrow "view angle" ie. you didn't see much light from the side. The other LED was about 50p and clear working off 2.5V giving a bright red light.

 

A typical bike light bulb uses about 2Watts whereas a LED is using less than a tenth of this.

 

Wickes have some wall spots which take the dichroic bulbs for £10. I've noticed you can get 5W, 10W, 20W, 35W 12Volt bulbs , 5 or 10 would be useful for reading etc.

[John Orentas]

Timbo.

 

The latest LED's we've been talking about are 1 watt. They are made with varying divergencies.

 

Generally when you wire them you should include a series resistor.

 

The wall lights you are refering to are Tungsten Halogen types. Dichroic refers to the reflector which allows most of the infra red to pass through it, If I recall the 35 watt type is a different phisical size.

 

John Squeers

[DHutch]

yeah, weel the web site that i was looking at (amongst other saying simular things) was this one

 

- its worth a look, some good info in there,

 

 

daniel