LEDs for Boats, Yachts, and Marine Applications
An interesting article about the increasing trend of in LED lighting on boats, yachts, and other marine vehicles. Many boaters really on batteries to keep the lighting on when moored. LEDs reduce power draw by up to 85%, so its easy to see why it makes sense to replace halogens with LEDs!
[credit Power and MotorYacht magazine]
An experienced boater realizes the benefits of retrofitting his 27-year-old boat with LED lighting.
When you hear the term “LED lights,” your first vision may be a plethora of bright white, blue, and other-colored lights illuminating the outside of a boat and even the water beneath the hull. Like a scene out of a science-fiction movie, eh? But there is a practical side to Light-Emitting Diodes or LEDs that makes them attractive for use in a boat’s interior.
One of the primary reasons for the upgrade is that Keene likes to spend his nights anchored in secluded coves. The LEDs will save Keene battery power because they use only about a quarter of the juice required to power the old incandescent lights. The lights Keene chose use less than 5.0 watts, and have a 50,000-hour lifetime plus a five-year warranty.
For the swap, Keene selected 15 of the Warm White color and a single Warm Red at the helm station to preserve night vision.
Total cost for the lights, LED dimmer modules, Vimar switches, frames, and an LED engine-room kit was $3,334.90.
Here’s how Keene’s boat was upgraded. Single two-light fixtures in the forward and aft staterooms and accompanying heads were installed, while four assemblies with dimmers were replaced in the saloon. Because each LED had its own integrated circuit board, a matched dimmer and two additional wires were used between the dimmers and the lights. To comply with American Boat and Yacht Council guidelines, lighting engineer Mike Moriarty made all connections with crimped heat-shrink quick-disconnect terminals from Ancor Marine.
The two-man crew spent about six hours removing the old fixtures and the valances that Grand Banks had installed to hide the original wiring. When I arrived at the boat, there were wires hanging down from all the openings awaiting the upgrade. Keene was fortunate because Grand Banks hid a little extra wire above the headliner and it was found in good shape. Fishing new wires throughout the boat would have made the job much more difficult.
In the staterooms, the LED upgrade was easy. All that had to be done was connect the two wires on each light to those hanging from the opening. For the dimmer and added red light on the starboard side of the saloon, he had to run three new wires from the switch next to the helm entryway up behind the vertical valance to where the headliner met the inner wall. He used square plastic wiring races to run the new wires. The races were hidden outboard of the boat’s original valances. On the port side, most of the initial labor was dedicated to removing trim panels and valances to run the extra wire needed for the dimmer system.
Dimmer units were secured with screws to the framework above the headliner for the forward lights on each circuit with extra wires run from the dimmer aft to the second set of lights on both sides. Adhesive-backed tiewrap anchors hold the wires in place. With wires and dimmers installed, he used the original fastening hardware for the lenses and snapped them back into place. After checking his wiring, he installed the switches. Now Keene’s boat has a lighting system that can set the proper mood and use significantly
Shuttla
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