Hmmm.. we need to go easy on these corny titles.
One of the first things that many boat owners will do – especially when they have an older, or more mature, boat is to replace the original lights (normally halogen) with more efficient LED lights. This is also one of the easiest updates to do that has a dramatic impact on the AMPs that are used on the boat. So being a new boat owner, we did just that. Side note: we halved the ampage used for lights after changing just the salon lights!
First, we headed over to one of the great resources we have found at Club Sea Ray, especially the 420 DA Forum, which is focused on all things 420 Sundancer. Not sure what to do about something, or need advice on how to do another things, post on this forum and within minutes (it seems) the answers start to flood in. Invaluable resource!
This was true for the LED situation. After reading countless stories about changing out the lights, and how easy it was (except for the snapped fingers that many warned about), we set off to find the solution for Aurelia Dawn.
Aurelia Dawn has three areas for lighting: internal (salon, staterooms, heads), external (cockpit, navigation), and small spaces (closets, fridge).
We started off replacing all the internal lights – with the exception of the fluorescent lights in the salon. The main light fixture you will find internally is a flush mount tension light fixture. Finding a replacement LED bulb for the halogen bulbs was easy, but – to be honest – a little fiddly. It got a lot easier when we were able to figure out that being “delicate” with the bulbs was less of a concern than we first thought. Two things to remember with most replacement LED bulbs (this is based on feedback from multiple users over on the Sea Ray boating forums): trimming the pins will be necessary, and when LED modules are exposed don’t touch them with your hands.
For the internal lights on our boat, our lights use a G4 bi-pin light. The salon, heads, and reading lights in the staterooms all used the same bi-pin light. We wanted to continue use a softer light (rather than a harsh light that can often be found with LED lighting), so we chose a warm white (around 2800-3200K). We ended up using these G4 (bi-pin) lights (Amazon link) to replace ours. The bulbs may not fit into the fixture without shortening the pins a little. I took off about 2mm from the end of both pins and these fit perfectly.
Install note: these bulbs do have exposed LED nodes, so install these using gloves or a cloth to avoid getting any oils from your fingers on to the nodes.
A few weeks later, we moved to start updating the external lights in the cockpit. These lights were different to the internal lights, and called “Festoon lights.” We found that there was a vast array of sizes for these bulbs, and we went with the 42mm version (the size that most closely matched the existing bulb). As these bulbs are more likely to be exposed to weather, the housing for these lights is different, however on the flip side they are far easier to replace than the internal lights.
We wanted to have a couple of red lights (for night-time sailing) and the others the standard white. This requirement did drive part of the selection process for our lights, as we wanted the same bulb – same warmth levels, etc. – for both the red and white bulbs, and again we wanted to have a softer (or warmer) light to match the look and feel of the halogen lights we were replacing. We opted for the following lights:
- White Botepon 4Pcs 211-2 212-2 578 LED Festoon Bulb 42mm 5050 3SMD Canbus Error For Car interior Dome/Map/Trunk/License Plate Light White
- Red Botepon 4Pcs 211-2 212-2 578 LED Festoon Bulb 42mm 5050 3SMD Canbus Error For Car interior Dome/Map/Trunk/License Plate Light Red
Our final light change out focused on our closets and our fridge/freezer. The bulbs in both of the galley refrigerator and freezer had blown out, and we were able to find a LED replacement at Super Bright LEDs (Amazon didn’t stock these types of lights in their inventory at the time of this post). These are a festoon-style light and was an easy replacement. It’s nice to have a bright light in the fridge / freezer now, without adding any heat by using the other halogen style lights.
The closet bulb is probably the simplest of them all to replace/change. Our boat has the bayonet style bulb in our closets, and these just simply install with a push and a twist. For these lights we were less concerned about the warmer color, so just went with the regular style. Amazon Link
Overall, the change in the amps used on our boat since making these changes has been dramatic. While the look and feel of all the lights is not exactly what was there before with aging halogen lights, we have quickly gotten used to these changes.
Future light changes include: navigation lights, step lights, a different RGB light solution for the cockpit and the fluorescent light in the salon.