I was wondering if anyone is using those inexpensive little self-contained wireless LED lights powered by AA or AAA batteries to light the interior of their boats? If so, do you use anything over or inside the lens to tone down the harshness of the LED light? And do you use rechargeable batteries in them?
Thank you :)
I tried them in the other boat. Didn't like them much. They seemed to fail quickly and the light quality just wasn't that great. They were cheap Walmart things, though, so other brands might be better.
I use them on my suncat and like them. About 3in rd. Performance does vary...the ones I use now are beter than my previous. They have dim/bright settings and although not super bright...I can read with them. When shopping...look at how many LED's are in the light.
I use one in the smaller boat, touch on and off, which can be a real problem if you bump it during the day. I typically don't use it for reading or anything, as I find a headlamp to still be the best. The big boat (26') has three small fixed LED lights with about four bulbs each IIRC, one is a "red" light.
I have several strings of LED christmas lights, running off 'C' battery packs. I like them very much strung up inside. white-ish some yellow. very nice glow.
The only interior lighting I have in my 27-footer is 4 of these:
(http://i.imgur.com/6M6FNAr.jpg)
Amazon.co.uk (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0051T1SJC/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
I use them with rechargeable batteries, they've worked great so far (one summer). No need to cover them as they have three brightness settings; 4, 16 or 28 LED's. The difference isn't huge between 16 and 28 so I usually run them at 4 or 16 LED's, with 4 being enough to read comfortably.
The clips are reasonably strong but not awesome, I'm thinking about fitting two or three of them permanently.
If I go through with my plan of using Navisafe (http://www.navinorge.no/en/index.html) for navigation lights I will have no need for any kind of wiring in my boat except from the solar panel /charger to the battery and from there to the cigarette lighter sockets. Comfortably minimalistic for my taste.
I have tried a few of the small push type led stick n lights. They never seem very bright, and tend to have a short life n salt air.
(http://www.hardwaretogo.com/photo/product/3266053.jpg)
These are the cheap ones, the expensive ones are no better in my experience.