Notice:
The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ.
The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.
As Steve suggested, a quick search on Amazon for 12v LED festoon bulbs turns up over a hundred, even after filtering for 4* and free shipping.
Here area a couple other possibilities, depending upon how much light you're looking for (and how much work you're up for).
A few years ago, I converted four of the old square plastic Catalina cabin light fixtures to LED by using small rectangular flat panels of LEDs which work off 12.VDC. As I recall, I zip-tied them in place of the original bulb socket and wired them to a new rocker switch which sorta fit the original hole with a bit of carving. I also added red LEDs, but that took a lot more work.
For a different boat, found some better looking cabin light fixtures — new stainless steel ones with clear plastic Fresnel lens, and a few old teak and brass lights with glass lens. I converted those to white/red LEDs by soldering individual LEDs onto small circuit boards and installing SPDT ON-OFF-ON rocker switches.
Just a reminder, there's a significant difference in color between "warm white" and "daylight white" LEDs. I have both, and much prefer the "warm white" for cabin lights.
On the port and starboard settee sides, I purchased two West Marine surface-Mount fixtures. They produce a warm white light and also offer a red light option. Here’s a photo of the lights.
This is very bright In some other fixtures I replaced the bayonet-style incandescent bulbs with the equivalent LED 12VDC automotive bulbs. 1157s fit well physically however it had to check polarity.
I tried a LED 2”x2” square with 16 LEDs that I crazy-glued into the fixture and crimp-connected the wires. That worked well enough but was not as bright as the other options.
I also made a light fixture for under the quarterberth that consisted of 2 LED trucker license-plate lights glued onto a 4”x4” cutoff piece of Azek with a toggle switch attached. This is similar .
When LED's first came on the market I recall reading that price differences between off-the-shelf and "marine" LEDs was due to electronics to minimize interference in VHF reception - worth noting, a marketing ploy or a non-issue with todays LEDs? Have any of you noted any issues?
I have replaced , all but 1 light with LDE. call me "cheep" but I went to the Truck stop out on the Hwy. yes , they had all but 1 that I needed. Dave B 250 1999 Catalina.
Gerry, yes, to answer your question, I bought a 2nm Nav Light from Dr. LED early on that was a Festoon base for my Aquasignal stern light fixture and it generated a TON of VHFand FM “hash” (aka static), so the light was absolutely unusable. I returned it and the vendor was very apologetic. It seems that there’s a built-in power supply chip that converts 12VDC power to an AC voltage that’s more appropriate to the LED configuration. That chip generated a lot of radio frequency noise. Very unpleasant. Today, most vendors have solved that problem.
Removed both overhead directional cabin fixtures. BTW while open between deck and liner checked for moisture/dampness around compression post and electrical deck outlet... all is, beside being a bit dusty, bone dry
Replaced overhead fixtures with bright, warm white, on/off dimmable LED light fixtures.
Henk & Johanna "Floating", a few off your "barnacles". "Someday Lady" '95 C250WB #151 ('03 - 2016) "Sea ya" 30ft Bayliner (04-2018 - 09-2018) "Mariah" '96 C250WB #191 (05-2019 - 15-05-2023) "Lady J" '00 C250WK #499 (05-2021 - 09-2022)
Notice: The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ. The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.