Interior Lighting
AKAMA, like all Krogens has a bunch of those round dome lights all over the
place for interior lighting. The trouble is, they are not bright enough for
reading by. In the engine room, they are not bright enough to really get a
good look at things, so I haul a flashlight around (one more thing to roll
into the bilge). I suppose a young person would have little trouble, but my
eyes are not good in the first place and with every year they get worse. By
the time I passed 50, I needed an arc light to read by!
I had the same problem on PIER PRESSURE and switched everything over to
fluorescent fixtures. They were swell, but caused interference in the
radios on board. I understand that some of the newer models are better in
this regard and that some meet some sort of mil spec for noise.
I know that there are more advanced bulbs, such as krypton and halogen, that
produce much more light. I have flashlights that use these and they sure do
work. I've looked through the chandlers and not found any that would fit my
standard two-pin bayonet sockets though. While cruising through the WM
catalogue (what else), I noticed that there is a socket conversion that will
permit the installation of halogen bulbs.
So, my choices seem to be fluorescent, or socket converters plus halogen.
Are there any bulbs that would fit my existing sockets or any other options?
I'd like to hear from those of you who have been through this. Which
solution did you choose and why. If fluorescent, which fixtures cause the
least radio noise. If advanced bulbs, what was the down-side (heat, harsh
light, etc.)?
Thanks heaps!
Maurice
Maurice & Louise-Ann
AKAMA
KK48 Whaleback
Singapore
Hi Maurice -
We opted for halogen lights. We have tried all sorts of
incandescent,floresent, and reflector bulb lights designed for 12v systems.
Some were pretty good but none compared to the halogen, the floresent were
the worst, in quality of light and noise in our shortwave radio that we
usually listen to the world on. You will require a standard household
socket like a 100 watt bulb uses. The halogen relector lamp beats
everything we tried. The ones we use come in 20 and 50 watt sizes. They
are very economical for the amount of light emitted. They are a bit costly
- we pay about $7 per bulb, but carry a long-life guarantee. You will be
able to find adapters from normal house type bulb to the 2 pin halogen
reflector bulb. We make our purchases at Home Depot - I don't know if you
have similar stores in Singapore. Make the effort to try the halogen
before making a decision on your lighting requirements, they are heads and
shoulders above anything else we had on board. Charmaine and I enjoy hours
of reading each evening we are on board and Charmaine also does a lot of
fine needlework and finds the light more than sufficient. Hope this helps
you as much as it did us in finding our lighting needs.
Al
PS Be sure to get the bulbs with a clearlens in front of the bulb,
something about eliminating harmfull rays.
---==========
Captain Al Pilvinis M/V Driftwood--Prairie 46
2630 N.E. 41st Street
Lighthouse Point, Fl 33064-8064
Voice 954-941-2556 Fax 954 788-2666
Email - CaptainAl@Juno.com
Website http://home.earthlink.net/~yourcaptain
Maurice:
I switched the engine room over to flourescent lights some time ago and
haven't noticed much if any additional radio noise, probably because the
antennas are quite a distance away from them. If you have noise,
installing a capacitor across the feed lines inside each fixture might
help. Try about a 0.1uf ceramic cap rated for at least 25vdc. If that
doesn't do anything, try an electrolytic (observe polarity) of about
100uf 25vdc. Won't hurt to have both. These things are available at
Radio Shack.
This is in general how you kill noise produced on board by any device:
nip it right at the source. I have a 20,000 microfarad capacitor across
the dc lines into the Norcold refrigerator because these things are
notorious for spraying low frequency hum onto the lines. Kills it dead.
Filtering the radio power leads at the radio can sometimes reduce noise,
but it generally gets in via the antenna.
The other thing I did was to put a micro switch on the engine room hatch
so that the lights are off when the hatch is closed and on automatically
when I open it. That keeps the noise producers off most of the time. I
also use these lights in the salon and galley.
Russ
Maurice Nunas wrote:
I had the same problem on PIER PRESSURE and switched everything over to
fluorescent fixtures. They were swell, but caused interference in the
radios on board.
--
|----------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Russ and Donna Sherwin |
| "Four Seasons" |
| 1981 Marine Trader DC44 |
| Sunnyvale, Ca 94087 |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------|
On Sat, 23 Jan 1999 10:36:50 +0800 "Maurice Nunas" nunas@pacific.net.sg
writes:
AKAMA, like all Krogens has a bunch of those round dome lights all
over the
place for interior lighting. The trouble is, they are not bright
enough for
reading by. In the engine room, they are not bright enough to really
get a good look at things
BoatsUS and others sell a haligon adapter so a 10 watt bulb can be
subsituted for the std bulb. I can't say I saw much improvment with the
new bulb tho.
The solution I used on Huckleberry was to add a wall mounted brass normal
household lamps and conventionally shades in the saloon. I purchased
these at Office Supply for about $30. I replaced the incandesent 3 way
bulb (100 or 150 watts on hi) with a 3 way round floressent bulb (17 or
20 watts I think). This gives the same light output and same general
color light as the incandesent bulb. These are run on 110v either from
the inverter (at a 93% eff) or shore power. With all 3 lights on, I can
read anywhere in the sloon-like your livingroom at home.
I did the same in the engine room but used 3 aprox. 5x7 inch floresent
fictures, and may add an additional 2 ft tube. Lots of light for
troubleshooting. As a bsackup I have the everpresent round dome lights.
By the way has anyone found how to keep thes bulbs lit. It seems thar the
solder drop on the bulb wears away and looses contact, or thats my
current thinking. A drop of solder on the bulb temperarly cures the
problem.
John G. Parr Houston, TX
M/V Huckleberry Krogen 42
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Hi,
(Reply to the list as there may be others out there with this problem)
Thanks. I got tons of suggestions for the interior lighting problem.
As for your solder problem, the problem may not be with the bulb, but the
socket.
I've been going trough AKAMA and taking the lamps apart (have not done any
dome lights yet). I found that most of the bases have two pins on little
springs. The designer's intent was to make sure the socket contacts the
bulb regardless of the height of the little blobs of solder. I find that
most of the little pins and springs are corroded. A shot of contact cleaner
and a bit of mechanical motion loosen them up and they make good contact
with the bulb again.
Caution. I over-did it on one of the fixtures and the sleeve the little
spring and pin run in came away from the plastic, necessitating a little
glue job.
Regards,
Maurice
PS Did you hear the joke about the travelling . . . never mind!
-----Original Message John Parr-----
<snip>
By the way has anyone found how to keep thes bulbs lit. It seems thar the
solder drop on the bulb wears away and looses contact, or thats my
current thinking. A drop of solder on the bulb temperarly cures the
problem.
<snip>
Maurice Nunas wrote:
<snip> those round dome lights all over the
place for interior lighting. <snip>
If fluorescent, which fixtures cause the
least radio noise. If advanced bulbs, what was the down-side (heat, harsh
light, etc.)?
Thanks heaps!
Maurice
Maurice & Louise-Ann
AKAMA
KK48 Whaleback
Singapore
You have already got good feedback on the dome lights issue. I see that
many others use flourescent (especially in engine rooms). We have
several of the portable, prewired "Brightsticks". They are lightweight
and easy to mount (cable ties) and can be positioned to light those hard
to see and hard to reach areas. If you have the space and desire to use
normal 4' tubes (shoplights), you can protect the tubes with clear vinyl
sleeves sold for this purpose (Home Depot, etc). This also ensures that
if a tube blows up, the glass will be contained in the tube and not
scattered through the bilge.
If you have an inverter, wire the engine room AC lights to an inveter
powered circuit so that in case of engine or genset stoppage or other
problem, you always have good lighting to troubleshoot or make repairs.
The back-up 12VDC domes in the ER are also a good idea, as already
mentioned. You still need that trusty flashlight to check those nooks
and crannies and potential leak spots - no matter how much other light
you have down there or a 12VDC drop light off the batteries or an AC
drop light plugged into a GFI recepticle.
Bryan Stearns
M/V KNOT ENOUGH...
Lindsey 41
Quantico, VA
At 11:10 PM 2/9/99 +0000, you wrote:
Maurice Nunas wrote:
If fluorescent, which fixtures cause the
least radio noise. If advanced bulbs, what was the down-side (heat, harsh
light, etc.)?
---=====
All flouresents are noisy and very cold light. Try halogen, great light, no
noise, and does not distort color. Important if your wife does cross-stich
or other small hand work. Hard to work if light is insufficient in
brightness or quality, makes reading for any length of time a chore.
AL
Captain Al Pilvinis M/V Driftwood--Prairie 47
2630 N.E. 41st Street
Lighthouse Point, Fl 33064-8064
Voice 954-941-2556 Fax 954 788-2666
Email - CaptainAl@Juno.com
Website http://home.earthlink.net/~yourcaptain