Side deck lighting question

[Bill Root]

I have the flybridge deck skin cut out along the outboard edges and the old coring removed. Seems that now would be a good time to install some lighting under the overhang over the side decks before we put in the new coring. The amount of light coming from the boarding lights on the toe rail is pretty pathetic.

I'm looking for recommendation on what others may have used for overhead lighting along the side decks. I have 32V, 12V and 110V on the flybridge, so I could tie into any of those, although my preference would be to NOT do 110V. I don't imagine there is much if anything available in 32V, so I'm tending toward 12V. Would these give enough light to look good? Also thought about the new LED's that can be switched between white, red and blue.

Insights from anyne who has put overhead lights on the side decks would be appreciated.

 

[nor'easter]

Hey bill, can't comment on the side decks, but I have led lights that are white/blue switchable under my hardtop and they are very bright at 12 volts. If you had colored lights elsewhere, it would be nice to have switchable to include the same color and white. I would imagine that 2 or 3 per side is all you would need. Add pics when you are done.
Paul

 

[Bill Root]

Hi Paul. Thanks for the feedback. The fact that your 12V lights are bright enough makes me think that's probably the way I'll go. What brand lights did you buy?

 

[Artzco]

Bill.I'm thinking about putting these in my bridge roof.

http://www.yachtlights.com/item--Tri-Color-LED--AP-742L-SDI

 

[Pascal]

A couple of months ago I helped a neighbor hook up new over LEDs on a 60 footer, they were from Lumitech, white blue dimmable 2 wire only, no control box. Pretty nice. Two wires is big improvemnts over the 4 wires with control box for dimming and color change. On the down side, at $70 a piece, I ll stick to nice halogens

 

[Bill Root]

Art/ Pascal:

Thanks for the recommendations. I'll need four, so pretty pricey. On the other hand, if I don't do it now while I have the deck opened up I'll never do it.

 

[bigbill]

bill, i just did this on my aft deck. i used imtra newport fixtures, and put imtra led warm white bulbs in them. i couldn't be happier i also used a led dimmer switch that fits into a standard switch box. they dont switch colors,but white is all that i wanted.

 

[jim rosenthal]

IMTRA lights are very well made. If you look at pyacht.com, I think it is, they are sometimes significantly less expensive. Pyacht is the wholesale division of Fawcett's. I am not sure what the entry criteria are, but if you can get in there, the prices are better.

 

[Bill Root]

Thanks, Bill & Jim. I'll look at IMTRA.

 

[nor'easter]

Hey Bill, sorry for the delay. I used him try as well. I forget the model number, but I'm very very happy with the way they look and perform. I do not have dimmers, and they are very bright.

 

[Bill Root]

After talking to the folks at Yachtlite.com, I've decided to go with IMTRA's dual blue/white fixture. The tri-color white/blue/red fixture is nice, but the light output is lower due to the bulb size restriction caused by having three separate bulbs in the fixture case. The IMTRA dual color fixture has the same light output for the white as their single white fixture. I probably wouldn't use the red on the side deck lights anyway.

Getting the 12V lights to work is less of a problem than I had expected. The converter that Marinebeam sells will drop 32V to 12V and will support up to 30 Watts. The LED's draw only 3.0 watts. so that means I can tie the lights into any 32V circuit, and as long as I have the converter in the line the lights will work fine. Actually, this Marinebeam converter could make it much easier to replace some of our 32V lights with lower wattage LED's.

I'll post picures when the job is completed.