Let There Be (Better) Light: The LED Advantage
September 30, 2022 5 min read
LED lighting for boating applications has advanced rapidly and LEDs are now the superior choice for just about every lighting need you have on your boat and boat trailer — and your dock, for that matter, if you have one of those needing illumination too. Any light fixture you need to replace or want to install is available in an LED option. In many light fixture categories, it is the non-LED options that are becoming fewer and farther between.
Contents
The Superiority of LEDs in Boat Lighting
In terms of performance — low power consumption, low heat dissipation, durability in the face of harsh applications featuring vibration and thermal shock, long life, and instant-on functionality — LEDs simply work better than everything else available.
Plus, they are physically small, and designers can do cool things with them. All of these features are major plusses for watercraft of any size and they add up to vast improvements in lighting for boats.
Marine LED Tips
- Avoid the cheap stuff
- Buy U.S. Coast Guard approved only with 2-nm visibility for navigational lighting
- IP67 or IP68 for exposed installations or trailer lights
- Don’t mix LED and incandescent lighting on single a circuit
LED vs. Incandescent
An LED, or light emitting diode, is a solid-state semiconductor that generates light when a charge is applied and does it very efficiently. It is a more sophisticated technology than lighting things up by using, essentially, a resistor that intentionally performs so poorly that it almost burns up, throwing off a lot of heat and a little light in the process.
On the basis of energy consumption alone, LEDs make pretty obvious sense for lighting on boats of any size.
Up to 95% of the energy applied to an incandescent bulb is wasted, dissipated as heat rather than light. That’s great if you’re trying to keep your chicken coop above freezing on a cold winter night, but less great on a boat, where making the battery last or limiting generator use is a big concern and any chickens aboard are already fried. LEDs convert 90% of energy input to light, only 10% to heat. On the basis of energy consumption alone, LEDs make pretty obvious sense for lighting on boats of any size.
LED Boating Applications
Incandescent and halogen lights are still cheaper than LEDs, and the price difference can balloon into hundreds of dollars in the case of some types of equipment. For instance, halogen remains a competitive option for mounted spotlights on price alone.
But a remote-control spotlight would be the most expensive and least used light on most boats in any case. For more common uses like navigational lighting and courtesy lighting, if you’re replacing existing lighting, there’s a good market for drop-in LED replacement lighting at just about any point from bow to stern.
There are LED equivalents for about any bulb on the market, so if your boat is currently lit with incandescent or halogen bulbs, you likely can swap in an LED replacement without changing any fixtures.
Navigational lighting is not the place to pinch pennies when upgrading your boat’s lights to LED. Select U.S. Coast Guard approved fixtures with a 2 nautical mile (nm) rating to meet the American Boat and Yacht Council (ABYC) standard A-16 for electric navigational lighting.
Boat Lighting Concerns
Water and electronics are a poor mix, especially if the water is seawater, and the exposure to the elements a lighting fixture will have, and how well it will stand up to that exposure, will be a factor in selecting new lighting fixtures. Lighting units with an ingress protection rating of IP67 or higher are best for boat use outside the cabin. Equipment rated at IP67 can withstand submersion in up to a half meter of freshwater for up to 30 minutes. IP68 pushes rated submersion performance to up to a meter for up to an hour.
Another concern to be mindful of when adding lighting to your boat is avoiding installations that could be mistaken for nav lights, which could cause confusion for other boaters and increase the risk of nighttime collisions. White, red, and green lighting can all be used in ways that may present an unclear picture of what you are and what you are doing to other boaters operating at night.
Retrofitting LED Boat Lights
One of the primary selling points of LEDs — their compact size relative to incandescent bulbs — can also create issues when it comes to retrofitting. LED fixtures are often significantly smaller than the incandescent fixtures they’re replacing. And that means existing hole patterns may not match and, worse yet, existing cutouts may be too big.
Before you start thinking about fiberglass work, though, think about whether you can use a trim ring or plate as an adapter.
Custom Starboard rings and circles can be CNC-cut to your size specifications in thicknesses ranging from 1/4” to 1”, with or without routed edges and in a variety of colors to match your boat. In many cases, the result is a better looking installation than the original.
Likewise, rectangular trim plates and sheets can be cut to your exact specs, including corner radius, to adapt larger cutouts to new, smaller LED lighting components.
LED Trailer Lights
Low power consumption is not as big a deal on trailers as it is on boats, but LED lighting is still a very good idea for boat trailers all the way around. In addition to the general better durability in harsh applications, LEDs are brighter and illuminate instantaneously, which can improve safety on the road.
Many boaters disconnect their trailer lights before launching or loading since dunking a hot bulb in cold water can sometimes burn out bulbs. There’s a good deal of debate about whether this is really necessary or not, but one thing we can all agree on is that with LED trailer lights — which don’t heat up like incandescents — disconnecting isn’t necessary.
LEDs are brighter and illuminate instantaneously, which can improve safety on the road.
If you are upgrading a boat trailer’s lights from incandescent to LED, you should convert all the lights on the trailer. The higher amperage draw of non-LED lights can damage LEDs on the same circuit.
Most marine LED lighting is built to run on anything from 10 volts DC to 30, but make sure the LED lights you purchase are compatible with your power source.
