My deep cycle battery died the year after I bought my boat and, and since I didn't
do extended night sailing, I started using a 22 amp hour sealed jump
start battery pack as my primary power source. I like it because 1. it's a
sealed battery; 2. I can easily carry it off the boat for charging; 3. it's
lighter and easier to move around than a lead acid deep cycle battery; and 4. it
has a built in charger. A couple of years later I started thinking that
LED replacement bulbs would extended my cruising ability should I choose to
spend multiple days/nights on the boat or between charging stops. By the end of the 2012 season, I had converted essentially all of the lights on Praxis to LEDs. Here's what I used:
I replaced the two interior lights with the WLED-x6 mini wedge base
bulb from superbrightleds.com.
I replaced the forward light fixture with a red bulb (I run that when I need to
light the interior of the boat AND maintain my night vision); rear fixture with
warm white. Both are VERY bright ... almost too bright (might consider the
WLED-x4 bulb?) I chose the forward projecting LEDs since they were shooting
straight out of the fixture and not viewable to 360 degrees.
I also changed out the incandescent nav light bulbs with LEDs.
I replaced my stern light with the 1142-x15-x5,
It has 9 forward shooting LEDs and 6 side shooting LEDs for a total of 220
degrees. The lens on my stern light limits visibility to the legally required
130 degrees. This bulb is at least twice as bright as the incandescent bulb it
replaced. The bow light was a bit more tricky. DrLED.com has a 240 degree dual
LED bulb available, but doesn't recommend it for behind a bi-color lens.
Marinebeam.com has a 240 degree 12 LED bulb that has 240 degree visibility AND
IS recommend for behind a bi-color lens (FS-31-12 240 degree forward facing
bulb ).
I believe most Wellcraft S19s have a Perko bicolor bow light; this bulb is
recommended for that fixture. You will need to bend the two resistors on the
back of the bulb a bit to make it fit neatly in the festoon base, but once
you do, it fits nicely and is MUCH brighter than the incandescent bulb it
replaces.
Finally, a couple of years ago I bought an old AquaSignal stern light for a
buck at a rummage sale and added a wire loop to the top and about 8 feet of
additional cord with a plug that matches my steaming light plug. I used that as
an anchor light a couple of times, but the incandescent bulb (BA9 single base - essentially a flashlight bulb) was very
dim (I can hardly believe this bulb would provide the required 2nm visibility necessary for a stern light). This year I replaced the dim incandescent bulb with a
6 radially mounted high power LED (cool white) for about 4 bucks (http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-bin/store/index.cgi?action=DispPage&Page2Disp=%2Fspecs%2Fba9s-xhp6.htm#photos).
It's amazingly bright; I run it part way up the topping lift or forestay with a
halyard when I'm at anchor. That bulb draws .031 amps, so it will run for days
(believe it or not, 29 and a half days, give or take the battery charge!) on
just a 22 amp hour sealed jump start battery.
The interior and stern bulbs ran about 6 bucks each; the anchor light was
$4.95; the bow light is kind of special since it needs to be visible to 240
degrees - I paid 20 bucks for that bulb. I chose to leave the incandescent bulb
in my steaming light since I use it only for short trips under power. In total, I spent about $50 or $60 on this upgrade including shipping - much less than the cost of a sealed AGM deep
cycle battery. In terms of power consumption ... if my math is correct (always
a challenge!) this cut my nav light load from about 10 amps to .15 amps when I'm
just running the bow and stern lights - extending the life of my 22 amp hour
battery from 2.2 hours with the incandescent bulbs to 146 hours of LED navigation
light use; Similarly, my anchor light load dropped from about .25 amps to .031
amps, extending the life of my battery running just the anchor light from 88
hours to over 700 hours!! These bulbs are amazing!!!
