Replace bulbs in cabin lights with LEDs

Hi All,

I went ahead a acquired five different high output interior 12v LED bulbs for comparison.

I wanted to capture the actual beam width and the light color as best I could. I brought the bulbs home and set them up in my garage to shine on the back of the white garage door. I placed the test fixture 25" from the door and use a Deep Cycle battery at a 13.2V float stage charge to power them.

In order to capture every bulb with everything being equal I used a Nikon D-200 DSLR on a tripod with no flash and the garage was pitch black except for the one bulb being photographed. I even re-shot each and every bulb as new ones came in the mail so they were always shot within minutes of each other and at the same level of darkness in the garage. In between shoots I also moved the fixture and camera so I wanted every bulb to be in the exact same position to be fair. The camera was set to manual mode and every picture was taken remotely and on the same exact setting, so all could be as equal as possible. The camera settings were: 1s f/10.0 at 24.0mm iso200

Please note that a camera sees color temperatures differently than the naked eye and tends to skew everything to a warmer glow. The yellow/oragie tints are actually nice and warm and the whitest bulb, the Dr. LED, is almost blue in the real world.

None of the photos, where light was captured, was post processed or run through any photo editing software. This is how they came out of the camera.

I chose these settings because it gave a clearer delineation of where the effective light spread stopped and petered into darkness.

Current Draw is as follows:

20W Halogen = 1.745 amps
10W Halogen =.87 amps
Sensibulb = .194 amps
MarineBeam 6 bulb = .158 amps
MarineBeam 10 bulb = .188 amps
Dr. LED = .138 amps
Superbrite LED = .141 amps

To put it in perspective one 10W Halogen bulb uses 4.48 times (448% more) electricity than does one Sensibulb and one 20W halogen uses 8.9 times (899% more) electricity than the Sensibulb which was the highest drawing of the LED's tested.

This is the Dr. LED G4 / MR-11 it had the narrowest beam width and the coldest bluish color. It was also the least bright with the lowest current draw at .138 amps. At $28.99 I think the MarineBeam bulb is a better value and if you compare price, with beam width and light output, it can't really compare to the Sensibulb in warmness or beam width:


This is the SuperBrite LED's MR-11 WHP6. It's a six SMD bulb and a decent knock off to the Marinebeam MR-11-6 below. To the naked eye looks virtually identical but the lighting & current draw tell a different story. It has a cold blueish tint and is slightly less bright than the MarineBeam MR-11-6. At $14.95 it is a decent value but certainly not the best color representation. Another clue that it is not the same exact bulb as the Marinebeam is the current draw. This bulb drew .141 amps and the Marinebeam drew .158 amps.

This is the MarineBeam G4 / MR-11-6 it uses 6 SMD LED's and had a much wider beam width than the Dr. LED and about the same as the Superbrite LED bulb but was noticeably warmer in color output. Though the Sensibulb was considerably warmer and more natural looking this was the second most natural looking and fairly close to an incandescent bulbs color. It was brighter and warmer than the Dr. LED bulb and the Superbrite LED and at $24.99 it is a lot cheaper than the Sensibulb. It's a good choice for a price conscious user & it consumes .158 amps :


This is the MarineBeam G4/MR-11-10. Like the G4/MR-11-6 it uses SMD LED's but instead of six it uses ten. It was brighter but notably colder than it's smaller sibling bulb. At $27.99 it is a lot cheaper than the Sensibulb and a good choice for a price conscious user who needs more light output than the G4/MR-11-6 type bulbs can give.. I was not impressed with the color rendering of this bulb and it is tending towards colder rather than warmer especially when compared to the other MarineBeam bulb. It consumes .188 amps :


This is the Sensibulb and it fits both horizontal and vertical fixtures it had the widest beam width, even hitting & wrapping up onto the ceiling. It also had the warmest most incandescent like light output and was definitely the brightest of the tree bulbs but also the most expensive at $39.95 ea. It was significantly brighter than the Dr. LED bulb but also drew the most current of the three LED's at .194 amps (note the reflection off the ceiling and keep in mind this bulb was only 24" from the door):


I have also included this G4 10W Halogen bulb photo for comparison. It draws .88 amps or 448% more than the Sensibulb:


Here's a G4 20W Halogen bulb it draws 1.745A or 899% more than the Sensibulb. In terms of light output the Sensibulb falls in between the 20 watt and the 10 watt halogens..


These are the bulbs tested:

From L to R: Sensibulb, Marinebeam G4/MR-11-10, Marinebeam G4/MR-11-6, SuperBrite LED MR-11 WHP6, Doctor LED Mr-11

Front Row: 10 Watt G4 Halogen, 20 Watt G4 Halogen

Test Fixture:

Lumens:

The question of lumens comes up a lot so here it is straight from Practical Sailor. The lower the color temp the warmer the bulb. The Sensibulb is still the widest and brightest.

Here's the technical color temp and lumen data from the Practical Sailor test:

Sensibulb (Daylight)= 150 lumens / 60" beam width / 2990 color temp

Sensibulb (Soft Light)= 130 lumens / 58" beam width / 2650 color temp

Cruising solutions MR 11 6P = 72 lumens / 48" beam width / 3300 color temp

Cruising solutions MR 16 9P[/b]= 108 lumens / 44" beam width / 3300 color temp

Dr. LED MR-11= 35 lumens / 25" beam width / 3850 color temp

P.S. If you mention to the folks at Sailors Solutions that you read about the Sensibulb here, Nick, one of the owners, has agreed to give 10% off..

Maine Sail said:

Here's the technical color temp and lumen data from the Practical Sailor test:

Sensibulb (Daylight)= 150 lumens / 60" beam width / 2990 color temp

Sensibulb (Soft Light)= 130 lumens / 58" beam width / 2650 color temp

Cruising solutions MR 11 6P = 72 lumens / 48" beam width / 3300 color temp

Cruising solutions MR 16 9P[/b]= 108 lumens / 44" beam width / 3300 color temp

Dr. LED MR-11= 35 lumens / 25" beam width / 3850 color temp

Click to expand...

Interesting numbers on color temp. Photographic incandescent lamps are supposed to be 3200 kelvin. They rarely are, they usually run about 3100k. Household incandescent bulbs usually run around 2800k, sometimes as low as 2600k. The quartz envelope type bulbs are usually closer to 300k and pretty stable in colortemp. For comparison, daylight is 5500 to 8000k, depending on conditions. So Dr LED, the coldest of the lot at 3800, would seem to be much closer to incandescent than daylight, which is truly a 'colder' light.

Mainsail, if you still have the bulbs on hand could you do some side by side comparisons to an incandescent lamp? Was your camera preset to tungsten light setting? Not necessarily disagreeing with your conclusions, just wanting to see a more complete comparison.

Thanks for doing all this. Nice work.

xort said:

Mainsail, if you still have the bulbs on hand could you do some side by side comparisons to an incandescent lamp? Was your camera preset to tungsten light setting? Not necessarily disagreeing with your conclusions, just wanting to see a more complete comparison.

Thanks for doing all this. Nice work.

Click to expand...

I did test two incandescent halogen bulbs. The two halogen bulbs run around 2800-3000k depending on who's rating them and who made them.. The Sensibulb was a touch warmer than the 20W halogen but I would guess a touch colder than a non-halogen "warm white" incandescent bulb. The K ratings are not mine and are from Practical Sailor as I have no way to test for actual kelvin temperature.

The camera was not set to Tungsten but rather to 3000 kelvin. My camera is a D-200 and allows steps of 50K adjustments in the 3k range. I did not include this setting in the write up because I figured no one would have a clue as to what it meant.

I chose to set it at 3k because nearly every single one of the bulbs I tested "claims" a 3000K color temp which, as you can see, is pure BS snake oil

These bulbs were all compared with the same camera settings and at the same exact level of darkness in the room. The only difference in color is due entirely to the bulbs. I have many more bulbs that I did not include because their performance was actually worse than the Dr. LED.

There's LOTS of snake oil in LED technology right now and if you like the warmth of standard warm white incandescent or even Halogen bulbs then the Sensibulb is the only LED I have found that can hit this mark.