Anacapa Pilothouse Motorsailers

Hi all! I thought I'd post this installment about some new tech that can help cruisers curtail their electricity appetite. I recently came across these new LED light bulbs from Philips that replace halogen MR16 bulbs. Here they are...in HOME DEPOT!

We have 10 Halogen reading lights aboard Charisma, and each draw 1.50 amps @ 13.8 VDC. They also throw off quite a bit of heat. These new Philips bulbs only use 4 watts! That's .29 amp @ 13.8 VDC. Not only that, they barely warm up! Here's a close-up of the flood version:

Philips offers both warm and cool color temperatures in both flood (25 deg) and spot (10 deg) lighting patterns. Here is the flood, spot and a regular halogen from left to right:

Now comes the bad news; the flood retails for $29.95 at HD, the spot is $19.95. Both bulbs have warranties of over 5 YEARS and actually are advertised as lasting 15 and 20 years. Let's look at the light patterns compared:

On the left we see the Halogen bulb, the LED spot is at center, and the LED flood is on the right. We chose the flood, and found it very easy to read by. Charisma goes GREEN! 'Til next time, Chris and Marisa