Upgrading our boat to LED lighting

Almost every old sailboat has fluorescent lighting and if you want to live off-grid you might want to upgrade your boat to LED lighting. So this is what we did. We quickly realized how our current fluorescent lighting with one light drawing nearly 4 amps was not an option.

Upgrading our boat to LED lighting

So we decided to switch to LED lighting for our sailboat instead. And since we don’t have unlimited funds and we want to do things ourselves cheaply we bought some cheap rigid lights, got car LED lights for a good deal along with ordering some LED strip lights from Amazon.

LED Rigid lights

SAW technology in Hamilton, Ontario was a great place for most of our renewable energy needs from solar panels to AGM batteries and more. We also purchased a warm glow rigid light to put in our settee area. It draws slightly over 1 amp and lights up the whole main area of our sailboat.

LED strip lights

We love our LED strip lights that we purchased through Amazon. You can cut them to whichever length you wish and they come in different colours. We chose white for bright light and red for night navigation. Cory soldered the ends to a 12V switch and we glued them around the sailboat. They work great and depending on the length that you use they will draw more or less 1 amp per 6 ft section.

If you wish to purchase LED strips click on one of our links and we will receive a small percentage.

For Canadians: https://amzn.to/2OsxsfJ
For US: https://amzn.to/2Doq2cy

For 12V switches

For Canadians: https://amzn.to/2W62MVZ

For US: https://amzn.to/2Y4Q23H

SYLVANIA ZEVO LED lights

We found some SYLVANIA ZEVO LED lights at Canadian Tire which were $14 which later on we found a bunch more for half price at Treasure Hunt. We went from having one light using 4 Amp to needing to turn two LED lights on to see 0.5 amp. They don’t produce the most light but they are great for ambiance.

If you wish to purchase SYLVANIA ZEVO LED  click on one of our links and we will receive a small percentage of the profit.

For Canadians: https://amzn.to/2Y63dBt

For US: https://amzn.to/2ThCmP2

So as you can see by simply changing our traditional high energy consumption lights and upgrading to LED lighting we’ve reduced our power consumption drastically. And by doing so we don’t need as much solar or batteries. When trying to live off-grid it’s all about reducing your needs. Make sure to subscribe for more tips on how to reduce your energy consumption.

Happy Sailing!

Alex