Light design
Create warmth, space and atmosphere
Replace your old lighting with a modern LED lighting from Adams Boat Care, representing Båtsystem, that provides a feeling of space, coziness and warmth. At the same time you save a lot of power.
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Warmth, Space and Atmosphere with LED Design
Today’s LED technology offers amazing possibilities to create your own environment. It’s easy, flexible and very cost efficient.
“The new LED lighting was the single most impressive change I did during my refit project and compared to other improvements I made, it wasn’t that expensive either.”
said Leon Schulz on HR-46 Regina Laska
Not long ago, when you wanted light, you bought a lamp. If you needed more light, you bought two or more. But you were hardly allowed to leave them on for too long, otherwise they would drain the batteries.
Today, this is history. With the new LED technology, it is all so much more creative! You can place LEDs in spaces which were unthinkable of not long ago due to heat or moisture: in confined spaces, under or inside cupboards, along the floors, in drawer or even outside.
In other words: Atmosphere and a feeling of space are created with light, not lamps. Typically, the light sources themselves are even hidden as much as possible, while leaving just a few very beautiful lamps visible for decoration purpose.
Interior lighting has become an expression of yourself and is adjusted to the ongoing activity: cooking, cleaning, reading, eating, navigating, sailing or cozy nights in the salon while the rain and wind is hauling outside.
The main keys to create this activity-oriented lighting are many strategically placed light sources and the use of dimmers.
If you follow a few steps, it’s not difficult!
1. Use indirect lighting
To create volume, illuminate the edges of your cabin. Not the individual light sources should be seen, but the environment they actually illuminate. Look how airplanes and modern high-speed trains are designed: Homogeneous light illuminates the edges of the cabin, avoiding any “light dots”.
2. Define the box
Not only the sides should be lit up by indirect light, but also the ceiling and the flooring should be defined, e.g. with a light over the main bulkhead and strings along the floor. This flooring light is also perfect for night sailing, by the way.
3. Light up dark areas
Be especially careful with dark corners and areas, such as inside or under cupboards. Avoiding any of these dark “holes” drastically enhances the feeling of space.
4. Use wood to spread the warmth
One or two spot beam power-LED’s are used as downlight from the ceiling to shine onto the wooden salon table, which, in turns, spreads its warm tones back onto the ceiling. To allow true wooden colours to be reflected, an LED with a high Colour Reflection Index (CRI) is needed. These spot beams also give a great working light on the table, by the way, and dimmed down, these are the ultimate lighting for eating.
5. Light up key areas
The eye is attracted to light spots. Carefully choose what you wish your eyes to be drawn to and use spotlights to highlight these, such as the worktop in the galley or a painting on the bulkhead.
6. The decorative lamps
So far, we have only designed with light, avoiding to show any light-sources. Chose a couple of high-end salon lights or reading lights as your special accessories.
7. Dimmers
Create your own atmosphere by means of dimmers, just as on a theatre stage. Depending on your mood or task, you get activity-oriented lighting, depending on if you work in the galley, eat or just relax with a book in the cozy salon.
8. Nightsailing
Choose LEDs that are inter-switchable between red and white and place these at strategic places, such as in the head area. Dimmed flooring lights make a perfect night light as well – also while at anchor or in marinas.
9. Functional lighting
Use special bright functional LED lighting in areas that need to be lit up to a maximum, such as the engine room, cupboards, anchor lift compartments or deck lights.
10. Courtesy light
To create the little extra, courtesy lights such as dots on deck areas or underwater light can be used for entertainment and to create a personal touch.
The smaller the boat, the more important the interior lighting. This customer equipped a 24 foot Shark 24 and could sell it right away!
Olaf Schiwek from Germany had listened to Leon Schulz talks on LED lighting at boot Düsseldorf, got some inspirational ideas and went home to equipped his little boat with indirect lighting.
His investment cost a couple of hundred Euros and resulted in a face lift he could not have believed in: His boat seemed wider, larger and warmer and gave a great new atmosphere. What Olaf had done is to install LED tapes behind a new cable canal along the joint between the deck and hull, where he also mounted the switches. Two additional LED tapes were mounted next to the companionway hatch, giving an indirect light shining up the ceiling, creating the feeling of head room.
The result became so great that Olaf decided to buy two additional Shark 24’s to do the same work and then to put them onto the market to see what happens.
It was a cold winter’s day with a temperature around freezing point when he showed one of the boats to a potential buyer. The buyer immediately found Olaf’s Shark extremely cozy and inviting, despite the freezing temperature. Somehow it also looked spacious; the buyer found and decided to buy it right away. Also the second Shark was sold equally quickly.
Some pre-sales styling might pay off tenfold and this is a good example that the smaller the boat, the more important is the interior lighting.
Inspired by the outcome, Olaf has now decided to take a sabbatical to work with a boatrefit in Germany, where LED lighting is one prime method to improve the living quarters in your boat, no matter the size!
Videos on LED Light Design
Leon Schulz (Regina Laska) has made videos in German and English languages explaining how space, warmth and atmosphere can be created by means of LED light design.
Testing kit
In order for you to test before you invest, you can buy a small kit of testing lights consisting of a variety of different indirect lighting and a couple of ceiling lights, including the very popular Power LED. The kit comes with a 230V/12V tranformer, a dimmer and two switches. With this kit, you can try out different light settings in your own boat so you know you order the right lights for the right purpose.
Maximum Lifespan
LED lights are sensitive to voltage spikes and should not be exposed to voltage over 12.5V. While charging the batteries, however, the voltage is considerably higher and spikes are also experienced when using heavy loads such as a windlass. Therefore it is important to protect your LED lights. This is either done by making sure that the LED lights have a built in stabilizer (typically 8 – 30V) or, even better, to install an DC-DC stabilizer which continuously ensures a voltage of no more than 12.5V. This is especially important on 24V boats and when installing LED tapes, which do not have a built in stabilizer.
The Stabilizer has the function and performance as follows:
· Protection of fast transients on the input and output.
· Overvoltage protection for long-term overvoltages.
· Short circuit protection on output and input.
· Stabilization of output voltage to 12.5V
· Input voltage 30V max
· EMC filtering on in and out for cables and shielding of electronic equipment in accordance with CE standard EN55022B
See also our recent installations of LED Interior Lights: (click images or text)
