Finally ! A Nice Well Made Battery Powered LED For The Head And Lockers

[jgbrown]

The battery powered LED lights for cabinets always seemed sensible, except they always had some serious issues I didn't like.
1. multiple cheap leds with an unpleasant cool white, often not even well colour matched.
2. cheap ugly housings that look like kids toys and squeak, screech or flat out fail to light up when pressed.
3. AAA batteries. The dumbest of batteries except in single battery lights, or headlights where weight is an issue.
They occupy not a lot less space, for 30% the capacity of an AA.

I was at home depot and came across these, I bought one for the head on my boat, and my slip-mate bought several for his boat after seeing it.
They use AA batteries, which last 3x longer(2400mah per cell vs 800ish)
They use a motion sensor that only activates with motion within an inch, so a handwave works, but walking past wont' set them off.
They use a reasonably good quality single 1W warm LED in a small reflector.
They come in stainless round or white plastic ovals.

Since discovering a great source for proper marine grade 12V(8-32v tolerant) LED lights for under 30$ a fixture, or 5$ a festoon bulb, I'll be re-doing my interior lights with those instead, and relocating mine to my lockers.
Sometimes I'll pull it off it's base and turn it face up to reflect above a work area, or to act as a sort of candle. Best 14$ I've spent so far.

Motion Activated Battery Operated LED Puck Light-06651 at The Home Depot#

[rdempsey]

Did you read the reviews?
It has a lot of 1/5 star ratings.
Thats never a good sign!

[Cheechako]

Why would you want to use batteries rather than wire in lights...? I guess I could see it in a hanging locker or storage compartment....

[jgbrown]

Nope, I didn't read the reviews, I'm giving you a user review.

I looked at one at the store, and realized that for a bit more than the cheap push button multi LED battery lights that use AAA batteries and produce cold, spotty uneven white light I could get a light that worked great and looked a lot better to boot(nice small stainless puck).

As far as I'm concerned they work great, and have for months now. My neighbor has switched to using them to light his boat in the evening almost entirely, with several of them facing up and bouncing off the cabinets, and we have shore power here. They aren't motion detecting(which some of the reviews complain about and give low stars for) just that they use a small optical sensor in place of a switch, so you can swipe over them to turn them on. When they get low on battery, the sensor range decreases, and the light flickers to warn you they're low. No accounting for user error.

Nice warm white light, convienient to use, and cheap. I prefer it to read by vs my 12v light(poorly placed, cold white cluster LED, lower output), but that will change with my lighting upgrade, at which point these will go to the lockers, head and other places that 12V isn't easy.
My head has very little headroom, and I prefer a thin overhead light no wires since it's directly on the hull.


I use them, because my wired in ones suck, and I'm waiting for new ones, and because they are good to have in lockers, or places where a wired light isn't needed, or convienient due to infrequent use. There are many times and places where battery over wired is a good choice, not the least is the engine bay/electrical panel, as I disconnect the battery when working there which means no 12v lighting.
The low battery draw means I seem to replace the batteries every 3 months when I use the light most days.

So basically, if you were going to use the cheap puck lights, look at this as a nice upgrade that hits most of the points those didn't. If you're looking to replace constantly used 12v lights, look at something else(I like lunasea lights for that:-))