Saloon Lights

I had to do something about the lighting in the boat in particular the saloon. The existing wall lights were a horrid black plastic 20W halogen unit producing no light. These I have replaced with 2700K 3W led wall lights. They are not perfect by any means, the ones I have fitted are dimmable which is nice but unnecessary as the light level looks perfect. The issue I have with them is they are chromed and I wanted polished stainless steel. I also wanted the lights to have a glass shade so that they are a source of soft light not a directional reading light. The only stainless steel bodied fittings I can find are directional reading lights so for the time being the search goes on. Having said that these are quite nice but in time they will corrode.

The other issue was the ceiling lights, these were 24V 2W chrome and brass fittings and they were corroded and falling to bits. Again my search was for a stainless steeled bodied fitting with 2700K leds and operate on 24V and have a 65mm cut-out. Not an easy spec to meet. I found a lot of the marine industry is trying to foister 3200K or 4000K on the unsuspecting buyer, but 3200K is too white and I would urge everyone to avoid this colour.

I was lucky IMP were selling some Italian BCM 316 stainless downlights called Orlando and I bought one as a sample. It was the perfect size and quality, but at 4W it was far too bright. However Christian Parr of IMP was really helpful and we ordered 50+ fittings and he not only changed the colour to 2700K but he also made them in 2W and the result could not have been better. You certainly would not want them any brighter. The moral of the story is not to just take what is on offer but to negotiate the item you actually want.