LED light upgrade in MS390

[Souvenir]

Some of the overhead lights flicker on my 390. I've learned that the boat has a 12v DC set of lights, along with a 12v AC set of lights. The AC LED's flicker. I've also learned that there are several transformers scattered around the boat that convert 110v to 12v AC for those circuits. (NO idea why Mainship thought this was a good idea).

Has anyone found a simple way to fix the flicker in the 12v AC overhead lights?
I've read that some have converted the 12vAC lights to DC, which I know would fix it. But wondering if there's an easier way.

 

[Delta Riverat]

Yeah, just use a small bridge rectifier. You can tuck it right in the fixture.

 

[porman]

Our Mainship has the same setup but our AC LED's don't flicker. Could it be the quality of the LED's? And I agree, it seems like a stupid way to do it.

 

[Delta Riverat]

Yeah, some LED's don't care, rectifiers built in. Others are DC only and work only with correct polarity. If you connect this type to AC, it will work but half cycle only so you get a 60 Hz flicker

 

[ranger58sb]

Our Mainship has the same setup but our AC LED's don't flicker. Could it be the quality of the LED's? And I agree, it seems like a stupid way to do it.

Yeah, some LED's don't care, rectifiers built in. Others are DC only and work only with correct polarity. If you connect this type to AC, it will work but half cycle only so you get a 60 Hz flicker

We have both 24VDC and 24VAC lighting. No issues with LEDs on the low voltage AC circuits flickering. Ours happen to be 10-30VDC G4 bi-pin LED discs from marinebeam.com.

-Chris

 

[Souvenir]

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, the LED's that are there are ancient - probably first generation, installed by a previous owner. I might experiment with some new ones first - if that doesn't take care of it I'll add rectifiers as Delta Riverat suggests.