New Owner of 2004 MS 400 ,,

[Kickback]

Hello All
We Just bought a well cared for MS 400 with the 370 Yanmar. We brought the boat home 200 miles on Lake Huron and we are very happy with it. Now I want to cut down on some of the DC voltage draw.. The bilge light draw huge amount of power, great looking fixtures but Halogen bulbs have to go.. Does anyone know of a source of LED replacement bulbs for those fixtures ??
Second are the Cabin lights. I would like to change those to LED also.. and how to remove cover without breaking them, have not attempted to as of yet.
Third I would like to install a cabin heater to use the engine coolant similar to a car heater. I have a source for the heater but not sure how to tie it into the engine.. Our last boat had twins and one engine heater the water heater and the other supplied the cabin heater. This boat only has the electric water heater so I can just tee into the existing piping.
Thank You in Advance for all the comments and answers.

 

[Comodave]

Hello All
We Just bought a well cared for MS 400 with the 370 Yanmar. We brought the boat home 200 miles on Lake Huron and we are very happy with it. Now I want to cut down on some of the DC voltage draw.. The bilge light draw huge amount of power, great looking fixtures but Halogen bulbs have to go.. Does anyone know of a source of LED replacement bulbs for those fixtures ??
Second are the Cabin lights. I would like to change those to LED also.. and how to remove cover without breaking them, have not attempted to as of yet.
Third I would like to install a cabin heater to use the engine coolant similar to a car heater. I have a source for the heater but not sure how to tie it into the engine.. Our last boat had twins and one engine heater the water heater and the other supplied the cabin heater. This boat only has the electric water heater so I can just tee into the existing piping.
Thank You in Advance for all the comments and answers.

Welcome aboard. We were heading to Lexington last week but they don’t have floating docks so we didn’t go since we have a 90 pound dog to get on and off the boat. There are several sources for LED bulbs and lights. We had about 25 halogen lights in the interior. I just bought new LED fixtures and swapped all of them out. Maybe I got them at superbriteleds.com, or something like that.

 

[Bacchus]

Jerry
Welcome to Mainship ownership!
Following based on my 2008 34HT but thing many of the fixtures MS used are similar

I have replaced most of my fixture bulbs with LED. Initially had some failures with bulbs rated for 12V. My belief is cheaper bulbs can't handle higher V when charging from either shore or alt chargers... they flicker and finally fail.
I've had very good luck with SuperbriteLEDs bulbs rated for 10-30V.
MY engvrm, saloon/head fixtures were all G4 base and most can accept a fairly large dia disc type LED. For ER I picked the highest lumen G4 disc bulb they had and like the brightness in ER. The Amp draw reduction was significant... from about 20A to about 3A or less.

The large saloon fixtures pull down (spring loaded so watch springs & fingers) fixture comes apart w a couple screws from the top side. I used the same replacement bulbs as the ER but they are brighter than needed and would prefer lower lumen and warmer color.

The smaller puck lights at side windows require a smaller dia disc and again I'd prefer lower lumen and warmer color.

My fwd cabin reading lights were LED from factory and we only use the overhead cabin lights for short periods so never bother with the exchange.

I may have a few spares aboard and may be able to provide part# when I'm back on the boat next wkend.
PM me as a reminder if you want more details

Also... I added a 12" bar LED light in the head as lighting was poor in our 34HT.
If interested I can likely find a part #

 

[Dougcole]

The overhead lights in the cabin are florescent, so there is not an easy swap and play LED bulb that I know of. They can be changed out to led strip lights, but it takes a little wiring. The lenses are easy to get off, just carefully push one edge toward the center, they will flex a little and open up.

 

[garmstro55]

Doug is correct, the ceiling lights are fluorescent with two tubes in each fixture. The plastic cover pops off pretty easily with gentle prying. Don (Bacchus) has a different model and it sounds like he has different fixtures than we do on the 400. I have a 2004 as well (twin Yanmars) and I have been over the boat pretty thoroughly so if you have other questions I would be happy to try to answer them. Bacchus got his hands on a visual bill of materials from Mainship which shows the manufacturer and part number of a number of parts that the 400 used, I downloaded the whole thing to my computer so I have it for reference when I need to find something that's not in my marine store. I believe it might be found here in the library. Good luck and enjoy.

 

[Bacchus]

It looks like my assumption re fixtures was incorrect. My comment re using bulbs / fixtures rated at 10-30 V still holds.
For MS 400 info the best resource will likely be the Stella Blue website.

https://scyr.org/stellablue/index.php

Steve Cyr did a great job / service to MS owners and was my inspiration for doing a similar Bacchus website.
The link to the MS Part pics & source e info is in a parts sticky in the TF Marlow-Mainship section.

 

[Capt Mike]

LED replacement

I recently replaced my bilge light bulbs with these I found on Amazon:

Makergroup T3 G4 Bi-pin LED Light Bulb 12VAC/DC Low Voltage 3Watt Daylight White 6000K

I replaced the fluorescent tube in the cabin and deck lights with these also on Amazon:

LWL4W40-F8T5 12“ 4Watts White LED T5 Tube with 4000K to Retrofit for 8W T5 Fluorescent Tube

Hello All
We Just bought a well cared for MS 400 with the 370 Yanmar. We brought the boat home 200 miles on Lake Huron and we are very happy with it. Now I want to cut down on some of the DC voltage draw.. The bilge light draw huge amount of power, great looking fixtures but Halogen bulbs have to go.. Does anyone know of a source of LED replacement bulbs for those fixtures ??
Second are the Cabin lights. I would like to change those to LED also.. and how to remove cover without breaking them, have not attempted to as of yet.
Third I would like to install a cabin heater to use the engine coolant similar to a car heater. I have a source for the heater but not sure how to tie it into the engine.. Our last boat had twins and one engine heater the water heater and the other supplied the cabin heater. This boat only has the electric water heater so I can just tee into the existing piping.
Thank You in Advance for all the comments and answers.

 

[Kickback]

Thank You ever so Much, saved me a lot of research !

 

[Comodave]

Thank You ever so Much, saved me a lot of research !

That is what TF is all about…

 

[Dougcole]

I recently replaced my bilge light bulbs with these I found on Amazon:

Makergroup T3 G4 Bi-pin LED Light Bulb 12VAC/DC Low Voltage 3Watt Daylight White 6000K

I replaced the fluorescent tube in the cabin and deck lights with these also on Amazon:

LWL4W40-F8T5 12“ 4Watts White LED T5 Tube with 4000K to Retrofit for 8W T5 Fluorescent Tube

Thanks for the tip on the bulbs, Mike. I noticed in a few of the reviews on Amazon for the fluorescents that they don't work with dual ballast fixtures and also some people say they get very hot. Are you having any issues with the MS fixtures?


Thanks,


Doug

 

[Capt Mike]

LED Bulbs

I have been using these bulbs for three seasons now and have not experienced any of those issues. As a matter of fact one of my outside fixtures stopped working recently so I may have to replace a bulb. That’s the only problem I have experienced. The LEDs really cut down on the amperage draw.

QUOTE=Dougcole;1185179]Thanks for the tip on the bulbs, Mike. I noticed in a few of the reviews on Amazon for the fluorescents that they don't work with dual ballast fixtures and also some people say they get very hot. Are you having any issues with the MS fixtures?


Thanks,


Doug[/QUOTE]

 

[mbdana]

LED Replacement Bulbs

I have replaced all my bulbs with replacement LED bulbs on board our 1988 36' Grand Banks Classic. I have not had to replace any fixtures. All my bulbs and bulb selection guidance has come from marinebeam.com.

Good luck.

Best regards,
Mike Dana
Third Reef
36' Grand Trawler Classic #819
Potts Harbor Maine (South Harpswell)

 

[FOADIAC]

Why not install a simple and small HVAC for heating and cooling? You should be plumbed for it? Presuming you don't have a generator??

 

[sailorskip]

I replaced (some) bulbs in the engine room of my 400 with LED. No need to replace the fixtures. I used tubular G4 bulbs. I did have to trim the stems a little bit.

 

[TrawlerAJ]

For what it's worth, I installed a couple of IKEA reading lights in my salon, 12v LED bulbs, wired to the same circuit as the overhead OEM fluorescent lights. I've replaced the tubes with LED's, too, but up on the ceiling they're just not all that aesthetically pleasing. I just leave the overhead lights switched off so they're ready when necessary, but rarely turn them on. I can take a nighttime shot if anyone's interested.