Fabricating a Wooden Bulkhead Reading/Spot Lamp Fixture
For Yachts or RVs Using Bebi LED Lights

John W., aboard S/v 'Kate', was kind enough to share this photo-essay with us. We've added our own comments in italics, to complement his essay

Here are some pictures of how I mounted the lights. Every light on our boat, S/V Kate, is now a Bebi, including masthead, anchor and deck light and we have not had an energy crisis yet. I think these lights look pretty classy when they are mounted.

The building blocks cut to size.By eye, I'd estimate that John used a piece of 1"x4" lumber, cutting the three pieces for the lamp carrier with the grain from the same length of wood, about 1/2" wide.

Partially milled and assembled John used a piece of 1-1/2" pipe to cut the holder for the light in order to accomodate the nylocks. One of the real keys to a job like this to make sure that holes for the switch and pivoting the lamp are perfectly centred. You'll also note that he used a thin piece of plastic as a spacer between the 'yoke' and the (wood) mounting plate to avoid scarring the wood.

Adding the cut length of PVC to the yoke

Wiring the back of the switch - note milled area to accommodate the wires. Even though this is a rocker switch, this particular switch is mounted with a round hole (instead of a square one), an example of would be the Digi-Key EG1889-ND

The finished products. You'll notice that John added a piece of black foam as a 'mask' to hide the nuts.

Mounted in the boat. We agree John, this looks pretty classy! Since John already had a number of our Rinorino and Doe lights, and per our policy of giving a free Rinorino or Doe away, what we did was to knock off the same amount of money from one of our Fautasi lights!

^*The Rinorino, who is DazzeLED by our LED lights, is what is known elsewhere as a firefly or lighting bug. The word literally means 'blink', as the light given by the Rinorino at night, unlike our products, blinks on and off. There are many varients on the spelling and pronunciation, with over 4 varients on the south shore of Vanua Levu alone! Rua ni Rinorino simply means 'A Pair Fireflys', even though the literal translation would be 'Two Of Firefly'. 'Katakata' is cheating you on your language lesson: It simply translates to 'hot'. To be correct, we would say 'rinorino katakata lailai vulavula' for a 'warm white firefly'. With the understanding that this is way too many double syllables for most people, we've just shortened it down a lot!