Rod Buster
Member
- May 8, 2018
- 66
- Boat Info
- 1985 Sea Ray Sundancer 340
- Engines
- Twin 454 Mercruiser 340MIE : BW/Velvet 72c v-drives
CSR:
I just went through a bit of a frustrating ordeal trying to replace some of the 0.312" round indicator lights in my dash panels and breaker box. In 1985 at least, these were all Solico brand out of Mexico. It's likely most older Sea Ray models have the same parts.
The OEM indicators were incandescent, with a mix of green/red/amber. The OEM indicators say 15V on them, which is important. A lot of the classics do not have dimmers, so the brightness was set for night vision concerns and heat.
There is an incandescent replacement bulb by SeaDog that fits, but it is glaring bright and runs very hot. It's also expensive at about $7. It's marked as a 12-15V bulb, not straight 15V, so it runs way too bright. I had to cover them while driving at night. I started with those and was also concerned about the heat. One of them only lasted about 3 months on the auto bilge pump green indicators (lit 24/7). You can see how bright the two on the left are compared to the blowers on the right. Completely unacceptable.
I found that fpmarine and others sell some of the solico brand, but those are all 12-15V, too bright, and run very hot because they are still not direct OEM replacements. Solico does make 15V incandescent, but they are extremely rare and basically impossible to find. The 12-15V are fine for momentary indicators, but not for the indicators that run at night while you're driving, like the bilge pump lights, blower lights, the wiper light, or the nav light. This was not a solution and I'm frustrated that I spent the time and money to replace them all just to rip them out again.
After hours of research and digging, I finally found some LED equivalents by Solico. After multiple emails to Solico and a bunch of electronics suppliers that will not sell less then 250+ pieces at a time, I had to get everything started with a special order, but now they should be available to anyone. If you want to replace these with LED, it's worth the effort/cost. I did all of the indicators in the dash and breaker box.
Not a night shot, but you get the idea. Bilge auto lights and the wiper lights are on. The brightness is much more like the OEM lights and there is no heat, even on the 24/7 bilge bulbs.
I also replaced all of the 125VAC amber indicators in the breaker box with LED and the water level indicators. 4/5 bulbs did not work, as shown below:
Lakeview brought them in stock for me and I thought I'd pass the info along for anyone that may benefit.
The 12VDC green/red/amber indicators are these part numbers:
1812-1-13-20310 ("10" is red)
1812-1-13-20320 ("20" is amber)
1812-1-13-20340 ("40" is green)
The 125VAC amber indicators for the switches in the breaker box are:
1815-1-13-20320
18 is the series - wire leads
12 is 14VDC LED/15 is 125VAC LED
-1 is wire termination
-13 is a white base with black bezel
-203 is the flush diamond head
(See attached PDF)
These are very hard to find direct replacements to upgrade everything to LED.
Here's the link:
https://www.lvelectronics.com/category/psearch/1926?in_fields={"Manufacturer":"SOLICO","Lamp Type":"","Voltage":"","Lens Color":"","Lens Type":"","Termination Style":""}
Good luck.
I just went through a bit of a frustrating ordeal trying to replace some of the 0.312" round indicator lights in my dash panels and breaker box. In 1985 at least, these were all Solico brand out of Mexico. It's likely most older Sea Ray models have the same parts.
The OEM indicators were incandescent, with a mix of green/red/amber. The OEM indicators say 15V on them, which is important. A lot of the classics do not have dimmers, so the brightness was set for night vision concerns and heat.
There is an incandescent replacement bulb by SeaDog that fits, but it is glaring bright and runs very hot. It's also expensive at about $7. It's marked as a 12-15V bulb, not straight 15V, so it runs way too bright. I had to cover them while driving at night. I started with those and was also concerned about the heat. One of them only lasted about 3 months on the auto bilge pump green indicators (lit 24/7). You can see how bright the two on the left are compared to the blowers on the right. Completely unacceptable.
I found that fpmarine and others sell some of the solico brand, but those are all 12-15V, too bright, and run very hot because they are still not direct OEM replacements. Solico does make 15V incandescent, but they are extremely rare and basically impossible to find. The 12-15V are fine for momentary indicators, but not for the indicators that run at night while you're driving, like the bilge pump lights, blower lights, the wiper light, or the nav light. This was not a solution and I'm frustrated that I spent the time and money to replace them all just to rip them out again.
After hours of research and digging, I finally found some LED equivalents by Solico. After multiple emails to Solico and a bunch of electronics suppliers that will not sell less then 250+ pieces at a time, I had to get everything started with a special order, but now they should be available to anyone. If you want to replace these with LED, it's worth the effort/cost. I did all of the indicators in the dash and breaker box.
Not a night shot, but you get the idea. Bilge auto lights and the wiper lights are on. The brightness is much more like the OEM lights and there is no heat, even on the 24/7 bilge bulbs.
I also replaced all of the 125VAC amber indicators in the breaker box with LED and the water level indicators. 4/5 bulbs did not work, as shown below:
Lakeview brought them in stock for me and I thought I'd pass the info along for anyone that may benefit.
The 12VDC green/red/amber indicators are these part numbers:
1812-1-13-20310 ("10" is red)
1812-1-13-20320 ("20" is amber)
1812-1-13-20340 ("40" is green)
The 125VAC amber indicators for the switches in the breaker box are:
1815-1-13-20320
18 is the series - wire leads
12 is 14VDC LED/15 is 125VAC LED
-1 is wire termination
-13 is a white base with black bezel
-203 is the flush diamond head
(See attached PDF)
These are very hard to find direct replacements to upgrade everything to LED.
Here's the link:
https://www.lvelectronics.com/category/psearch/1926?in_fields={"Manufacturer":"SOLICO","Lamp Type":"","Voltage":"","Lens Color":"","Lens Type":"","Termination Style":""}
Good luck.
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