Advice on overhead interior lighting requsted

Getting ready to get serious about wiring, so need to make a decision on overhead lighting. Think about a fore and aft large recessed LED light fixtures for main cabin lighting, and some direction reading lights with white and red for the front, and white only for the rear. Any specific suggestions? Sure lights like the Aveo Eyebeams look nice, but the price is unacceptably high. I do not have a feel for how many lumens is really appropriate for these lights, so hard to evaluate specs.

I have wondered about some main overhead lights like these:
https://www.superbrightleds.com/mor...res-10-30v/recessed-light-fixture-12-led/383/

I've got one of these over my baggage compartment


and 4 of these (one over each seat) in the cabin


and we never use them. Granted I rarely fly at night so take it with a grain of salt, but I'd think long and hard about how much any overhead lighting will really be used before installing anything, much less an expensive setup. YMMV.....

I made two map lights using Harbor Freight clip on LED reading lights - similar to this one at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Firstinnovati...22&sr=8-7&keywords=LED+clip+on+reading+lights

I scrapped the LEDs and put some better ones in from Super Bright LEDs:
https://www.superbrightleds.com/

I scrapped the light clip and cut the flexible neck to 4" or so. The wires go up the cabin support tube and the end of each light flexible neck is held in place with an adel clamp under the support tube attach nuts. The lights are on a dimmer control.

I might have $10 tie up in all of this - and they work great.

Send me your email and I'll provide a photo.

Carl

I have two lights similar to Todd's "maplight II" but they are mounted on the sidewalls, so they shine into your lap without interfering with your vision. Wife uses one to read, I use it to look at charts, copy clearances, etc. I have them wired thru a home-brew light dimmer.

These work great. If the USB is inserted in the battery pack but not plugged in, the battery pack is disabled. 3AAAs run a day on low. You can put a colored tape over to dim or change color. Just clip where needed or make more permanent.

In my 6, they are between seats over the fire extinguisher. Can light panel or laps for reading. My panel lights are also USB powered. both don't even draw 1/2 amp off a 12V converter. At night intensity 1/4 amp. The 4 port startech USB hub above pax right knee behind panel powers them, my ADSB-In, the GRT memory stick and runs over into the GRT EFIS USB port.


[Super Bright] Music Stand Light - Can Be Used As Bulb LED Book Reading Lamp - Clip On - Comes With USB Cable and Adapter - Best Suited For: Music Stands, Reading, BBQ, Grilling, Desk & Travel - Used By Musicians, Readers, Artists, Chefs - Fully Portable - Divine LEDs https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OUDSD84/ref=cm_sw_r_em_awd_fL4Ywb832QAAB

There are so many choices!

I guess it depends on if you are going to put in an overhead consol. If so, I would go for one of the eyeball type swivel lights. I have some from a Beechcraft B55 that look nice, but I'm not sure I will install them. I don't want an overhead consol and these lights take 2 inches of head room.

The lights Cirrus uses are nice. These are much lower in profile so no consol needed. cirrus does not have an overhead consol.

You could use a bi-color LED strip. This can be red / blue / green in flight and white on the ground when you need to see.

But, as been said, I won't use them much because I don't fly at night.

Plane around

http://www.planearound.com/ONE-8-LED-INTERIOR-LIGHT-NATURAL-8LEDCLR.htm

Check out Sean's lights. He is good source and great guy to talk to.

From the other posts, I am probably overthinking this part of my build, but since you asked I'll toss I my 2 cents worth from a different direction. I really didn't like any of the options I was finding, so decided to do my own. I am also tired of the poor lighting in the factory aircraft I am flying now.
All of my lighting is/will be LED done DIY right down to soldering the chips. Here is a photo of the reading lights over each seating position:

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The details are in my build link below (the 2/19/2016 entry). A short description; the holder is machined out of 1" aluminum. The actual LED assembly could be direct mounted for about a 1/4" thickness. In this case, there are 3 LEDs at 186 lumens each (15 watts = 1 lumen approx.) so 558 lumens is way overkill. There are many optics available, in this case 10 degree beam optics for reading lights. The LEDs are wired in series with a 10 ohm/10watt resistor and a 1000ohm/0.5 watt pot for dimming and a switch to turn off. They go from too bright to look at to just glowing. Nothing gets more than hand warm. They use a little less than 1 amp each. There is no possible radio interference. I almost forgot to add that each light has about $15-20 in parts cost

Anyway, ping me if you want additional details

Has anyone looked at these lights, thinking they might be better with a couple less vertebrae? Wonder if using the variation with two white and two red leds is enough light to read by. I do a fair amount of predawn or late evening flying.



http://www.periheliondesign.com/ledlights.htm

Add on to my post:

I had to look them up again but here are a few good lights.

This is similar to what Cirrus uses:


This company also has some small eyeball lights. (Install pictures are an RV-10 ):


These are from Pilotlights.net. ( I have no affiliation to this company)

There are also great uses for light strips. The great thing about light strips is the indirect lighting they can give. The color can be controlled.


There are also the Beechcraft lights like these:


everything but the LED strips will take a bump or overhead console.

I should have mentioned that I have the Aerosport overhead console.