Dear Boat Doctor,

I'd like replace my white incandescent cabin lights with dimmable red/white LED lights, but I don't want replace the two-conductor wiring or the light switches themselves. I have a very involved teak-batten headliner and the switches are very nicely installed into the cabinetry. Do you have any ideas how I might do this using the existing wiring?

Don Wickesburg
Clearwater, Florida

Dear Don,

Lumitec Lighting makes LED lights with built-in intelligent switching. These lights (www.lumiteclighting.com) use switching logic to allow four-color switching or two-color switching with dimming on just two wires using a simple on-off switch. In the case of the red-white dimmable fixture, the light will start out at a low-level white light and will slowly ramp up. If you wish to stop at less than maximum white, just toggle the light off and on at the level you desire. If you'd like to switch to red, just toggle the light off and on when it reaches maximum white light intensity. This switching is not completely intuitive, but it does give you the lighting options you want without extra switching.