Mahe 36: Lighting and LEDs

[Toys_with_time]

[QUOTE= I have made an excel file (see attached) which calculates current consumption for sailing and for anchoring, both 24 hours/day.
Jef[/QUOTE]


Have taken the liberty of adding in more charging options so one can play around with both the inputs and the outputs plus it calculates how many hours before batteries reach a set minimum level.

Any improvements / comments on the calculations welcome. Entering data into yellow highlighted cells changes the outputs. (To change underlying formulae undo protection with TwT)

TwT

[roverhi]

Beware of RF noise in other electronics with LED's. Replaced the bulb in my stern light with an LED and it is a conversation killer. Despite being more than 10' away it knocks out my AM and HF radio. I've got an AquaSignal 25 stern light and it's got an odd bulb requirement, The only LED 'bulb' that would fit had a ton of LEDs on it. Puts out plenty of light and barely makes the Amp meter move but is really heavy RF producer.

Used a 'bulb' with fewer LEDs from the same manufacturer on my other light and it worked fine. Be careful if you are buying a bulb or light fixture that puts out a bunch of light, there may be other issues that come with it. Unfortunately, can't remember the name of the bulb company.

[Cotemar]

Mahe’s,

I found the LED to replace the Green/Red Steaming light that is halfway up the Mast.
The fixture is a:

Aqua Signal 25 Masthead (Green/Red ) / Foredeck Light model # 25100
This LED is a direct replacement that you can purchase from Imtra.com for $29

http://www.imtra.com/product/marine_lighting/led_replacement_bulbs/fit_navigation_fixtures/festoon_navigation_anchor_stern/ilfs44_30w.htm


ILFS44-30W

This high output LED cluster festoon style bulb easily exceeds the brightness level of the 10W incandescent bulb it replaces. It has panels on five different planes, each containing 6 SMD LEDs for a total of 30 LEDs delivering crisp white light beyond 3 nautical miles. The dimpled barrel end contacts are made to fit the popular Aqua Signal Series 25 navigation lights. It replaces the 12V festoon bulb #ASL-902007 or the 24V #ASL-902017. This warm white version is best suited for red, green, or bi-color combo fixtures as it will render the red or green color more accurately. Although these may also be used for mast-head & stern lights, our cool white version is an even better choice for these applications. This is a 44mm LED festoon style bulb.

Features & Benefits:
Exceeds 3 nautical miles visibility
No radiated heat
Lumen Output: 140 lumens (Warm White)
Voltage Input: 10-30VDC
Power Consumption: 3.2 watts
Viewing Angle: 360 degrees

Mark

[Cotemar]

Mahe’s,

I found the LED’s to replace the Green/Red Mast Head light and the Anchor light at the top of the mast. The fixture is a:

Aqua Signal Series 40 Tri-Color / Anchor Light

These LED’s are a direct replacement that you can purchase from Imtra.com for $29 each

http://www.imtra.com/product/marine_lighting/led_replacement_bulbs/fit_navigation_fixtures/bay15d_anchor_stern_running.htm

The factory lights bulbs that were used are 25w for the top Tri-Color lens and 10w for the Anchor white lens. The quicfit system allows disconnection easily and quickly without tools.

These are the highest output LED tower cluster available for marine use. They use 18 surface mount (SMD) LED’s arrayed in 6 planes for 360° visibility. Proprietary PWM Constant-Current chipset results in high performance across the entire 10-30VDC range. Choose the cool white model for masthead (anchor light) and stern lamp applications. Choose the full spectrum Warm White model for red, green, or tri-color running lights. Both versions fit in fixtures that use a BAY15d bulb (double contact, offset pins). Both LED’s use 3 watts each.

Order both of these LED's for the top of the mast.

ILTW1157-SMW (Warm White for the top Green/Red,White lens)

ILTW1157-SMC (Cool White used for the Anchor light)

You will need to put a dab of dielectric grease on each contact before installing them.
You will find a rap or two of black electrical tape on the quicfit ring at the bottom of the lens.
Remove the tape and then with both hands turn the lower ring counter clockwise a ¼ turn and lift the lens off.
Remove the 25 watt top bulb and then the 10 watt lower bulb.
Install your new Warm White for the top Green/Red,White lens.
Install the lower Cool White used for the Anchor light
Put the lens back on with theGreen/Red facing the bow and it should drop into its seat.
Rotate the ring ¼ turn clockwise. Put a new rap or two of black electrical tape on the quicfit ring at the bottom of the lens. Have the First mate let you down nicely.

Mark

[akio.kanemoto]

Originally Posted by Cotemar

Mahe’s,

I found the LED’s to replace the Green/Red Mast Head light and the Anchor light at the top of the mast. The fixture is a:

Aqua Signal Series 40 Tri-Color / Anchor Light

These LED’s are a direct replacement that you can purchase from Imtra.com for $29 each

http://www.imtra.com/product/marine_lighting/led_replacement_bulbs/fit_navigation_fixtures/bay15d_anchor_stern_running.htm

The factory lights bulbs that were used are 25w for the top Tri-Color lens and 10w for the Anchor white lens. The quicfit system allows disconnection easily and quickly without tools.

These are the highest output LED tower cluster available for marine use. They use 18 surface mount (SMD) LED’s arrayed in 6 planes for 360° visibility. Proprietary PWM Constant-Current chipset results in high performance across the entire 10-30VDC range. Choose the cool white model for masthead (anchor light) and stern lamp applications. Choose the full spectrum Warm White model for red, green, or tri-color running lights. Both versions fit in fixtures that use a BAY15d bulb (double contact, offset pins). Both LED’s use 3 watts each.

Order both of these LED's for the top of the mast.

ILTW1157-SMW (Warm White for the top Green/Red,White lens)

ILTW1157-SMC (Cool White used for the Anchor light)

You will need to put a dab of dielectric grease on each contact before installing them.
You will find a rap or two of black electrical tape on the quicfit ring at the bottom of the lens.
Remove the tape and then with both hands turn the lower ring counter clockwise a ¼ turn and lift the lens off.
Remove the 25 watt top bulb and then the 10 watt lower bulb.
Install your new Warm White for the top Green/Red,White lens.
Install the lower Cool White used for the Anchor light
Put the lens back on with theGreen/Red facing the bow and it should drop into its seat.
Rotate the ring ¼ turn clockwise. Put a new rap or two of black electrical tape on the quicfit ring at the bottom of the lens. Have the First mate let you down nicely.

Mark

Looks very promising - just out of curiosity - I've heard that the multi-voltage circuits with these LED units cause interference with masthead vhf etc.. any thoughts/experience?

[Jef & Marin, Netherlands]

Hi all,
I have an opinion about the use of white LED's for 3-colour masthead lights:

Firstly, be aware that an observer straight ahead of you will not see green or red, but a yellowish colour. This is illustrated in the drawing I made.
The cause is that the observer can see light from multiple LED's. The lights from these LED's will not necessarily come through the same filter. In my drawing I have shown light from 2 LEDs.
This results in (too) wide colour transitions between the red, green and white. An observer straight in front of you will see a yellowish colour and may conclude that you are sailing away from him.
There are official standards for the maximum angle of the transitions. The limits are not met by a white masthead LED.
In order to reach the specifications of the transitions, a narrow VERTICAL filament is used in the standard filament bulbs.

Secondly, in case of an accident at night, you may have interesting legal problems if either your insurance, of the opponent's, discovers that you have a non-qualified 3-colour light.....

In theory you could largely solve the first issue by sticking a narrow vertical black tape on the inside of the masthead filter. This should be placed over the red/green transition. The width of the tape should be equal, or slightly narrower, to the distance between the 2 main forward-shining LED's. Ideally, you would have the LED orientated as in my drawing.

Thinking about the above, I decided myself to purchase a complete LED (approved) 3-colour/anchor masthead light. Yes, that is expensive, but cheaper than extra solar cells to cover the energy expenditure.

If you do not sail too often at night, but anchor a lot, the obvious cheap solution is to replace the anchor light with an LED and keep the original 3-colour filament bulb.

[daddle]

Jef & Marin - You are correct. Most of the LED retrofit products offered are rather unprofessional, homebrew, illegal. I sent a guy up my mast to clean the tricolor. He somehow installed the lens about 90 degrees wrong. So I sailed around for a few weeks with the wrong lights. Fortunately it hardly matters. Ships just go around whatever slow lit thing they see, fishermen just don't care, other cruisers are too slow to get near me, and any light is better than none.

[donradcliffe]

The led replacements for the tricolor made by marinebeam.com work a treat in the aquasignal fixtures. The previous post on 'yellow' lights from dead ahead is complete hooey. I have taken the dingy around my boat several times, both with the incandescent bulb and the led replacement, and have never seen a yellow tint. When you are coming dead on to a tricolor light, you will get some shifting from red to green as the boat yaws back and forth--that's how you know that the boat is coming straight at you.

[daddle]

Some of us don't yaw back and forth. The typical LED retrofit, no hooey, does not click from red to green like a proper vertical filament tungsten lamp of old. But goes yellow, or some junk color at a distance. No hooey. Lucky it really doesn't matter.

[oldvarnish]

Although they're the cheaper option, I don't think a direct replacement bulb is the way to go for all the various reasons mentioned above.

I fitted a Lopolight Lopolight Navigation lights LED based info@lopolight.dk tel: +45 3248 5030.

Very good but quite expensive. Very efficient.

[donradcliffe]

Was at the boat show yesterday, and looked at a bunch of led bi and tri color lights. The purpose built fixtures didn't click back and forth from red to green--there was about 5-10 degrees of overlap. When I looked at my tri color from the dinghy I was over half a mile away--how far away do I have to be to find the yellow??

On the subject of purpose built led nav lights, its still buyer beware. The Annapolis harbormaster boat was pulled alonside one of the show floats, and the person next to me notices that 3 of the 5 leds in their port bow light had stopped working. A check showed that 2 of 5 had failed in the starboard light. These were led fixtures, not replacement bulbs. The patrol boats are out a lot, and run their lights day and night, so they got some hours in, but no where near the 50,000 the led promotors are pushing.

[Cotemar]

Mahe’s

I liked Jef from "Miss Poes" post about doing a Fluorescent light conversion to LED's

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f136/lighting-and-leds-38757-2.html#post442983

Jef did a really nice write-up, so I followed his lead and made my own fluorescent conversion to LED's.

It turns out that you can do this conversion in many different ways with different components and still come out with a great LED light.

Mark

[mrm]

Mark,

the idea to incorporate night vision preserving LEDs to original fixtures is very good, however, fluorescent to LED conversion is of questionable benefit.

Looking at numbers, fluorescent will make 80-90 lumen / Watt. Very modern, lighting class LEDs will give around 110 lumen / Watt. But you will not find such LEDs in those cheap halogen replacements, rather, there will be cheap signalling LEDs with numbers somewhere in 40 lumen / Watt range. So, looking at efficiency figures, LEDs may be slightly ahead of fluorescent or twice behind if cheap ones are mounted.

There are two other points to consider: white light quality, where two important factors are coordinated white temperature and, equally important and almost never published, Colour Rendering Index (CRI). Guess why it is not published? And, with a bad CRI, light may be technically white, but people on board will look like sick ghosts

Finally, LEDs _hate_ heat. If run anywhere above 70-80 deg C their lifespan will dramatically shorten. Also efficiency figures go down the drain. To properly replace other light sources with LEDs takes more than a light source swap, as cooling must be considered...

It is really not straightforward to aim for the same lumens when replacing sources to LEDs. Luckily, our eyes are quite good at adapting


Marius

[Jef & Marin, Netherlands]

Marius,
My reason for conversion was not efficiency. Although I bought high-efficiency LED's in the US.
The reasons were already written in my post:
- In high humidity and/or cold conditions fluorescents light may not start. In one case even after trying 10 times or more, an engine room light would not start, despite not being worn out. High voltage does not like humidity.
- Fluorescent lighting wear by being started. Especially in a bathroom you get a lot of starts with short on-times. This mean that when we are in the Pacific in a few years we have to carry sufficient spares.
- I wanted to add the red LED, and when you're doing that, and have the lights removed, why not do this simple conversion
- It is also a bit lighter in weight
- Well, they are around 10 watts and it is now 4 watts
- When one LED unit breaks down the other one still works.
I think that Hella should also do this conversion, maybe offer the standard and LED version as alternatives. Or they loose the business in the long run.

[mrm]

Jeff,

I should have been more specific when I wrote "fluorescent to LED conversion is of questionable benefit". I should have added "lumen and light quality wise".

All points you made are valid.

It is funny you should mention engine room lighting, as I have just finished making my 12V 18W fluorescent lamp for engine room on our boat

I hope that a solid layer of urethane insulating varnish I sprayed on circuit board, together with hermetic enclosure will be sufficient for the intended environment. I tested ignition down to -10C and it worked first time. Time will tell. I considered power LEDs for this application but decided against because of heat present in engine room leading to difficulties with proper heatsinking.

Greetings,
Marius