Putting LEDs into old nav light housings

[Capn Rick]

Try superbrightleds.com

[sagablu]

Important, you can use white LED blub for the green light, but for the red light you MUST use a Red bulb. If you do not the light will appear pink. I believe the issue is that the color temperature of the LED's are higher ( whiter) and the red lens existing is for a cooler ( more yellow) incandescent bulb

[Redline452]

I tried using Dr. LED in my nav lights, but in (surprisingly little) time they degraded, dropping elements and becoming dimmer. The Red and Green were also much thicker than the original vertical-filament bulbs, resulting in a significant overlap beyond the arc in which each should shine. Combined with the slow failures, I finally went with "real" Hella NaviLed Pro lamps - expensive but the difference is (pardon the pun) night and day!

[Steve Bean]

I suggest doing some research on what is required for federal documentation of a vessel. If you are not going to be engaging in commercial business, such as carrying passengers for hire...

[tkeithlu]

A few words on the USCG standards. After years of using "visible 2 (3) miles" as the standard, which must have really annoyed electrical engineers, the USCG wrote a laboratory test standard. Thereafter, nav lights have come stamped with the standard they match given the bulb included. Substituting an LED for an incandescent doesn't meet the standard, even if you remember to match colors and WOW, that thing's really bright.

I'm not sure what they would say about your putting an LED in a pre-standard fixture. All my fixtures are pre-standard, and I've taken to position that the tiny little incandescent bulbs they came with are unreliable (they burn out) and a menace to safe navigation. You can't see them very well under less than optimum conditions, such as rain or fog. That, of course, is when you need them.

From bunches of sources you can find LEDs with just about every imaginable base, and cheap. It's your choice - practical lighting for safety versus being in a jam on the witness stand when you get your ass sued. My choice is to be practical, be safe, and buy insurance.

[Bycrick]

Nav lights that meet the legal requirements are test with a specific bulb. If you change that, no matter how well you think it works, it’s no longer compliant. Is it likely that some inspector will come along and check your nav lights? No. But should somebody run into your boat at night, you can bet that they will try to blame you for not having "proper" lights. I've heard of two cases where the bulbs in a "proper" nav light were sent to forensic labs to see if they were turned on at the time of the accident.

[KelseyB]

Originally Posted by sagablu

Important, you can use white LED blub for the green light, but for the red light you MUST use a Red bulb. If you do not the light will appear pink. I believe the issue is that the color temperature of the LED's are higher ( whiter) and the red lens existing is for a cooler ( more yellow) incandescent bulb

Interesting... for my bow light, it would use the same bulb for both, that's what it was before, because it is divided into green and red lenses with a divider in the middle. Is it really that pink?

[requiem]

Originally Posted by KelseyB

Interesting... for my bow light, it would use the same bulb for both, that's what it was before, because it is divided into green and red lenses with a divider in the middle. Is it really that pink?

The problem, as jamhass mentioned earlier, is that unlike incandescents, LED bulbs don't produce quite a smooth spectrum. Instead, you have a few peaks that seem white when viewed together. Here's an example:



If the lens is only passing light of a frequency that the LED isn't emitting very much of, you won't get the light you're expecting.

The other issue has to do with the visible range. Like car headlamps, the light needs to be visible at a minimum brightness through a specific range, after which it should be cut off. Since an LED is not transmitting light in all directions as a traditional filament does, you can have cases where the light remains visible when it shouldn't be, or not visible when it should be. (Just as installing aftermarket HID bulbs in housings not designed for them can result in blinding other drivers.)

[Bycrick]

Red, green, blue LEDs output light of a single frequency. Or at least close to it. White light is supposed to be a mix of "all" frequencies. When you filter "white" light to get red or green, you’re simply throwing away all the light of colors you don’t want. So, putting a red LED behind a "red" filter might work if the two just happen to match. But maybe not; the results are unpredictable.

There’s really no such thing as a ."white" LED. You usually have a blue LED which is covered by a phosphor which absorbs blue light and then emits light of a different color. By mixing different phosphors, you can adjust the perceived color temperature. So the difference between "warm white" and "cool white" LEDs is the different phosphor mix. But an incandescent bulb produces a "white" light with a broad range of colors, so simple color filters work. With "white" LEDs, the light is concentrated in a few relatively narrow bands. If your filter doesn’t happen to match that, you’ll have a lot less visible light out than you’d think.

[KelseyB]

Originally Posted by Bycrick

Red, green, blue LEDs output light of a single frequency. Or at least close to it. White light is supposed to be a mix of "all" frequencies. When you filter "white" light to get red or green, you’re simply throwing away all the light of colors you don’t want. So, putting a red LED behind a "red" filter might work if the two just happen to match. But maybe not; the results are unpredictable.

There’s really no such thing as a ."white" LED. You usually have a blue LED which is covered by a phosphor which absorbs blue light and then emits light of a different color. By mixing different phosphors, you can adjust the perceived color temperature. So the difference between "warm white" and "cool white" LEDs is the different phosphor mix. But an incandescent bulb produces a "white" light with a broad range of colors, so simple color filters work. With "white" LEDs, the light is concentrated in a few relatively narrow bands. If your filter doesn’t happen to match that, you’ll have a lot less visible light out than you’d think.

Well, given all of this, would it make more sense to just replace the incandescent fixture inside of my housings? Is incandescent really bright enough?

[GILow]

Originally Posted by KelseyB

Well, given all of this, would it make more sense to just replace the incandescent fixture inside of my housings? Is incandescent really bright enough?

It can be, but powering it will be a whole new issue.

I experimented around a bit and found the Marine Beam LEDs linked earlier on have truly excellent results with my existing fittings. Maybe I got lucky with the spectrum ranges of bulb and lense or maybe Marine Beam have done something clever with their LEDs to improve the chance of compatibility but either way I'm much happier seeing a few Watts of power use for the bow navigation lights rather than the original few amps.

[Dsanduril]

Here's the USCG Marine Safety Alert on non-standard lighting. Take it for what it's worth.

[Bycrick]

If you have single color nav lights, you could theoretically replace all of the colored filters with clear glass and then use the correct color of LED. That eliminates the potential loss of light in the filtering.

If I had some compelling reason, like restoring an old classic boat and wanting to keep the classic lights, it might be worth the work. Still not legally compliant, but unlikely to cause problems on a recreational boat.

But in my experience, most of my nav light problems were caused by moisture (or worse) getting into the fixture and corroding everything. That problem isn’t solved by replacing with LED bulbs.

Good LED nav lights are completely sealed.

So, I’m not a fan of retrofitting old fixtures. Doing it quick, easy and cheap will almost certainly not do as good a job as a real nav light. And it can still leak.

[Bycrick]

You can certainly just replace the incandescent bulb and whatever else is corroded. But real, approved nav lights often use a special, vertical filament bulb so that they meet the requirements for separation of colors in bi- and tricolor lights and so that the light source is properly collimated by the lens and forms the desired beam. Last time I looked, these bulbs were $20-40. You won’t necessarily get the same results with multiple, point-source light emitters like LEDs.

[zstine]

I think you just need to look for a 'socket' for whatever type of bulb you want and then buy the corresponding LED. As for coast guard approved, your original lights on your old boat are grandfathered. If you get the old socket working, I'm pretty sure you won't have a legal problem just switching the bulb from incandescent to LED since the LED is certainly brighter. However, if the NAV lights are considered "New" you may be required to upgrade to current law.. not sure?



socket example:
https://www.amazon.com/Bayonet-Socke...3921547&sr=8-3