Problems with Dr. LED Lights

[hans van os]

Just replaced my swedish chart table light with Dr. Led red/white led unit.
this new light is grossly overpriced. Installation is difficult because of the flat bottom with no room to house some wire connectors.
I had to takeaway the bottomplate to solder the wires coming from the wall, with no place to get behind the wall. I was able to wiggle the wires inside the bottom part and mount the light.
The flexible arm is too light and doesn't stay horizontal.
Further there is a terrible RF interference on both red and white light.
All my other LED's bought in UK were cheaper, better, and no RF interference.
Sorry, thumbs down.

[Dockhead]

I've been using various LED units -- G4's and festoons -- for nearly three years. Nary a problem with any of them except for two Superbright LED units which exploded when first powered up.

I intentionally tried a variety of them from super cheap (but still, buck regulated, of necessity since I am 24v) to super expensive, and found them all to be good, except the two mentioned before.

Did not try any Dr LED, but this should be relevant to the general topic of reliability of LED lighting.

[Bill_E]

I've tried a couple of Superbright LEDs and they work fine. I've also had excellent results with Marinebeam. I just ordered a masthead (anchor) light from Bebi and am looking forward to receiving it in the next couple of days.

I have to say that the Bebi and Marinebeam websites have excellent discussions of things like spectral output and luminance. I know not everyone is interested in all of the technical details but especially for Nav lights you have to worry about the color of the light and the color of your lens (red and green) also the total luminance per watt.

I've been slowly replacing interior lamps with drop in replacements. I understand the issue of voltage spikes but so far haven't had any failures. I'm pretty sure that my refrigerators and some other equipment must spike.

I had an LED anchor light installed when I rerigged my boat several years ago and it (sort of) failed after about a year. I was able to revive it by cleaning and doing some minor rewiring but I'm really looking forward to the Bebi Owl that I'll install in the next week or so. They look pretty bomb proof. And...Michael (at Bebi, in Fiji) has been extremely helpful and gracious with aid for my plans for more replacements.

[stillbuilding]

Noting the wide range of quality in LED lights, I presume there is a similar wide range in RF interference.
Is there a simple way of measuring RFI such that I could check at time of purchase in the shop?
Has anyone/any authoritycompiled a list of LED products and there RFI issues?

[transmitterdan]

LED's do not cause RFI. The regulator circuit that powers the LED is what causes RFI. There is no good way to know in advance how much RFI a particular regulator circuit will create. It depends on the wiring from the boat to the fixture as well as the design of the fixture itself. It even depends on the voltage level at the input to the fixture. It also depends on the location of your radio antennas.

In general, RFI can be corrected by putting a simple filter at the power inlet to each fixture. Some manufacturers do this but many do not because adding cost is not in their business interest. Some masthead LED manufacturers recognize this as a real problem and include RFI filtering because of the proximity to VHF masthead antennas. Some even advertise this fact.

There are standards for measuring RFI in the US and other countries. Many products must comply wth RFI limits established by a local regulatory authority (FCC in US). So far there are no rules for LED lights that guarantee RFI will not be a problem. I suspect if such rules were proposed then LED light manufacturers would go berserk because it costs a lot to test and certify each product. But this is a real problem and many manufacturers will continue to eliminate the cost of RFI filtering until something is done. I suspect that the boater market is not large enough to drive the LED industry to voluntarily limit RFI from their products.

Dan
Valiant 42

[kirkalittle]

I bought the Dr LED goose-neck light (has option for Red or White light) for my nav station. The White stopped working, I emailed Dr. LED and the quickly sent out a replacement at no cost to me, excellent service. Never had any problems with the installation, the goose neck getting too loose, or radio interference (and I use the SSB a lot). When I'm on passage I leave the Red light on 24/7 at 0.05 amps.

I also bought the replacement mast head anchor light and Tri color for the aqua signal housing, been on the boat for nearly 4 years and 20k miles, no problems, very happy with DR. LED.