LED bulb in old mast top nav light

[foufou]

As Captain Tom mentioned contact corrosion is as important a consideration as power drain an bulb reliability. As to rfi I suspect the voltage conditioning circuitry to be the culprit. I have recent bought two mile rated led navigation lights from Amazon for $16/

[Bob666]

Originally Posted by foufou

As Captain Tom mentioned contact corrosion is as important a consideration as power drain an bulb reliability. As to rfi I suspect the voltage conditioning circuitry to be the culprit. I have recent bought two mile rated led navigation lights from Amazon for $16/

The mast in horisontal now, on the hard. Should I take the opportunity to renew the 40 year old cabling? Put some tinned copper cable in there? 5 W LED. 2,5 mm x 2 would do, right? Or must I have 4 mm2 x 2?

Mast is 17 m. 22 m to electric central.

Cheers

[Bob666]

Originally Posted by CaptTom

I see two problems with this. First, the fixture was designed (and probably certified) to work with a bulb that emits light from a filament; a very precise location. Chances are a LED replacement will not work correctly with the optics. A minor issue, perhaps, but one that can become very important to the lawyers if you're ever involved in a collision.

Second, in my life, the overwhelming majority of navigation lights I've had to fix were due to corrosion on the contacts, not a burned-out bulb. Any time I can replace the whole fixture with one that will never burn out OR corrode, I'll do it. Especially if it's at the top of the mast!

I don't have problems with corrosion. I got some voltage drop probably. The problem I have is 25 W at mast top, turned on all night while on passage. It's no good with the battery budget. 5 W is much better. I will have 400 W solar panels to recharge the batteries with, if the sun is shining. Planning to run the engine 1 h/day if a bit cloudy.

What's weird is that the old lantern doesn't have an O-ring. Will try to put on at its base, where the coloured plastic cap fits on the base.

Cheers

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by kas_1611

Strictly speaking all LEDs regardless of design emit Electro-Magnetic radiation as that is what light is, specific frequencies of EM Radiation (390-700nanometers from red to violet).

As "you cannae change the laws of Physics" white light is white light regardless of the source. Some cheaper LEDs may not produce the full spectrum which would cause problems if behind a filter. For instance if the LD was deficient in part of the red spectrum then the red light transmitted through the filter would look odd, same with the green, which is probably more susceptible as it lies midway along the visible spectrum unlike the red end.

Like anything these days there are good and bad manufacturers and suppliers. I can definitely vouch for the quality of Boatlamps LEDs on both white light quality and no RF interference.

Keiron

The RFI comes from the voltage controller in the bulb, not the LEDs

[kas_1611]

Originally Posted by CaptTom

I see two problems with this. First, the fixture was designed (and probably certified) to work with a bulb that emits light from a filament; a very precise location. Chances are a LED replacement will not work correctly with the optics. A minor issue, perhaps, but one that can become very important to the lawyers if you're ever involved in a collision.

Light travels as both a wave and as a photon (particle) and as such it expands from its source universally in every possible direction. It makes no difference to a filter or optics whether it was sourced from a vertical filament, horizontal filament, flame or a bunch of individual LEDs.

If that were the case Trinity House would not be using LEDs in navigation markers or even lighthouses.

[BobLoucks]

I replaced mine using ledlight.com
My Morgan is 1976 vintage, works great

[Lars_L]

A TV has only tree colours, red, green and blue. But even so, you have all colours on the screen. All LED contains only two or three colours but with the right mix they get the right white colour temperature. Therefore after a colour filter you don’t know if you get anything.

In Scandinavia you can buy licensed lanterns from Biltema to reasonable price.

A simple way to calculate the cable area. If you have a 12 V system and allows 3% voltage drop (that’s not much) you calculate this way.
The length of cable from the LED to the battery, one way. 22 m.
Times the current. 5 W / 12 V = 0.42 A
Divided by 10 and you have the cable area in mm². 22 m * 0.42 A / 10 = 0.92 mm²
A 1 mm² cable will be sufficient.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by kas_1611

Light travels as both a wave and as a photon (particle) and as such it expands from its source universally in every possible direction. It makes no difference to a filter or optics whether it was sourced from a vertical filament, horizontal filament, flame or a bunch of individual LEDs.

If that were the case Trinity House would not be using LEDs in navigation markers or even lighthouses.

Actually, I think that the shape of the source does influence the optics. Consider the tri-colour lens, with only the joins between red, green and white sectors to define the arc of illumination. The lanterns are designed for a vertical single filament light source, and with that, good colour separation is achieved. But if you use a typical "tower" LED array, the individual sources (LED chips) are spread horizontally by a cm or so. The light emitted by each LED chip spreads in a quasi-isotropic field, and so there is no sharp cutoff between colour sectors, since the dividing line is illuminated from several different angles.

If you put a tower type LED in a tricolour lens, when viewed from near dead ahead you will see a kinda muddy glow of no particular colour as you transition from port to starboard instead of a sharp change. Similarly, when moving aster, the change from red or green to white there is no sharp change, but a gradual one that covers perhaps ten degrees. I've observed several such lamps in use, and they are not acceptable, either to COLREGS or to me as a fellow sailor.

One CFer reported rebuilding his tricolour lens with aluminium baffles between the LED tower and the joins between the coloured sectors. Claimed that it resulted in sharp cutoffs, and that seems reasonable. One wonders about brightness, though...

Jim

[sailjumanji]

Originally Posted by kas_1611

This sounds like you had the "wrong" colour temperature LEDs behind the filters. As long as the white LED is the same (or very similar) colour temperature, which is measured in Kelvins (K) there will not be any difference in the colour transmitted through the filter as the light will be exactly the same as if it were an incandescent bulb. My bow lights are VERY Red and VERY Green with our warm white bulb in the housing.

Trying to save a few quid/bucks on domestic or automotive LEDs is not worth it as marine LEDs will be designed to handle the varying voltages, exposure, vibration and not to produce any EMI or RF interference. As good LEDs should last thousands of hours there is no real excuse to not purchase good quality bulbs.

Keiron

Dr LED's are advertised as replacements for marine lights, and not cheap. But they didn't last anywhere near as long as expected. And did produce RF interference. Unfortunately you don't know this until after you purchase!

[kas_1611]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Actually, I think that the shape of the source does influence the optics. Consider the tri-colour lens, with only the joins between red, green and white sectors to define the arc of illumination. The lanterns are designed for a vertical single filament light source, and with that, good colour separation is achieved. But if you use a typical "tower" LED array, the individual sources (LED chips) are spread horizontally by a cm or so. The light emitted by each LED chip spreads in a quasi-isotropic field, and so there is no sharp cutoff between colour sectors, since the dividing line is illuminated from several different angles.

If you put a tower type LED in a tricolour lens, when viewed from near dead ahead you will see a kinda muddy glow of no particular colour as you transition from port to starboard instead of a sharp change. Similarly, when moving aster, the change from red or green to white there is no sharp change, but a gradual one that covers perhaps ten degrees. I've observed several such lamps in use, and they are not acceptable, either to COLREGS or to me as a fellow sailor.

One CFer reported rebuilding his tricolour lens with aluminium baffles between the LED tower and the joins between the coloured sectors. Claimed that it resulted in sharp cutoffs, and that seems reasonable. One wonders about brightness, though...

Jim

Jim,

I do not see any colour blurring or muddying in my bow light. If anything the colours are much clearer with my tower LED than with the vertical filament incandescent.

The LED the OP linked to actually has inbuilt baffles to prevent any possible blurring so maybe this is the way to go for all manufacturers for bi or tri colour lights. Another simple option if one is concerned with this effect would be to draw a black line (with a ruler) with a permanent black marker pen or use a thin strip of black tape to create a sharp boundary on the filter.

Cheers

Keiron

[Bobcat]

There are quite a few issues none of them insoluble. Perhaps, the most difficult requires a file to match the non offset mounting (eg LEDs designed for vehicles) with the more usual marine offset ones.

As regards the coloured lenses, it is recommended that green LEDs should be used behind green lenses and red LEDs behind red lenses since most LEDs do not have the correct colour balance except with the very expensive marine lamps.

It seems that this is because bulbs cannot generally be approved - it is the lamp itself which is approved with its OEM compatible bulbs! However, all is not lost, at least in Europe because one enterprising firm in the UK has bespoke coloured LED bulbs manufactured which meet the standards and fit in traditional lamp housings behind normal coloured lenses - they are not so expensive as buying approved lamps! Give Adrian a call at Boatlamps.

[nhschneider]

We tried an LED bulb for our mast-top tri-color fixture but it knocks out our AIS reception. Turn off the LED bulb and the AIS signals come in fine. Turn the LED back on, the screen goes blank for all AIS targets except the ones that are too close. Switched back to an incandescent bulb.

Fair winds and calm seas.

[kas_1611]

Originally Posted by nhschneider

We tried an LED bulb for our mast-top tri-color fixture but it knocks out our AIS reception. Turn off the LED bulb and the AIS signals come in fine. Turn the LED back on, the screen goes blank for all AIS targets except the ones that are too close. Switched back to an incandescent bulb.

Fair winds and calm seas.

Try a properly designed marine LED that is constructed to prevent RF interference and avoid cheap units designed for automotive purposes where RF interference is not an issue.

[UNCIVILIZED]

Based on much of what's been said, & the provided info. Why not use an LED for the anchor light, & a conventional bulb for your tri-color? And yes, my internal notification system is telling me that I likely missed something via that statement. The question is, what?

[kas_1611]

Originally Posted by Bobcat

There are quite a few issues none of them insoluble. Perhaps, the most difficult requires a file to match the non offset mounting (eg LEDs designed for vehicles) with the more usual marine offset ones.

As regards the coloured lenses, it is recommended that green LEDs should be used behind green lenses and red LEDs behind red lenses since most LEDs do not have the correct colour balance except with the very expensive marine lamps.

It seems that this is because bulbs cannot generally be approved - it is the lamp itself which is approved with its OEM compatible bulbs! However, all is not lost, at least in Europe because one enterprising firm in the UK has bespoke coloured LED bulbs manufactured which meet the standards and fit in traditional lamp housings behind normal coloured lenses - they are not so expensive as buying approved lamps! Give Adrian a call at Boatlamps.

Agree that Adrian at Boatlamps is the guy to speak to with regard to marine LED units.

However it is not completely necessary to use coloured LEDs behind lenses as I have a warm white unit in my bi-colour bow lamp which works perfectly. No muddying or colour confusion as it is brighter and cleaner than with the original incandescent bulb. As I am colourblind I find it possible to determine Red and Green together when there is a good contrast between the colours (ie very red and very green I can see fine). With the LED I see clear, defined colours which I often struggle with when it is an incandescent unit.


On another tack, how do we know that it is LED that cause any muddying of the colour when we see it in someone else's coloured lamps? Could it actually be the filters and not the light source? Perhaps what needs to be done is not dismiss LEDs but redesign the filters and ensure they are truly fit for purpose regardless of light source.

Keiron