Which anchor light LED bulb can match a 25 watt incandescent?

[patja]

Originally Posted by Fuss

Actually this whole thread has been a waste of time as the OP wanted brightness over waterproofing. The end result is that we have all been posting away but in reality we want a waterproof Navigation bulb over a brighter bulb. He ended up suggesting a bright non waterproof aqua signal compatible led bulb.
Really... a non waterproof led Navigation bulb!

I ended up abandoning the quest for brightness as I came to this same conclusion. Especially when I got up close and took a hard look at how my old Aqua Signal fixture was put together. That thing was solid as a rock, with no corrosion or signs of deterioration whatsoever.

I ended up biting the bullet and putting an Aqua Signal Series 34 LED combo anchor/tricolor. The light part of it is completely sealed with just the quickfit pins to connect to the base where you have robust wiring terminals. 5 year warranty.

[hellosailor]

"White" LEDs from even the best suppliers can easily have a 10:1 variation in brightness coming off the same assembly line. So while a 1W LED might be vaguely equal to a 10W filament bulb...that 10:1 variation is still a huge one. In order to get LED specs that mean anything, you have to be ordering LEDs that have been sorted into matching "bins" and the vendor pays extra to buy them that way. With unknown chain of supply and unknown vendors...roll the dice.

"I see no value at all in LED replacement bulbs." Look again.
Prime LEDs are rated at a specific brightness, heat, and other characteristics. The industry standard is to rate the brightness (which is tied to power consumption and proper heat sinking) by operating the LED so that it has 70% of the initial brightness after 50,000 hours of use, and it will not fail until some 100,000 hours of use.

If you take 50,000 hours as the standard for replacement...that's 4,166 twelve-hour nights of operation. More than eleven years of regular nightly use. You won't get that from any kind of filament bulb at any price. There are special "instrumentation" bulbs with dual filaments that might come close--but they are also intentionally dim to last longer.

LEDs are like race horses. If you just go down to the track and put your money on the nag with a nice name? The bookies call you a sucker. Picking a winner in the LED business these days pretty much means you need to buy from a prime distributor of a prime manufacturer--and that ain't cheap.

There might be something to be said in paying more up front, and getting a reasonable chance of not having to climb the mast on a rough night for the next ten or twenty years to change that pesky bulb. Might.

I'm not sure "mass market" bulbs in a niche like marine lighting are ever going to be reliable prime quality.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

"White" LEDs from even the best suppliers can easily have a 10:1 variation in brightness coming off the same assembly line. So while a 1W LED might be vaguely equal to a 10W filament bulb...that 10:1 variation is still a huge one. In order to get LED specs that mean anything, you have to be ordering LEDs that have been sorted into matching "bins" and the vendor pays extra to buy them that way. With unknown chain of supply and unknown vendors...roll the dice..

Not hard to find or expensive for a DIY project -
5-mm Round White High-Brightness LEDs | Cree Components
https://eu.mouser.com/ProductDetail/...jPO%2fc9ug%2fL

Add an ebay constant current power supply of build your own for cost of beer , few hours with some plumbing pipe and epoxy - job done, better than most shop offerings and really not that difficult.

[hellosailor]

Not hard to find, no. Of course Cree won't sell those directly, and even then those are unbinned parts with more than a 2x brightness variation listed by Cree, so you need to start with the minimum values and hope for something better to show up.

But that Mouser listing, at 40,000mcd, is only good for a 15 degree viewing angle. You'd need quit a handful of them for anything except the spotlight on the tip of a tweezer. Which means building the assembly and heat sinking and all the other fun stuff. You'd need, what, 28 of them? Just in order to get a single 15 degree tall light with 360-degree coverage.

Now try to find something more in line with "bulb" replacement. Not so easy, or cheap.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

But that Mouser listing, at 40,000mcd, is only good for a 15 degree viewing angle. You'd need quit a handful of them for anything except the spotlight on the tip of a tweezer. Which means building the assembly and heat sinking and all the other fun stuff. You'd need, what, 28 of them? Just in order to get a single 15 degree tall light with 360-degree coverage.

Not so in the real world, I've been living mostly on the hook for nearly couple of years with one running every night. . The 15deg is 50% , not complete cutoff. With 15 as 5 parallel strings of 3 in series run at 20mA each so 66% of max current rating the banding can be seen close up, approach from a dinghy you can't see it. That's in the real world.


Tip of a tweezer is ridiculous, those things are really bright!


No need for any heatsinks at that current. The binning seems fine, building Mk1 I check each one to match forward voltage but it wasn't really necessary, they were all close so no worry of one string taking too much current and going into thermal runaway.

Mk1 had 15 LEDs...(wiring isn't wired in the cad..)


but not really being content with being as bright as anyone in the anchorage - wanna be the brightest! Mk2 will have 24 :cool


What is necessary is a bit of positivity and desire to give something a go & learn. Not get bogged down by doom and gloom "it won't work" forum posts

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by Fuss

Actually this whole thread has been a waste of time as the OP wanted brightness over waterproofing. The end result is that we have all been posting away but in reality we want a waterproof Navigation bulb over a brighter bulb. He ended up suggesting a bright non waterproof aqua signal compatible led bulb.
Really... a non waterproof led Navigation bulb!

For the third time.........
In post 14 I linked to sealed LED's that are brighter than the 25w incandescent they replaced.




https://m.ebay.com.au/itm/5pcs-x-BA1...JFzN7iCCUerbrg

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by conachair

Not so in the real world, I've been living mostly on the hook for nearly couple of years with one running every night. . The 15deg is 50% , not complete cutoff. With 15 as 5 parallel strings of 3 in series run at 20mA each so 66% of max current rating the banding can be seen close up, approach from a dinghy you can't see it. That's in the real world.

That looks really nice! What regulator design are you using?

[conachair]

Originally Posted by Paul Elliott

That looks really nice! What regulator design are you using?

Regulator is based on this..

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Opm-3-...ist=WL&index=1

The transistor ended up being a FET as I hade some in a box. Works a treat, cheap and not switching so no chance of any rf noise.

Mk2 has been on hold for a few weeks but has some perf board to make it easier to put together. Tried one 3 led section which was pretty easy to assemble similar to this, printed a template from cad to get the hole positions in the plumbing pipe....
If/when I get round to Mk2 I'll make notes and pics and post on here..

[Taalica]

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