LED Bulbs / Searolf apology

[minsted]

I was thinking of putting LEDs in the Nav lights - which take a normal 10w bulb (http://www.force4.co.uk/961/Force-4-Spare-12V--10Watt-bulb.html)

Looking at eBay I saw these _ http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/140663097214?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

I don't have a spare bulb to hand to check dimensions but does anyone know if these would fit / be suitable ?

Thanks

 

[PetiteFleur]

To keep the colours accurate you need green LED's for starboard and red LED's for port. Just using standard white LED's does not give the correct colour through the coloured lens. Also make sure your festoon lamps are the correct length as there are several lengths from 30 to 42mm long.
They almost certainly won't comply with thye regs. as they won't have been tested in the lamp concerned. It seems only recently that some LED lamps have approvals.

 

[VicS]

They don't look as though they will give the correct spread of light, maybe for side lights but not for bicolour, masthead or stern lights.

Note that the proper coloured LEDs are recommended for the side and bicolour lights although I believe warm white gives satisfactory results.

For best visibility cool white is recommended for white lights.

Why frig about with cheap eBay tat . You want to be as visible as possible at night not on run down by some ship.

Go to http://www.boatlamps.co.uk/ or http://www.searolf.com/ and buy the correct lights!

 

[lenseman]

And just to add a little more information into the pot, some festoon bulbs used in navigation lighting have concave ends and not canoe shaped ends.

http://www.force4.co.uk/5215/Aqua-Signal-Series-25-Bulb.html

 

[Sandyman]

Deleted by admin on request of user.

 

[VicS]

And just to add a little more information into the pot, some festoon bulbs used in navigation lighting have concave ends and not canoe shaped ends.

http://www.force4.co.uk/5215/Aqua-Signal-Series-25-Bulb.html

That's interesting I am sure my old Series 25 Nav lights had pointed ended festoons, likewise their look alike replacements.

 

[prv]

They almost certainly won't comply with thye regs. as they won't have been tested in the lamp concerned.

I don't believe the collision regulations require lights to have been tested by anybody in particular.

Note that the proper coloured LEDs are recommended for the side and bicolour lights although I believe warm white gives satisfactory results.

The warm white LEDs in my nav lights (not eBay, nor particularly cheap) produce what looks like a good green to my eye. The supplier also publishes a colour gamut chart which plots it (when used with an Aqua Signal housing, which is what mine is) within the envelope specified by Colregs. Obviously I have to take their word for that (I don't have colour testing equipment handy) but I have no reason to doubt them.

Standard white LEDs are definitely dubious. My anchor light uses them, and out of curiosity I tried shining that through my bicolour housing. The green half looked distinctly bluish.

Pete

 

[Scubadoo]

Deleted by admin

 

[William_H]

LED festoon lamps

In answer to the OP post the 39mm long festoon is I think the lager size and you may find your fitting designed for the shorter festoon. Though I think 39mm the most common.
As said there may be a problem of color when the white of LED goes through the red or green filter. Some white LEDs make white with varying amounts of different color generating semiconductors as I think the ones in the link are. Other white LEDs use a UV emitter and flourescent material to produce white light which may have better full spectrum emission. These tend to have a larger blob type LED with a milky white color.
The next problem is that pinpoint shaped LEDs like that inside the festoon of the link tend to have a fairly narrow light emission angle. It makes them bright in the right direction but dull off centre. The flourescing type seem to have +- 45 degrees making them better but still inadequate to your need for 122.5 degrees coverage in azimuth.
Nevertheless the filter may provide enough spread for your purposes considering that the LED will be quite bright. So much depends on your need to comply with regs. You could buy the bulbs at the price and see what you think. They will always be good for interior lights if not for Nav lights.

I would suggest you buy purpose built side nav lights in Red and Green emitting LEDs. They are about 20 squid here in OZ and really good. For stern light you might try fitting 2 of the linked bulbs side by side but facing away from Centre line. good luck olewill

 

[Adrian Jones]

In answer to the OP post the 39mm long festoon is I think the lager size and you may find your fitting designed for the shorter festoon. Though I think 39mm the most common.
As said there may be a problem of color when the white of LED goes through the red or green filter. Some white LEDs make white with varying amounts of different color generating semiconductors as I think the ones in the link are. Other white LEDs use a UV emitter and flourescent material to produce white light which may have better full spectrum emission. These tend to have a larger blob type LED with a milky white color.
The next problem is that pinpoint shaped LEDs like that inside the festoon of the link tend to have a fairly narrow light emission angle. It makes them bright in the right direction but dull off centre. The flourescing type seem to have +- 45 degrees making them better but still inadequate to your need for 122.5 degrees coverage in azimuth.
Nevertheless the filter may provide enough spread for your purposes considering that the LED will be quite bright. So much depends on your need to comply with regs. You could buy the bulbs at the price and see what you think. They will always be good for interior lights if not for Nav lights.

I would suggest you buy purpose built side nav lights in Red and Green emitting LEDs. They are about 20 squid here in OZ and really good. For stern light you might try fitting 2 of the linked bulbs side by side but facing away from Centre line. good luck olewill

A few comments and hope they are informative.

The OP's original link referred to a vehicle number plate lamp. There is no way this would be adequately visible at one mile. It's designed for a vehicle number plate light! Could anyone see a rear number plate at a mile, I doubt it, what about two miles? The vehicle lamp will be unregulated and its light output will vary with its supply voltage. If used on a boat, it will be brightest when the boat engine is running and battery is charging. It will be less bright when on battery only supply. Such features are not exactly desirable for use in navigation lighting!

Most good quality high output white LEDs are actually produced using base blue LEDs. These blue LEDs have various mixture of phosphor elements added to change output to a range of light frequencies that produce 'white' light. The particular blend of phosphors determine how, in tone, the white the output looks. A cool white light, a light with a blueish tinge is often used in cheap vehicle lamps. Cool white LEDs have phosphor elements added that output relatively low levels of red and green light. By contrast, well designed warm white high output SMD LEDs will have phosphor elements that produce much larger levels of red and green frequencies in its output.

A cool white LED will not be outputting very much red or green light to start with therefore its light output through a red and green navigation light lens will appear very poor. Conversely a warm white SMD LED lamp with its much higher red and green wavelength output will function well and produce red and green light which visible at prescribed distances.

My recommendation for Nav lights designed to be visible for 2Nm only use hight output current controlled SMD LEDs. Ensure that the lamps have a constant-current, Buck Boost PWM controller built in and are specifically recommended for use in navigation lights. Ideally use green LEDs behind green lenses and red LEDs behind red lenses. All red and green light frequencies will pass directly through the respective lenses and produce very bright port and starboard light outputs that will often exceed the COLREG requirements. In bi-colour navigation lights use good quality high output SMD LED warm white lamp will produce perfectly adequate red and green light levels. I'm afraid you cannot buy such lamps for £0.90!

Cool White lamps should never be used behind coloured lenses as their low output of red and green light frequencies produce a strange and unsatisfactory hue rendering the colours through filters totally unsatisfactory for use in navigation lights.

regards

__________________

 

[theguerns]

led nav lights

I beleive that EC Smith carry the correct led replacement lams for nav lights I have them in our nav ights and have tested range and angular conformaity they are to the colour regs.
Retired ships captain

 

[VicS]

I beleive that EC Smith carry the correct led replacement lams for nav lights I have them in our nav ights and have tested range and angular conformaity they are to the colour regs.
Retired ships captain

The one I bought ( From Force4) for my Tricolour is an EC Smith one. It has separate red, green and white LEDs.

It came with a special holder, to replace the existing one, that enabled the colours to be correctly aligned with the lens.
Minor snag was that the LEDs all look the same and its correct orientation was not marked so first thing to do was to power it up and mark the front.



.

 

[Elemental]

The one I bought ( From Force4) for my Tricolour is an EC Smith one. It has separate red, green and white LEDs.
.

I can't overstate how important it is to get bulbs with seperate RGW leds.
I inherited an all white LED replacement bulb in the masthead tricolour. At first glance (from the pontoon) it looked pretty good and I was happy with the low power consumption. I used it for 18 months, with many hours night sailing across channel and around the Essex and south coasts. One eve we anchored in a quiet creek. The anchor light had stopped working (again ) so I'd turned the tricolour on instead (I know ...). I was on the beach sitting around a fire and could see the white sector of the tricolour. This meant the boat wasn't pointing the same way as all the others. A bit more investigation revealed that I was actually looking at the 'green' as I should have, it just looked white Worse still, a bit more investigation revealed that the 'red' was also white (with a hint of pink).

Clearly the spectrum emitted by the LEDs was totally incompatible with the filters on the lamp. I now have a regular tungsten bulb and all is well again. At some point I'll replace the whole lamp with a proper LED system.

 

[Adrian Jones]

I can't overstate how important it is to get bulbs with seperate RGW leds.
I inherited an all white LED replacement bulb in the masthead tricolour. At first glance (from the pontoon) it looked pretty good and I was happy with the low power consumption. I used it for 18 months, with many hours night sailing across channel and around the Essex and south coasts. One eve we anchored in a quiet creek. The anchor light had stopped working (again ) so I'd turned the tricolour on instead (I know ...). I was on the beach sitting around a fire and could see the white sector of the tricolour. This meant the boat wasn't pointing the same way as all the others. A bit more investigation revealed that I was actually looking at the 'green' as I should have, it just looked white Worse still, a bit more investigation revealed that the 'red' was also white (with a hint of pink).

Clearly the spectrum emitted by the LEDs was totally incompatible with the filters on the lamp. I now have a regular tungsten bulb and all is well again. At some point I'll replace the whole lamp with a proper LED system.

I suspect that a previous owner had installed, in error, a 'cool white' LED lamp in your mast light fixture. Cool white LED lamps are quite unsuitable for use in a tri-colour navigation light fitting. A suitably designed for the purpose, warm white LED lamp should be used. This will produce the correct colours through the red and green lens elements of the fixture. You may wish to look back in this thread to my previous post where I explained the reasons for this.
Regards

 

[CAPTAIN FANTASTIC]

I was thinking of putting LEDs in the Nav lights - which take a normal 10w bulb (http://www.force4.co.uk/961/Force-4-Spare-12V--10Watt-bulb.html)

Looking at eBay I saw these _ http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/140663097214?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

I don't have a spare bulb to hand to check dimensions but does anyone know if these would fit / be suitable ?

Thanks

I replaced all my old bulbs with cheap LED bulbs from ebay, (same as the ones on your ebay link) I bought a few types and they all work very well. No problems with colour variation due to LED or glass etc; every looks good. Some are brighter than others but they all work well.

 

[RobF]

And just to add a little more information into the pot, some festoon bulbs used in navigation lighting have concave ends and not canoe shaped ends.

http://www.force4.co.uk/5215/Aqua-Signal-Series-25-Bulb.html

I had this very issue on my boat. In the end I drilled out the nodules that held the concave ends, leaving holes that would take the canoe ends. These were then soldered in (on the basis of the lifespan of LED lights).

+1 for Bedazzled - I had excellent service from them - which included a return (my fault, not the quality of their lamps).

 

[sailor22]

I bought the ECSmith Tricolour LED lanps for my Tri-light and in a test in the garden, was so surprised with the very poor cut-off from one sector to the next, that I fabricated and fitted some baffles to the lamp which just fitted inside the AquaSignal 40 Series Tri-light shade.

In a 2-mile test the cut-off seemed to be fine.

My 2-mile test also involved a comparison between the Tricolour LED Lamp behind a Tri-Light Lens, the Tricolour LED Lamp behind a clear lens Lens (from a combined motor-boat steering and anchor light assembly) and a standard 25W filament lamp behind a Tri-Colour lens.

All used AquaSignal 40 Series lights and the back-ground was Lee-on-Solent sea-front..

The results were interesting. The Filament lamp was best, followed by the clear lens and the Tricolour Lens came last. But there was not a huge amount of difference between them.

I know what I shall have at the top of my mast.

 

[Natalie Davies]

Editing in this thread

A representative for Searolf got in touch with us about this thread and proved that they had replaced the defective LED lights. Sandyman, who made the original complaint against them, also confirmed this in an email to me:

"I made a number of purchases of LED lights from a number of different company's and had problems with at least three of them who supplied
defective lamps. I recall being somewhat annoyed at the time with the poor service from these companies who mostly refused to take responsibility or replace the lamps.

Searolf was one of these companies but they were helpful and did replace the defective lamp. The problem was resolved amicably. When I made the post I confused them with one of the other suppliers I had used. My error. My mistake. I should have checked before posting and for that I make an unreserved apology."

Just wanted to set the record straight on that account.

Cheers,
Natalie
YBW Editor

 

[sarabande]

good work Natalie, and thanks for the explanation.


Mistakes happen and it's good to see them put right.