Led light problem/question -help please

[scubaman]

I ordered a few leds from Quick for the boat and am currently on the boat installing them.

IF I had, say, mixed the pos and the neg, would I have destroyed one?

In any case, two doesn't work. Slightly annoyed as the delivery took six months for these...

 

[EME]

All LEDs should be reverse polarity protected .. but give them a call or look at their spec??

 

[Pinnacle]

K

Its just possible you had a couple of dud ones. I bought 6 new replacement led's for the boat when I was at the Southampton show, and when I came to fit them, only 2 worked. Replacements were supplied without question and they all worked fine.

As EME says, they should not be polarity sensitive.

 

[SpottyDog5]

I believe LEDS are polarity sensitive, they just won't work the wrong way round.

 

[BartW]

All LEDs should be reverse polarity protected ..

I'm quite sure they are,

K
do all of them have red and black wires ?
some of mine had 2 white wires, with a build in rectifier

I have had delivery of about 150 pcs,
and there were 2 or 3 pcs DOA,
(still here to be send back for exchange to the distributor)

if you like I have a businesscard on the export sales manager,
he was quite helpfull at Mets 2012,
and promised to send exchange PCB's for the lights with older version PCB's / wrong collor...
I never managed to contact him yet for returning the bad lights

you know I can get the lights here from the NL distributor at good conditions,
but I believe for you its better to go through your supplier for solving your problem

 

[scubaman]

Thanks guys for your input, i had to dash off to make it to the mother inlaw's dinner.

I'll get back this in a mo.

 

[scubaman]

Ah, that's better...

Yep, the leds had red and black wires. When i connected the leads, the lights behind another switch dimmed for a sec and a fuse was blown. There must have been a short inside the lamp. I checked the wires afterwards with a voltmeter and there was a steady 12,5 so the current and other connections should have been ok.

I can't be sure that i didn't mix the polarity but if I did, the protection wasn't working. Third lamp i tried worked fine.

I took them with me and will take up with the local distributor to see what they have to say. It's not so much the cost but the difficulty in getting them that bugs me, so Bart if you don't mind I may get back to you regarding your contact.

Re. the color: when I saw the lights on BA, I think they looked really good. Yet, when looking at the lights i didn't manage to fry, the color made skin look somehow greenish and the cream leather seat uninvitingly cold. Maybe it was just because of the direct comparison with the halogen, or that they are just brighter, but I didn't notice aything like this on BA.

Did the lights you had changed came from an earlier batch or was there something else wrong with them?

 

[BartW]

e-mail send

Re. the color: when I saw the lights on BA, I think they looked really good. Yet, when looking at the lights i didn't manage to fry, the color made skin look somehow greenish and the cream leather seat uninvitingly cold. Maybe it was just because of the direct comparison with the halogen, or that they are just brighter, but I didn't notice aything like this on BA.

Did the lights you had changed came from an earlier batch or was there something else wrong with them?

the lights from my first delivery looked exactly as you discribe,
actually this was the reason for me to not use them,
but when I was at the Quick marine booth at Mets 2012, I noticed the lights on display were completely different.
At the booth I spoke with the "president", and he confirmed the issue with the first model, and he promissed that I could return the pcb's, and get them replaced by the new model.

I remember that the lights from my first delivery were in brown boxes with "faded coller"' white labels,
the newest delivery were in brand new white boxes, with a quick logo printed on them,

I'll need to order some more, in case you need some, I can add them if you like.
the delivery time from the NL distributor was approx 6 weeks, they have very few in stock

 

[nigelmercier]

I believe LEDS are polarity sensitive...

LEDs are polarity sensitive, but LED lamps may not be.

 

[jfm]

Maybe it was just because of the direct comparison with the halogen

From your description, I'm a bit worried about what they have supplied. If they're good LEDs, they should be nicer than halogen. I'm wondering if they have sent you some low CRI stuff...

The halogen lights you are replacing - are they Cantalupi Dallas?

 

[BartW]

when I saw the lights on BA, I think they looked really good. Yet, when looking at the lights i didn't manage to fry, the color made skin look somehow greenish and the cream leather seat uninvitingly cold. Maybe it was just because of the direct comparison with the halogen, or that they are just brighter, but I didn't notice aything like this on BA.

just to confirm that I'm very pleased with the light quality from these lights now,
The human skin test is alway's the one I use on LED lights,
human skin may not look cold, nor blue, nor green, nor yellowish,
just natural skin color and thats what they do,
a bit more bright, and more diffuse than halogen light

 

[scubaman]

From your description, I'm a bit worried about what they have supplied. If they're good LEDs, they should be nicer than halogen. I'm wondering if they have sent you some low CRI stuff...

The halogen lights you are replacing - are they Cantalupi Dallas?

Most of the downlights are Dallas.

I replaced two which were directly above the saloon cabinet. They were smaller ones, can't remember the model name. My plan was to add three new lights to the ceiling as reading lights, connected to the mood lighting loom. About the same size, I already cut holes for them.

Definitely wasn't nicer than halogens. I need to get back to them on this.

 

[scubaman]

e-mail send



the lights from my first delivery looked exactly as you discribe,
actually this was the reason for me to not use them,
but when I was at the Quick marine booth at Mets 2012, I noticed the lights on display were completely different.
At the booth I spoke with the "president", and he confirmed the issue with the first model, and he promissed that I could return the pcb's, and get them replaced by the new model.

I remember that the lights from my first delivery were in brown boxes with "faded coller"' white labels,
the newest delivery were in brand new white boxes, with a quick logo printed on them,

I'll need to order some more, in case you need some, I can add them if you like.
the delivery time from the NL distributor was approx 6 weeks, they have very few in stock

Thank you Bart, I appreciate the kind offer. I contacted the local dealer and they asked me to get back after new year, which I'll do first thing. Please, proceed with your order at your own pace and I'll get back to you once I see what the local guys come up with?

And yes, the lights on BA did look very good indeed.

 

[Spi D]

If a design that you can see through this is a way to detect pos and neg

 

[wakeup]

From your description, I'm a bit worried about what they have supplied. If they're good LEDs, they should be nicer than halogen. I'm wondering if they have sent you some low CRI stuff...

The halogen lights you are replacing - are they Cantalupi Dallas?

Also, it could be that the batch you have has not been tightly binned (grouped together) based upon CRI. This can often happen with cheaper LED products. Our eyes are very sensitive to different CRI lights when next to each other and that creates a negative effective.

 

[Blackfeather]

On the same subject, I tried to replace a standard 12v light with an LED lamp (bought straight out of Piplers in Poole). I wired it in (and tried both polarities but it wouldn't work. Took it back to the shop and they stuck it on a standard 12v battery and it worked fine. Is there any issue with voltage? My battery bank was fully charged and showing 12v output.

 

[EME]

On the same subject, I tried to replace a standard 12v light with an LED lamp (bought straight out of Piplers in Poole). I wired it in (and tried both polarities but it wouldn't work. Took it back to the shop and they stuck it on a standard 12v battery and it worked fine. Is there any issue with voltage? My battery bank was fully charged and showing 12v output.

Hi .. POSSIBLY because of voltage drop across the wiring / cabling. Its quite normal for us to lose a couple of volts across our cabling. Our boat's voltage is 'shown' at the battery ( and where the shop obviously was) whilst you would have had to measure yours accurately at the light output. Good LED fixtures work from c 10V upwards. Anyone hearing 'ringing' from a LED installation possibly has a similar problem ( but at least 2 causes for that).

 

[jfm]

If a design that you can see through this is a way to detect pos and neg

No, that picture shows capsule LEDs. The stuff in decent interior lighting isn't like that at all and has board mounted LEDs

 

[jfm]

Most of the downlights are Dallas.

I happen to have a load of Cantalupi Desert left overs. These are their highest CRI LEDs, the ones I specced for Match2, and they are one of the few LED fixtures that feel significantly better than halogen. The Quicks are good (if you can get them to supply the right ones...) but these Deserts are significantly better. 9-30v. They are £100 each MRSP. Do you want me to send some to you FOC?

The footprint needs to be bigger than dallas else there will be a witness mark on the vinyl ceiling. I cannot see dimensions for Dallas on line though I am familiar with them from previous boats. I think Deserts are 72mm square, which I hope is slightly bigger, but I'm not sure. Do you know? I can measure both Dallas and Desert when I'm back in Antibes 26/27th Dec. Also they are square and I don't know if that works for you looks-wise?

 

[scubaman]

From Quick's site i now noticed that their leds ARE polarity sensitive so no one else to blame here. Cantalupi's are protected according to their site, btw.

Looking at the specs for the Deserts, I see that the mounting hole is circular with a 66 mm diameter. The holes I already cut are 73 mm, so they would fit right in.

J, I would like to take you up on your very generous offer, if you have three to spare. Them being square is ok as they'll be on the side in their own row. I feel embarrassed doing this but I appreciate your kind offer and would love to get this thing sorted and you offering such a high quality way of doing it is an opportunity not to be missed. Knowing you probably won't accept money for these, could I ask you to name a charity into which I could make a donation?