NASA Nav Light Repair

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Alfie168

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My NASA LED Tricolour Light took a rather prolonged swim in sea water, for reasons I shan't bore you with. Well I took it apart today and cleaned it and found that every other LED still works. More than that I found the faulty white LED that was preventing the other circuit working, so when I short it out all the LEDS still work just fine...except the rearmost white. Oh Goodee..thinks I

Now I can easily bridge the faulty LED, but have an inclination to solder in a new one. Does anybody have any idea what spec to look for when I buy an LED to solder in, or do I just wander into Maplins and ask for a "bright white LED please". They seem to be operating between 3.2 and about 4.5Volts depending on which one I test when powered from a 12 V battery.

I also need a new glass dome for it as the old one got badly abraded on one side by the sand when it was submerged. (Don't ask) so I will ask NASA if they can supply, but I suspect the answer might be no, so if anybody has got an old non working NASA Supernova I can scavenge the dome off..that would be nice.

Tim
 
In my experience nasa always say YES.
I've always found them helpful and ready to supply any spare part at a reasonable price.
 
Alfie168 said:
My NASA LED Tricolour Light took a rather prolonged swim in sea water, for reasons I shan't bore you with. Well I took it apart today and cleaned it and found that every other LED still works. More than that I found the faulty white LED that was preventing the other circuit working, so when I short it out all the LEDS still work just fine...except the rearmost white. Oh Goodee..thinks I

Now I can easily bridge the faulty LED, but have an inclination to solder in a new one. Does anybody have any idea what spec to look for when I buy an LED to solder in, or do I just wander into Maplins and ask for a "bright white LED please". They seem to be operating between 3.2 and about 4.5Volts depending on which one I test when powered from a 12 V battery.

I also need a new glass dome for it as the old one got badly abraded on one side by the sand when it was submerged. (Don't ask) so I will ask NASA if they can supply, but I suspect the answer might be no, so if anybody has got an old non working NASA Supernova I can scavenge the dome off..that would be nice.

Tim
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Think I've got an old housing somewhere about Tim. Brand new, I stripped it off when I made my combination anchor/tricolour.

Postage and a donation to the RNLI if I can find it!
 
nimbusgb said:
Think I've got an old housing somewhere about Tim. Brand new, I stripped it off when I made my combination anchor/tricolour.

Postage and a donation to the RNLI if I can find it!
Click to expand...

I'm overdue another donation to them, so that would be marvelous if you can find it. Incidentally when I was down at Beaumaris last week 'fettling' I noticed a 'slightly older' gent with an immaculately turned out small yacht behind mine in the yard. Someone else confided he'd been a lifeboat man for most of his adult life, but was retired now. I think my 'inadequacy rating' suddenly worsened..if thats possible.

tim
 
I did an enquiry email to NASA at the same time..as it happens....To my amazement they will supply a new dome, complete with transfer/sticker and a new 'O' ring for £5-00 inc VAT., plus postage of course.

In this day and age with marine bits I find that truly extraordinary. What a great outfit.

Tim
 
I have replaced most of the red and green LED's on my NASA tri colour over a short usage time with no real use. I have replaced them with standard bright red and green in my case purchased from my local electronics component supplier.

I purchased mine in 2008 when I visited the Southampton boat show but only installed them about 3 years ago.

The circuit splits the LED's into 2 sections and used a pic device to increase the drive voltage of each bank to about 50 VDC, I assume the pic measures the current to keep that constant.

Since mine has failed twice I do wander if the LED's are being over driven or if NASA had a bad batch of coloured LED's. My all white anchor light ,fitted at the same time has not failed at all and it was only the coloured LED's in the tri colour that failed.
 
Alfie168 said:
I did an enquiry email to NASA at the same time..as it happens....To my amazement they will supply a new dome, complete with transfer/sticker and a new 'O' ring for £5-00 inc VAT., plus postage of course.

In this day and age with marine bits I find that truly extraordinary. What a great outfit.

Tim
Click to expand...

Out of interest - what email address did you use as I emailed them on Tuesday after my just-repaired by NASA navlight failed on a race to France on Saturday (not impressed) and I have not had any contact back from them (also not impressed).

Shame really as when the light works it's great and they fixed it last time for £7 or so.
 
Georgio said:
Out of interest - what email address did you use as I emailed them on Tuesday after my just-repaired by NASA navlight failed on a race to France on Saturday (not impressed) and I have not had any contact back from them (also not impressed).

Shame really as when the light works it's great and they fixed it last time for £7 or so.
Click to expand...

info@nasamarine.com

Well my Tricolour spent at least two days under water being graunched and ground along the sea bed. It still works, though there is some corrosion on some LED pins, which will be dealt with, but no corrosion evident on the one LED that has failed (The 'due south' white LED on the unit).

Hope you have better luck than up to now. There were early quality issues, but they have modified them I understand. Best ask them when you do manage to make contact.

Tim
 
Rogershaw said:
I have replaced most of the red and green LED's on my NASA tri colour over a short usage time with no real use. I have replaced them with standard bright red and green in my case purchased from my local electronics component supplier.

I purchased mine in 2008 when I visited the Southampton boat show but only installed them about 3 years ago.

The circuit splits the LED's into 2 sections and used a pic device to increase the drive voltage of each bank to about 50 VDC, I assume the pic measures the current to keep that constant.

Since mine has failed twice I do wander if the LED's are being over driven or if NASA had a bad batch of coloured LED's. My all white anchor light ,fitted at the same time has not failed at all and it was only the coloured LED's in the tri colour that failed.
Click to expand...

Cant imagine why one would want to drive them at 50v. 5mm LED's have a forward voltage drop of < 3v, some of the reds and greens are just 0.6v so why one would go up to voltages that are liable to give rf interferance and all I have no idea. Not saying its wrong, it just sounds dead complicated for nothing!

ps found my old housing but if NASA will supply for a fiver then I'll hang on to it if you dont mind! :)
 
There are 32 LED's in total setup in 2 banks which gives 16 in series with 50 VDC across the bank giving approx 3.125 VDC across each LED.

May be the LED are being over driven.

What is the voltages on your tri colour.

Some said NASA mods modes to the nav lights any one know what the mods entailed.
 
As mine has now failed twice I have sent an E-mail to NASA requesting their comments and asking if the design has been modified in light of the failures.

I await their reply
 
Georgio said:
Out of interest - what email address did you use as I emailed them on Tuesday after my just-repaired by NASA navlight failed on a race to France on Saturday (not impressed) and I have not had any contact back from them (also not impressed).

Shame really as when the light works it's great and they fixed it last time for £7 or so.
Click to expand...

Have now had an email back from NASA offering a FOC repair, wondering if they monitor this forum. Still a PITA to have to make another trip to the masthead and spend more time without a working light. Fingers crossed it will be more reliable in the future, no problems for the first two years so I don't know what's caused this, frankly I would be happier with a new replacement.
 
Georgio said:
Have now had an email back from NASA offering a FOC repair, wondering if they monitor this forum
Click to expand...

I think the answer to that is 'yes' and the parts I ordered arrived overnight, and I'm just awaiting delivery of a desoldering tool before I tackle my repair job as they kindly sent me a replacement LED as well.

I'm sure they will do their best for you.

Tim
 
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Had a reply from NASA copy below

Dear Roger,

Sorry to hear about this, failures of these lights are very rare. We did make a modification to the circuit by adding overvoltage protection, we can supply you the part (and any other parts) and details if you want to retro fit. We have never had a single RED led fail and we have used getting on for 200,000 of them now so very surprised to hear you have. The Led's are high quality and are understressed, we drive them with a constant current source of 17.5mA

We would like to see your lights to examine and understand the cause of failure if you can get to us.

Kind regards,

--
NASA MARINE
Boulton Road
Stevenage
Herts
SG1 4QG
www.nasamarine.com

For me to return my light to NASA would be quite costly due to my location and the return may not arrive due to the SA post office.

I will be checking the current on mine to see how close mine is to the design spec.
 
And here is the Tricolour fully repaired with one new LED soldered in, new dome, seal and top transfer.

th_NasaTriRepaired.jpg


Oh sorry I can't work photobucket anymore...doh..its doesn't do what it used to do. Ah thats a bit better!!

Tim
 
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Just mine working again with 4 new green LEDs and 1 red LED all open circuit together with one white that went short circuit.

I measures the current in each bank and on mine it is 18.3 mA. The voltage across each green and white LED's measure 3.1 to 3.3 volts and across the each red LED is 2.1 volts.

From the E-Mail I got from NASA the current seems to be OK so I still don't know the cause.
 
Georgio said:
Have now had an email back from NASA offering a FOC repair, wondering if they monitor this forum. Still a PITA to have to make another trip to the masthead and spend more time without a working light. Fingers crossed it will be more reliable in the future, no problems for the first two years so I don't know what's caused this, frankly I would be happier with a new replacement.
Click to expand...

To follow this up and give credit to NASA, having taken the light down (again) and tested at home on a 12v powersource I could find nothing wrong with it. Further testing of the wiring on the boat revealed a poor connection that I have not previously spotted so appologies for NASA it was my wiring that caused the fault.
 
prv said:
:confused: :p :):)

Pete
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I take it you found NASA's comment quite funny. I have now repaired mine again and next week will be up my 50 ft mast replacing it again.

If/when I am in the UK again I will visit NASA in Stevenage as I used to live very close to then in the mid 1970's.
 
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