Replacement LED bulbs for Nav lights

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Peter

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My nav lights, Hella, are fitted with the original incandescent bulbs. Want to upgrade to led bulbs. Do I use a white led for all. Or do I use a red led bulb for port, green bulb led for starboard, and a red/green/white sectored for tricolour and keep the orginal coloured light lens in place.
 
Not sure about Hella but for Aquasignal one should use a red LED behind a red lens, green behind green and white behind white (probably cool white instead of warm). A note of caution: incandescent lamps (bulbs) have a single vertical filament to match the cut-off angles of the lens unit; using an LED lamp might well result in the light pattern angles being all wrong. This could be much worse in a tricolour, with or without a tricolour LED. Ask Hella.
 
Doesn't show up brilliantly in an animated gif, but this flipping between white and green Cree 503 LEDs behind the green section of a tricolour >

MFNFUTP.gif


Green is green and white is blue :)

If you really want to get into it the colour definition is in an IRPCS annex so if the LEDs have a decent datasheet you can graph them and see if the LEDs lie within the specs.
http://www.sailtrain.co.uk/Irpcs/annexi.htm

https://www.desmos.com/calculator/dv72wa4rr8
 
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When I replaced the incandescents with led in my Hella 3562 port/starboard/stern light I found the bulbs were modified from the standard festoon type which made the replacements twice as expensive. There is a metal collar on the bulb which is soldered on however, it can be unsoldered and slipped onto a standard bulb which is much cheaper from Boatlamps. It's important to get the correct length but unfortunately i can't remember what it is.
 
Having just done exactly this, I fitted "warm white" to the Hella lamps at the front and rear, after transplanting the two prongs, and they are excellent. I did not fit the "all round" bulbs boatlamps suggest as 60% of the light/power is wasted illuminating the back of the fitting. The result is excellent, much brighter than before.

I fitted a "sectored" LED to the Aquasignal masthead, and it is excellent.
 
I was ready to be shot down in flames over this but unless someone's checking with a spectrometer I reckon we're okay.
rszemeti said:
Having just done exactly this, I fitted "warm white" to the Hella lamps at the front and rear, after transplanting the two prongs, and they are excellent. I did not fit the "all round" bulbs boatlamps suggest as 60% of the light/power is wasted illuminating the back of the fitting. The result is excellent, much brighter than before.

I fitted a "sectored" LED to the Aquasignal masthead, and it is excellent.
Click to expand...
 
As I said in post #4, there are two aspects to this; one is the colours (that seem to have been resolved with the right coloured LEDs) and the other is the angles. As an LED lamp is wider, for want of a better word, than the original vertical singe filament, it could be that the legally-required display angles are exceeded. A mere academic point? In the (admittedly unlikely) event of a night collision, wait for the lawyers etc to crawl all over the boat looking for technicalities. Some LEDs are fitted with the appropriate blinkers (again for want of a better word) but others are not.
 
Foolish Muse said:
I was told the same thing by the guy at the store. A white LED does not shine red or green through a lens, when looked at by more than 10 feet away.
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The idea that the colour of light changes as you go further away is a very peculiar one, and I can't think of any science which would support it. Neither does my experience.

I have warm white bulbs from Boatlamps in both my bicolour and tricolour and they work just fine. The greens are a little bluer than with an incandescent bulb, but still unmistakably green. Cut-off may be a little less sharp, but with the bicolour (Aquasignal S40), which has a flat reflector behind the bulb, it.s a marginal change at most. Perhaps a little more with the tricolour, but since the LEDs point outwards the columsn which aren't behind the join have much less effect.
 
PeterBoater said:
As an LED lamp is wider, for want of a better word, than the original vertical singe filament, it could be that the legally-required display angles are exceeded.
Click to expand...

I looked this up before, and the crossover angles are quite generous. Something like 6o, iirc. Wouldn't surprise me if this is to permit paraffin lamps.

Edit: And remember that the red must be visible to starboard and the green to port (on large ships by 1 - 3o) so that other ships can spot a head-on approach. https://assets.publishing.service.g...file/291901/00_-_msis_10_rev_4.0_draft_v2.pdf refers.
 
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PeterBoater said:
As I said in post #4, there are two aspects to this; one is the colours (that seem to have been resolved with the right coloured LEDs) and the other is the angles. As an LED lamp is wider, for want of a better word, than the original vertical singe filament, it could be that the legally-required display angles are exceeded. A mere academic point? In the (admittedly unlikely) event of a night collision, wait for the lawyers etc to crawl all over the boat looking for technicalities. Some LEDs are fitted with the appropriate blinkers (again for want of a better word) but others are not.
Click to expand...

While this is true, I suspect that being bright and seen and alive to argue the point might be more important than not being seen (either due to a dim, flat battery or a dead bulb) and drowned ... better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.
 
+1 for the Boatlamps LED bulbs...but you really should use the proper red/greens. The colour is great, they work really well.

One thing about going to an LED stern light is that they are very bright indeed...mine illuminates all of the sugar scoop-esque transom on my B32. Whilst it might make me arguably a bit easier to spot, or certainly add some scale to the boat, I do wonder if all the reflected light might make it harder to spot something coming up on me from astern.
 
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Are people using Boatlamps LED replacements in their nav lights using the very expensive waterproof Led bulbs for bow and stern lights, or the much cheaper £4-£5 offerings?

- W
 
webcraft said:
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Are people using Boatlamps LED replacements in their nav lights using the very expensive waterproof Led bulbs for bow and stern lights, or the much cheaper £4-£5 offerings?

- W
Click to expand...


I changed mine at the masthead, about 5 years ago, for a warm white Bay15d 18SMD which was (and still is I think) £9.99.
Seems to work fine in the Aqua Signal fitting.
 
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