Will this interfere with the VHF?

[Rum Run]

I will be adding a pair of 6w LED daylight running lights under the spreaders to act as a deck light. They have no tricky regulating electronics so should be no problem to the aerial coax which runs up the mast.
However, I am considering adding a dimmer to the deck light circuit to reduce the consumption if used as an anchor light, say down to 20% duty cycle. If I use a 555 chip based dimmer running at around 1khz, will it interfere with the VHF? The coax and the deck light supply would be in the same conduit. Length of cable around 7m.

Cheers
Rum Run

 

[lw395]

Should not do.
555 is a pretty slow chip, so no fast edges to interfere with VHF at ~150MHz.
Might possibly affect Navtex, around 500kHz, but a few capacitors filtering the output should sort that.

 

[Rum Run]

Should not do.
555 is a pretty slow chip, so no fast edges to interfere with VHF at ~150MHz.
Might possibly affect Navtex, around 500kHz, but a few capacitors filtering the output should sort that.

How would one use the caps, Should they go across the LED supply line?
Cheers
Rum Run

 

[Mr Boats]

I hope that it wont interfere with the VHF as its on my to do list for this winter.

 

[William_H]

Capacitors should go on both the power input to the "dimmer" +ve to ground and on the output line to the LED. As said a slow 555 should not produce much VHF interference but then you can never tell till you try it on the boat. I would rather have a dedicated anchor light ie shining to the horizon 360 degree azimuth and low power than try to use deck lights to do the same job. They should be pointed down. good luck olewill