LED Replacements

[don l]

Need information and pricing on the replacement of incandescent light bulbs to  LED.  This change out seem to be expense.  Somewhere around 25.00 dollars a light (must be cheaper somewhere), will be changing out the heavy battery in the bow to a lighter compact 12 volt.  At the marina, I guess we use lights to come back in, about 12 times and season. Most time no need for lights.   

Also the LED seem brighter.

Thanks and fair winds

[chas5131]

Bulbs and adapters
http://cruisingsolutions.com/

[NateD]

While it is tempting to go for the cheaper bulbs, there is a significant difference in light quality and longevity of the LED. To see some of the difference in light quality, take a look at this thread: http://www.sailnet.com/forums/gear-maintenance/49026-led-bulb-comparison.html

That thread is getting pretty dated, but you can see how varied the output is across different LED makers. For a description on the actual mechanical differences between the cheaper and more expensive makers, check out this site: http://store.marinebeam.com/whyounetokna.html

I purchased an LED anchor light bulb from MarineBeam and 1 interior bulb. Unfortunately when I installed them they created interference and my VHF radio would not work if the lights are turned on. I contacted MarineBeam and they said they had a bad batch and would replace them if I mailed the bad ones back to them and paid for shipping one the new ones. Between not wanting to take my mast down to get the anchor light, and the cost of postage, I decided to just leave them for now. My next bulbs are probably going to be Sensibulbs (http://www.sailorssolutions.com/?page=ProductDetails&Item=SEN10W). Not cheap, but they get very good reviews.

Make sure you read up on LEDs in navigation lights, I believe you are supposed to use red and green LEDs in those fixtures, not white LEDs.

When I had a 16, the transom would usually squat a bit because of the weight of the motor/crew, and that was with a full size lead acid battery up in the peak. Why do you want to go to compact battery? Second, if you're only using the lights to end a day sail, is power consumption really an issue? The only reason I installed LEDs was to keep my power consumption low enough to get a week of cruising out of my battery.

[skip1930]

Nate says; " I believe you are supposed to use red and green LEDs in those fixtures, not white LEDs. "

Not necessarily. the factory Bosche fixtures fitted with red/green lens had a white lamp within.
I replaced a white lamp incandescent with a white festoon LED lamp. Brighter, crisper, cleaner light projection.

skip.

[wes]

Would be curious which manufacturer(s) are recommending that. All the ones I have researched say very clearly that white LEDs should not be used in bi-color lights. Most of them offer special festoon lamps which have red and green LEDs on the two opposite sides for this application.

Here's a link to the Dr. LED "Polar Star" lamp for Aqua Signal series 25 nav lights (what I have on my 19). There are lots of other competitors but this is typical.

https://www.professorled.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=2&products_id=56

Wes

[don l]

Thanks for, all the help.  I have enjoyed changing ALL stuff with NEW stuff, a lot more than I payed for the boat.  However, she has brought much joy.  The battery change out is health and old body thing.  The kids the wife do so much, like to be more independent, if you know what I mean.  I just like sitting by the dock or on the pretty lady, and seeing how wonderful she looks, and thinking, what can  I replace next...  Come from the delta of the Mississippi river, raised on shrimp boats, tugboats, just love to look at the lines of well built boat, you all, know what talking about...

Fair winds!

[Salty19]

The compatibility of bi-color lenses and LEDs are misleading. LED manufacturers use the word white light, when it's really blue spectrum light.

If an incandescent and LED share the exact same wavelength spectrum output, the color as seen by the observer is the same.  The lenses filter out the same colors, and they pass though the same colors. 

Problem is white means blue in LED land, white means white in the incandescent world, and rarely do the manufacturers state the wavelength output. 

True,  white (really blue) LED will not be bright behind a red and green fixture. 
The visible light spectrum is Violet-Blue-Green-Yellow-Orange-Red in order from low to high wavelengths.
The Blue light orientation of most LEDs simply don't output higher wavelengths that are not filtered by the lens, so the red lens has little red spectrum to pass through. That means the red and green visible light from an observer is poor, the light is dim and the green lens now looks blue-green.

The solution is simply use "warmer" spectrum LED's which contain more high wavelength light., towards red as opposed to towards blue. They are becoming easier to find, but that wasn't always the case.  In fact, I couldn't find them 2 years ago at all in festoon form (may have existed just didn't see them).

I'm using Dr. LED Warm 41mm festoon bulbs in both nav lights (bow bi-color, stern clear lens) and they are very similar to the standard incandescent. The bi-color lens looks pretty much the same, the stern light is brighter-maybe 20% or so.

Any LED article from years ago is outdated..the technology of these bulbs have improved tremendously by offering warmer color wavelengths and less directional oriented light pattern. Years ago LED's primary where more like sloppy lasers..more of a spot beam than a flood beam.  If you weren't in the spotlight, you couldn't see the light, or more probable it was much dimmer than in the spot.  LED's still have this problem, but less so than in the past.

What we need for these fixtures are warm colors and broad/flood light patterning.  It's available, just be careful to scutinize the specs before purchasing.

Also there is no such thing as a good quality $5 LED bulb right now.  Not that they are junk, but rather are not suitable for nav fixtures.

[don l]

GREAT INFORMATION.  When we take the boat out.  this is what we are going to look at doling.  Wonderful days now in Colorado for sailing!

[Citroen/Dave]

Lowes carries four LED's worth looking at for white light applications.  All are 12 volt. Two are 1 watt "equal" to 11 watts incandescent, and two are 2 1/2 watt "equal" to about 27 watts incandescent .  Of each wattage they have either two straight pins on the base, or folded-over pins for a slide in mounting.  I used the pin based soldered directly to wires for the mast light; I had to file the base rim to make clearance for the lens.  Similarly, I had to modify the stern light and the cabin light; I also soldered them.  I reduced consumption from 33 watts to 3 watts. Others might like the 2 1/2 watt lamps for white navigation lights, but I am comfortable with the 1 watts for navigation.  The cabin light is too bright at 1 watt.

These bulbs cost about $10 and $12 each and are rated at 30,000 hours.  You can look them up on Lowes on-line catalogue.  My three nearby Lowes were almost sold out as I changed out the slide base white lights in my new 2012 A Liner, Ranger 12 camper.  All three Lowes promised to restock.  Sorry, I have thrown away the package and do not have the stock numbers, this evening.

My red/green navigation lamp housing came broken and taped from the bow pulpit.  I removed it.  I am using a LED clamp on navigation light from Wal-Mart.  It takes 3 AAA batteries.

My two cents worth,
Dave

[skip1930]

This side mount pull chain red lamp is an LED red automotive lamp from AutoZone. Wired and Soldered into the lamp's socket on the Accessory fuse and switch. The lamp was found at a mobile home dealer's store.



This festooned white LED lamp is in both my red/green Bosche bow lamp and the Bosche stern white lamp from West Marine.



And additionally, the LED anchor lamp with separate power 'on', power 'off' switch [so the lamp doesn't pop on at night when sitting on the dock.] And the cabin lamp was replaced by a red/white LED cabin lamp also from West Marine.

skip.

[Cruzin]

I was in K-Mart today and noticed they were now selling replacement LED boat light bulbs. They seemed to be around $6.00 with only about 3 sizes available.
I think they were labeled as Shoreline the product line that K-Mart sells here in Florida. I want to convert mine as well at some point.
Dale