I installed a tricolor at the masthead on Imzadi a few years ago. And put an LED bulb in it that I bought from Marine Beam. I was in the process, at the time, of replacing all my incandescent nav lights and deck lights with LEDs.
When I bought the bulb I had a longish conversation with Marine Beam (one of the owner's, I think) about the LED bulbs I would need. You see, I wanted the higher intensity bulbs appropriate for a 20 meter boat instead of the bulbs used in a boat up to 12 meters. The point of the nav lights is, after all, to be seen. Brighter would be better. And why go to the expense of putting a light at the masthead so it can be seen from far away, and then installing a bulb with the intensity to be seen for only a mile (or less)? There proved to be a couple of considerations, and here is what was explained to me: The 2 mile nav lights for a boat between 12 and 20 meters normally use a 25 watt white incandescent bulb. (1 mile lights are 10 watts) As you say it is an indexed bulb in the masthead tri-color and anchor lights. The incandescent bulb puts out about the same intensity of light in every direction and across a wide range of wavelengths, so you get an appropriate intensity of output from the nav light whether the bulb is behind a red, green, or translucent lens. And whether the positive terminal of the socket is on the right, left, front, or back of the light. But a white LED is limited in output in some frequencies, and the colored lens would absorb most of the energy. So a white LED behind a red or green lens is unlikely to be bright enough to reach the visibility standards in the COLREGS. Green is worse than red, BTW. So for an LED bulb you need to put a green LED behind a green lens, red behind red, and white behind white. I was asked about the brand of light I was using, and learned that the indexed socket in the Hella (which I have) and the Perko lights are oriented 180 degrees apart. With a white incandescent it makes no difference how the bulb gets oriented. In order to ensure the green LEDs are behind the green lens in a tri-color light, though, you need to construct the bulb so the pins match the orientation of the socket. Hence different bulbs for Hella and Perko, even though they use the same array of LEDs in both bulbs. Maybe the Aqua Signal light has a third orientation. I also learned there are certain bulbs which are not available in the intensity I wanted. For example, there are red and green series 90 LED bulbs for the "eye" lights on my 38. But they only came in the 1 mile visibility configuration. (Though that could have changed by now.) The small size of the bulb did not allow room for the LEDs and circuitry required for the higher light output. I figured the "eyes" were only about 4 feet off the water so waves and the curvature of the earth would limit the range at which they could be seen anyway, so the lower intensity bulbs were adequate. And, BTW, I've never had any RF interference from any of the LED bulbs I got from Marine Beam. Rick Brass Imzadi C&C 38 mk 2 la Belle Aurore C&C 25 mk1 Washington, NC From: CnC-List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Alex Giannelia via CnC-List Sent: Tuesday, August 25, 2015 8:28 PM To: [email protected] Cc: Alex Giannelia <[email protected]> Subject: Stus-List Some more questions concerning TRILIGHT LED'S So, Thanks to listers and the WEB, I see that DR LED produces trilight LED's to replace the bulbs in HELLA, PERKO and AQUASIGNAL. My light is a PERKO with what looks like a very standard indexed incandescent bulb. Does anyone know for sure that the POLAR STAR 40 bulb will fit? Also, another lister mentioned RF Interference with his VHF radio when using the LED bulb. Has anyone else experienced the same? Just wondering because it looks promising, but at $40.00 a pop, I want it to work. Thanks, Alex Giannelia [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> (416) 203-9858
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