LED Nav and anchor lighting

[Captain Smollett]

It is pretty common in most night-time boating accidents for the lawyers to have expert testimony on the lighting.

Testimony on lighting is FAR different from certification/non-certification being the deciding issue.

If it is so common, why did legal search an actual attorney did not turn up ONE SINGLE CASE where certification of an anchor light was the basis for liability in a court ruling?

  This was the case in the Clear Lake trial in California

Straw man.,..the issue in Clear Lake was whether or not the lights were ON at the time of collision, not whether or not they were 'certified.'  And, they were not anchor lights, but running lights.

 the lighting was all USCG certified, so there was little the defense could do about it... but if the lighting had not been USCG certified, I am pretty sure things would have turned out quite differently.

Now I know you can see the problem with this point.  "It was not an issue, but if it had been an issue, it would have been an issue."  This is a good classic example of a "Begging the Question" Fallacy.

I'm sorry, Dan, I do NOT mean to be argumentative, but just because you are pretty sure things would have turned out differently had the lights in those three cases (which three? Can I read the court documents on those cases to see what the issues WERE?) if the lights had not been certified does not make it so.

The fact is that we have yet to uncover an actual case where either a judge or a jury decided a case on the basis of Coast Guard Certification of an anchor light.  That does not mean one does not exist, nor does it mean that it won't happen tomorrow, and you may rightly argue "do you want to be the test case by not using a certified light?"

There HAVE been cases where a major point was VISIBILITY of an anchor light, but even then, I don't think any mention of certification was raised (just because a boat uses a certified light, this fact alone does not mean it was VISIBLE, for a variety of possible reasons).

I'm saying "I don't think" here because I am going on memory of having read some actual case histories back in February when we discussed this last time.

[Frank]

I'd like to thank CJ for his report of the Bebi Owl light. Sounds like it works great and the coastguard were impressed. Good enough for me 

[LooseMoose]

We have Bebi lights on So It Goes and more often than not we are the brightest anchor light in the anchorage. We also have their tricolor... Over four years of daily use and it still shines bright! Excellent stuff.

Sadly USCG cert does not allow much for change for the better... Our European cousins have had self righting life jackets for twenty years while the long, expensive and short sighted USCG process makes it too expensive for companies to introduce new and better ways of doing things. Like many cruisers we know we have a full set of USCG approved life jackets which stay in a bag and use the non approved but much better European stuff.

As far as lawyers go... Shakespeare was right! It does not matter if your lights are legal, if you have n anchor ball showing the guy in the Donzi who is drunk can win providing he has deeper pockets than you do. Best thing is to avoid situations where you need lawyers entirely!


Bob
http://boatbits.blogspot.com/
http://fishingundersail.blogspot.com/
http://islandgourmand.blogspot.com/

[Grime]

A friend and I have been having this discussion for some time. He feels that it has to be USCG approved. His anchor light is 60' above the deck. Power boaters will never see it. Their mind is on the next fishing ground and the beer in the cooler.

My next purchase will be the Bebi Owl. I have all my nav light LED now at a very reasonable price. Way brighter than the USCG approved bulbs and less power draw.

[s/v Faith]

Back in 2005 when I started this thread and ordered my Bebi Electronics anchor light, I planned to put it atop the mast.

  Over our cruise, I used it every night.  In anchorages where I anticipated being harassed I switched my old style light on too (often only for the first few hours, the likely boarding time for light checks).

  Never got any attention from the authorities.

Since we know the regular mast top anchor lights are not well seen, and lights mounted in the foretrangle, or even over the boom are much more likely to be seen by other boats close enough to matter.

  My plan is just to continue using the Bibi in the cockpit, and leave the old one up on the stick as a backup and to humor the authorities as necessary.

[Auspicious]

My plan is just to continue using the Bibi in the cockpit, and leave the old one up on the stick as a backup and to humor the authorities as necessary.

I agree with Craig. I turn on my masthead anchor light because it is the right thing to do and also hang one or two Davis mega-lights in the cockpit - usually one from the aft edge of the dodger (nice light in the cockpit) and one from my radar pole aft (nice lighting for the stern steps).

[atomvoyager]

I've been looking for this for a long time and just found it - a LED replacement bulb for the Davis anchor light:

http://www.marinebeam.com/dameledre.html

With the auto-darkness sensor that turns it on and off, now it should be bright and little power consumption.

James Baldwin

[CapnK]

James -

Those work good, I ordered one for a client and so have seen them in action. Big improvement over the hack I made to my Davis a couple years back in order to have the same capability.

Marinebeam is located just a couple hours away, near where Capt. Smollett used to live, IIRC. Based on first hand knowledge with the above mentioned client, I can vouch for them being helpful and responsive to customers, and knowledgeable about their products.

[s/v Copacetic]

I just found a site with a really good selection of low voltage LED replacement bulbs and even some fixtures (interior) that might be of use.

Does anyone have experience with www.ledlight.com ?

[haidan]

I just finished making my own LED light just like that owl light pvc and everything, although I don't know what's in the inside of that thing mine have a lm317 voltage regulator a couple of resistors to set the voltage, couple of capacitors to absorb any voltage spike to protect the lm317 and some LEDs with a resistor. I got all the parts dirt cheap on ebay from china and thailand. I used a piece of clear acrylic pipe with pvc pipe caps on either end and the light assembly inside. The circuit is pretty simple (off the top of my head) it's the lm317, a 220ohm, and a 1875ohm resistor, 1uf electrolytic cap and a .1uf ceramic disk cap. The LEDs can be run three in series with a 30ohm resistor and you can run as many strings of these LEDs in parallel until you reach a draw of 1.5 amps (each string draws about 60-80 mA  So ... a lot) red LEDs drop a different voltage and I think you can use six in series for 12v. I figure I can build a light for about 3 dollars worth of parts but you have to buy the components in larger packets but I figure I have enough for about 50 bucks to make all the lights for my boat, interior lights, nav lights ect.. ebays also a great source of 12v switches for cheap. you can google lm317 voltage regulator to see the circuit diagram and explanation and also there are LED calculator online that'll tell you how many ohms you need for x amount of LEDs ect.

[haidan]

Here I took some pictures of them.

[CapnK]

Nice job! Grog!

[skylark]

I just finished making my own LED light

Can you give us a little more information on how you built those lights?

[haidan]

Well what do you want to know. The anchor light is explained above it's much like that owl light that was mentioned, The other light housings are just pvc pipe with acrylic glued on on side, I'll glue a back onto them when I mount them, probably a wooden one. The lights are a little too directional and I might sand the plastic a bit to diffuse the light and spread the beam a little If i were to do it again, and I most likely will, I'd spread the LEDs out a little rather than mostly down I'd have them pointing all around a bit.
I was going to make my own Nav lights as well. In the picture is my stern light, when I was putting together the port and starboard ones I couldn't direct the beam well enough. I drew a triangle on the shop floor and placed the light in the corner of it and tried to block off the plastic to the proper angle but it just wasn't happening, when the light hit the plastic it would deflect in too wide of an arc so I ended up buying some LED nav red and green lights. I put them on the floor and discovered that they also don't really direct the light improperly anyway so I was kinda pissed about that - they weren't cheap and I could have made some that were just as good for a couple of dollars. Obviously the rules about manufactured products are not as strict as they should be (otherwise things would last). For the stern light since it's such a wide arc and so far from the bow lights I'm not so worried about the arc mixing as there's 36 feet between them to act as a buffer. I was going to make a tri-colour light as well but I thought the light would just mix too much, It may be worth while looking into those larger LEDs, the flat square ones, they're usually 1 watt or something like that, they might direct the beam better, it's what fancy expensive manufactured LED tri-colour lights use.

here's a calculator for the lm317
http://www.k7mem.150m.com/Electronic_Notebook/power_supplies/lm317.html
and here
http://www.electronics-lab.com/articles/LM317/
and an
LED calculator http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz

when you buy the LEDs it will tell you what voltage they will drop (forward voltage) and what the max current that they can take (forward current) and you just plug in the numbers or you can just figure it all out with ohms law V=IR
which requires a little bit more thinking and reading. Not hard though I always do that just to make sure those calculators on the internet are correct, sometimes they have larger allowances than I'd like.

So what else... I soldered the circuit onto what is called a breadboard (not a solder-less breadboard those are something else - useful for laying out the circuit before soldering) it's a fiberglass board with holes drilled all over it and copper pads surrounding each hole on one side giving you something to attach the components to when soldering. (also ebay/china)

[skylark]

What kind of leds did you use?  Where did you get them?

[haidan]

I used ultra bright LEDs i got on ebay something like these
http://cgi.ebay.com/100-x-5mm-round-warm-white-LED-Ultra-Bright-14000MCD_W0QQitemZ110464215653QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item19b82e2a65

they come in various sizes I used 5mm ones (5mm in diameter) They are measured in millicandelas so I tried to find the cheapest, brightest ones, one has to be aware of the angle of light given as people will try and deceive you by giving a smaller angle and thus with a higher candela rating, ie. an LED with 40000 mcd at 10 degrees isn't as powerful as an LED of 20000 mcd at 40 degrees. You can look in Wikipedia for a complicated description of candelas, candle power and lumens if you want to understand more about it.

I found LEDs form hong kong or china to be cheapest whereas Integrated circuits are usually cheaper in Thailand. Of course the larger the purchase the significantly cheaper the LEDs become, so it pays (or rather saves) to make a whole bunch of lights.

There are also high wattage ones like these
http://cgi.ebay.com/20pcs-1Watt-High-Power-White-LED-Super-Bright-80LM-1W_W0QQitemZ310199136843QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item48394f324b
they are measured in lumens (as most LEDs intended for illumination are) here's a calculator for conversion between the two.
http://led.linear1.org/lumen.wiz

[haidan]

Of course the easier way to try and make sense of these non-congruent measurement is to compare wattage/dollar since the heat produced by LEDs in minimal and probably the same for either type. comparing the watts produced by the LEDs is a better way to compare the two, so for the 5mm ones which if all combined will produce 8 watts for 8.50 = 1.0625 whereas the 1watt LEDs will give you 1 dollar per watt so slightly better in this case but a heck of a lot easier to make the lights up since you don't have to solder string after string of led together and can use fewer resistors just make sure the wattage of the resistors will handle 1+ watt, You can use several in parallel to up the wattage of smaller resistors though it changes to resistance. The formula for parallel resistors is 1/R1 + 1/R2 + 1/R3 (ect.) = 1/R total. So five 180 ohm resistors in parallel will give you 36 ohms total.
Why I didn't go for this 1 watt-ers I don't know I will next time that's for sure, for cabin lighting a 140 degrees beam would be nice too.