cheap LED nagivation lights

Maine Sail · Feb 14, 2014

pupluv said:
Has anyone tried these cheap LED navigation lights?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271325847975?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

Yes, I know they are made by slave labor in China but there are no relatively inexpensive US made LED navigation lights. My sailboat's outboard has no alternator so low power consumption is important. Seller says they are not USCG approved.

BTW, it's 80 degrees in Marina del Rey, California today and we'll be saillin' a half hour from now. We've been officially asked not to rub it into poor sailors in the rest of the country.

Ask them if the light has undergone, and passed testing, to meet the COLREGS requirements for navigations lights.

You are required, by law, to have lights that comply with the COLREGS and without a USCG Certification there is no way to tell if these lights meet the requirements or not...

topcat0399 · Feb 14, 2014

pupluv said:
Has anyone tried these cheap LED navigation lights?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271325847975?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

Yes, I know they are made by slave labor in China but there are no relatively inexpensive US made LED navigation lights. My sailboat's outboard has no alternator so low power consumption is important. Seller says they are not USCG approved.

BTW, it's 80 degrees in Marina del Rey, California today and we'll be saillin' a half hour from now. We've been officially asked not to rub it into poor sailors in the rest of the country.

You deserved that kick from Maine Sail for
wanting to use illegal lights and this one for:

Officially rubbing our noses in your it (your sailing opportunity).

Honestly I put led replacement bulbs in our existing nav light fixtures.
because new approved lights are cost exorbitant and the electric load is a concern for us. I'm sure there are many others with the same problem.

We tested them and could see them well over a mile away.
I understand the risk I'm taking and for now its acceptable.
As soon as we can afford the regulation ones we will do it.

Why does the process of certifying more of the newer light fixtures (including the affordable ones) seem to be taking decades?

Who can I write about it???

Maine Sail · Feb 14, 2014

pupluv said:
No, they are not COLREGS or USCG approved. If they were, I wouldn't be asking about them here. It doesn't mean they are no good; it could be a small manufacturer without the means to submit for testing.

Submitting for testing is easy and not all that cost prohibitive. Distance is not the only requirement there are horizontal sectors, vertical sectors, color compliance and burn-in testing for LED's..

LED All Round USCG 2 NM $39.99

LED Bi-Color USCG 2 NM $41.39

LED Stern Light USCG 2 NM $45.99

shemandr · Feb 14, 2014

Maybe in your tests you can see them the requisite distance.
If you are in an accident, you can be sure a lawyer will find out and make an issue about whether or not you were in compliance with regulations. It's a yes/no answer. So, like in a lot of areas in life we spend more money to protect whatever assets we have. If you have no assets to protect, I guess it doesn't matter.
I would maybe try the cheap LED's below deck and for the navigation lights use the approved ones.
I wouldn't be shocked to find out there's some clause somewhere in your insurance policy documents that lets the company out of liability if your boat isn't compliant with all regulations. It may not matter if the deficiency has anything to do with the accident. Just saying ...

topcat0399 · Feb 14, 2014

shemandr said:
Maybe in your tests you can see them the requisite distance.
If you are in an accident, you can be sure a lawyer will find out and make an issue about whether or not you were in compliance with regulations. It's a yes/no answer. So, like in a lot of areas in life we spend more money to protect whatever assets we have. If you have no assets to protect, I guess it doesn't matter.
I would maybe try the cheap LED's below deck and for the navigation lights use the approved ones.
I wouldn't be shocked to find out there's some clause somewhere in your insurance policy documents that lets the company out of liability if your boat isn't compliant with all regulations. It may not matter if the deficiency has anything to do with the accident. Just saying ...

Believe me I hear you.

My only defense is that a wise poor man continuously assesses desire, risk, resources, and liability and makes choices in order to live a certain quality of life he may otherwise be excluded from.

I would love to have at least the list of lights on my boat that Maine Sail posted but unfortunately it adds up to a total of 15-17 gallons of LP heating gas. Its only February in the upper Mid-west. This winter probably wipes out our hopes of a much needed and saved for mainsail this year without going into debt.

Risk assessment and acceptable compromise. Part of my risk assessment
is that we have very low traffic of any kind on the big lake we usually sail. After dark we are often the only boat on 30,000 acres.

Don't we all deal with this in one notion or another?

Imagine the number of motor vehicles on the worlds highways that "don't meet regulation" with no one providing any risk assessment or mitigation thereof at all. Its horrifying. For now my led bulbs will do until I win the lottery.

Bill Roosa · Feb 14, 2014

it is a safety item
it is a legal item
and its a boat. pay the $$$$ and get the right parts.
Your the captain and responsible for the safety of all on board. I'd think that would be sufficient motivation to convince anybody.
Perhaps it is time to either change your boating stile or downsize to something less expensive to operate.
I'm so tired of seeing this in the boating community. How can I save money????? It is a boat for crying out loud, get over it that you are going to have to spend a LOT of $$$$ to maintain it.

Picflight · Feb 14, 2014

I personally would buy regulation lights that have to deal with safety and regulations. Below deck I could be more selective but with safety in mind and of course code regulations.
My2c

patrickfarley · Feb 14, 2014

I bought an expensive LED anchor light.
The running lights are still incandescent. I figure that I don't run around at night that much so I will not be using very much energy.

I am glad I did not put an LED navigation light on the bow. Last time I was tied in a slip the guy next to me moved my line and it looped over the fixture and ripped it off. Never could figure out why he wanted to put a line on a pier in front of my boat when he was in a slip next to me and across the finger dock.

Captn TJ · Feb 14, 2014

Bill Roosa said:
it is a safety item it is a legal item and its a boat. pay the $$$$ and get the right parts. Your the captain and responsible for the safety of all on board. I'd think that would be sufficient motivation to convince anybody. Perhaps it is time to either change your boating stile or downsize to something less expensive to operate. I'm so tired of seeing this in the boating community. How can I save money????? It is a boat for crying out loud, get over it that you are going to have to spend a LOT of $$$$ to maintain it.

I agree with Bill - there are things you don't want to go cheap - Nav lights are one of them. I've seen too many boats that are either unlit or poorly lit.
having had to a va

Joe Blizzard · Feb 14, 2014

pupluv said:
Has anyone tried these cheap LED navigation lights?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/271325847975?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

I haven't tried those, but I do have some relatively cheap LEDs on my boat: http://home.comcast.net/~blizzard3/g20/lights/index.htm

The one up front is the Atwood that Maine Sail linked to. All of them are considerably brighter than the incandescents they replaced. I'm a little skeptical of the eBay light because of the .54 Watt rating. That's not much power and if it's correct it probably equates to not much light. My lights draw a total of 360 milliamps when they're all on, which at 12V is roughly (let me get my calculator...) 4.3W.

wufibugs · Feb 14, 2014

I agree and disagree. I don't think it is debatable that one should not run their boat in an unsafe condition. I am also prepared to take Maine's word that visibility at distance may not be the only issue for nav lights. To answer pup directly, when I got the cheapies to replace my interior festoon bulbs, I could not resist trying one in my bi-color bow fixture. It was brighter and more visible from every angle. I chickened out and removed it because I had some reservations about how robust they are and whether those LEDs had the proper 100 degree or so light distribution [frankly, I think it did].
Where Bill, for whom I have great respect, disagree is his comment that because it's a boat one needs to just shell out or ship out. There are a many places where one can find less expensive or novel substitutes that allow us shallow-wallet types to join the elite boating community. My 1986 H31 is almost 30 years old. It's a production boat, and while it could go another 30 years with proper maintenance, no matter what I do, it is depreciating every month. If I can save money in order to keep myself in recreational boating by using something that will only last 10 years instead of 30, as long as it does not compromise the safety of the vessel, why isn't that a legitimate decision for me, or pup to make? And I am mindful that trying to save money can sometimes lead to false economies, but that's what the collective genius and experience represented on this forum help us avoid.

Joe · Feb 14, 2014

The main reason I wouldn't waste money on that product is because it is ILLEGAL.. it is plainly stated in the seller's ad.... that's why NO ONE would install them on their precious sailboat ... brightness is NOT the issue... it is the degrees of visibility that makes them dangerous.

Basic Rule no. 1 states "Sidelights are red (port) and green (starboard) and shine from dead ahead to 112.5° aft on either side."

If you look closely at this picture of your product you'll see that the range of visibility is only 90 deg on either side...... that's why they aren't legal... and that's why I would not waste one cent on it.

FWIW... you can purchase legal LED nav lights from legitimate online marine stores for well under $70. Here's one example: http://www.defender.com/product3.jsp?path=-1|65136|2312550|2312557&id=1801868 and I've seen others for even less.

dcfleming · Feb 15, 2014

I replaced all the bulbs in my running lights with LED bulbs off Ebay (from China) years ago. I bought replacements because I assumed I would go through them over the years. However I'm still on my first set. I can't tell any difference from other sailboats that have the high-end LED navigation lights, except mine are serviceable. The odds are they probably all came from the same state in China anyway.

dscribner · Feb 15, 2014

Joe,

Though I don't necessarily disagree with you, I'm an engineer who's always looking at things and wondering how they work. By age 9, I could disassemble mom's vacuum and reassemble with no extra parts. Don't tell her. Anyway, it would be a simple calculation to see how far forward in the housing you'd have to move the light source in order to cast light at the exact angle. At a guess, smack-dab in the center of the radius would do it.

dscribner · Feb 15, 2014

I just though of a forum I read one time. This fellow was a captain of a freighter and he as remarking how some of the LED steaming lights and mast lights look like stars on the horizon rather than a proper mast lights. This would lend credence to MaineSail's thread. Not like he needs any.

Joe · Feb 15, 2014

dscribner said:
Joe,

Though I don't necessarily disagree with you, I'm an engineer who's always looking at things and wondering how they work. By age 9, I could disassemble mom's vacuum and reassemble with no extra parts. Don't tell her. Anyway, it would be a simple calculation to see how far forward in the housing you'd have to move the light source in order to cast light at the exact angle. At a guess, smack-dab in the center of the radius would do it.

I agree with you.... and you don't really need a calculator to figure that out..... a simple protractor laid on top of the housing at the center of the lens radius would tell you if there were the extra 22.5 deg.... however, the ad states that the product is waterproof and can be seen for 2 miles, yet still doesn't meet CG standards. What else could it be? The seller doesn't say and no dimensions were presented. The wide backing plate may restrict visibility, the poor quality of the lens may not reflect the light well towards the rear... who knows and frankly who cares.. it isn't on my Christmas list...

In any event, I wouldn't buy it.... and apparently no one from this forum has either, so pupluv is going to have to do his own quality control.

hurricanehole · Feb 15, 2014

The Hella nav 2 mile lights have a good price at Defender. Is there any advantage to getting a clear lens with green or red led versus the colored lens? Thanks for the boat show money saving tip.