Flickering House Lights

HMT2

HMT2

.
Mar 20, 2014
899
Hunter 31 828 Shoreacres, TX
Greetings All,

Things are good on my boat...for the moment, hope things are great on yours. I am currently chasing down tiny little annoyances and contemplating nice add ons like a Balmar Smartguage. One of the things that I am struggling with is my house lights flicker only when my electronics breaker is switched on. Some background. I replaced all of the original house "dome" lights with SeaSense 5/1/2 inch led white/red dome lights. These are the lights that appear to flicker very quickly, only when my electronics switch is on. This has been happening for a while, I can't track it to before I switched out the lights. My other LED lights (reading lights with replacement LED bulbs) do not flicker. What is on my electronics switch, is a Garmin 741xs, Ray Marine Auto pilot computer, and a Simrad VHF. Also power to a NMEA 2000 network that is providing power to a Garmin gwind, Raymarine auto pilot head. Any thoughts?
 
Ken Cross

Ken Cross

.
Oct 24, 2010
2,405
Hunter 30 Everett, WA
Don't spend money yet. First off, if the flickering is just when the switch is thrown, that may be just because of the voltage fluctuation. Some LED bulbs are more susceptible to flicker than others. If it continues, I'd suspect an overloaded or corroded ground shared between electronics and the lights. Use a digital meter and connect it across the bulb contacts while the bulb is in use. If the voltage is low, you have found the problem (likely corrosion on one or more connections). If the problem is corrosion, you need to find it as it will only get worse.

Ken
 
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D

dlochner

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Jan 11, 2014
11,398
Sabre 362 113 Fair Haven, NY
Ken Cross said:
Don't spend money yet. First off, if the flickering is just when the switch is thrown, that may be just because of the voltage fluctuation. Some LED bulbs are more susceptible to flicker than others. If it continues, I'd suspect an overloaded or corroded ground shared between electronics and the lights. Use a digital meter and connect it across the bulb contacts while the bulb is in use. If the voltage is low, you have found the problem (likely corrosion on one or more connections). If the problem is corrosion, you need to find it as it will only get worse.

Ken
Click to expand
Two thoughts.

First, if @Gunni is correct that that SeaSense lights are built to a price, then it is likely that they will be sensitive to voltage fluctuations.

Second, @Ken Cross is correct in his problem solving check the voltage at the lights.

Third, the load on the breaker for the electronics is pretty high. What gauge wire is used for that circuit? Take a look the load to see if the wiring can support it with less than a 3% drop. I'm guessing that it is not. If the wire is not beefy enough then it will cause the system voltage to drop significantly which might be causing your issue.

Keep us posted!
 
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Gunni

Gunni

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Mar 16, 2010
5,937
Beneteau 411 Oceanis Annapolis
Proper boat LED lighting is not dependent on the range of voltages seen between common low-battery and high-charge voltage. The fixture is built for that predictable duty. And wire loss voltage drops are even less important, since the LED lamp load is a fraction of what the original incandescent lamp pulled. By a factor of 10. How could that be a problem if the wiring remains the same? This is not just some academic exercise, if you have flickering, surging LED lighting you are playing with a potential for failure of the LED circuitry that can and has caused a thermal event (fire).
 
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NYSail

NYSail

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Jan 6, 2006
3,060
Beneteau 423 Mt. Sinai, NY
did you have this issue before you switched the lights? If not gunni is 100% right in my eyes. When buying led replacements for my boat I first started buying intra at 18+ a bulb for all my reading lamps (8)..... then I started ordering much less expensive bulbs at the advise of others. Found a lot of inferior products that put out horrible light or would flicker at the slightest change. Finally found a brand that was less expensive but put out a quality light and no problems. Go with a quality fixture/bulb.

Good luck!
 
J

JohnShannon

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Jan 4, 2010
1,037
Farr 30 San Francisco
Auto pilot can take quite a slug of current, which may drop the voltage a bit, which may cause flicker. If the autopilot is in standby does the flicker go away?
 
HMT2

HMT2

.
Mar 20, 2014
899
Hunter 31 828 Shoreacres, TX
JohnShannon said:
Auto pilot can take quite a slug of current, which may drop the voltage a bit, which may cause flicker. If the autopilot is in standby does the flicker go away?
Click to expand
Negative auto pilot is in stand by.
 
HMT2

HMT2

.
Mar 20, 2014
899
Hunter 31 828 Shoreacres, TX
NYSail said:
did you have this issue before you switched the lights?
Click to expand
I can not recall, if this happened with the incandescent house lights, I will say that the load on the electronics breaker is different than before I switched out the lights.
 
HMT2

HMT2

.
Mar 20, 2014
899
Hunter 31 828 Shoreacres, TX
dlochner said:
Third, the load on the breaker for the electronics is pretty high. What gauge wire is used for that circuit?
Click to expand
There is an 8 ga wire feeding a bus bar from the electronics breaker and then a 14 ga wire feeding the items drawing directly off the breaker.
 
NYSail

NYSail

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Jan 6, 2006
3,060
Beneteau 423 Mt. Sinai, NY
I have separate breakers for 1)wind depth chart plotter 2) radar 3) autopilot 4) vhf
 
agprice22

agprice22

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Aug 3, 2012
2,542
Performance Cruising Telstar 28 302 Watkins Glen
I have been using LED stage lighting for over 10 years. As the Can units age, they begin to flicker. I have been through a set at this point in 10 years. I would guess you have cheaply made bulbs.
 
FastOlson

FastOlson

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Apr 8, 2010
1,950
Ericson Yachts Olson 34 28400 Portland OR
Sometimes it might help to have anecdotal information about working solutions. Our boat has some very nice fixtures that take a festoon style bulb. Several years ago I replaced all of the bulbs (6) at once with LED bulbs from Fisheries Supply. They were labeled 'warm white'.
FS generally carries quality goods, and also a friend has a trade discount established with them. My price was a bit over $8. per bulb.
No problems or flickering since. The light output is "warm" enough to be a decent match to the former incandescent bulbs, too.
No great epiphany here, but it is one solutions among the many.
https://www.fisheriessupply.com/lunasea-lighting-6-led-festoon-bulb-42-mm
 
Ken Cross

Ken Cross

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Oct 24, 2010
2,405
Hunter 30 Everett, WA
The way to know is still to put a meter across the bulb connections with the bulb installed and running.

Ken
 
G

glaufman

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May 23, 2016
217
O'Day 1984 23 Island Park, NY
Not saying don't try it but led led bulbs can respond to a flicker so fast a meter may not show it.. still something to try... Also the timing would be a strange coincidence for it to show up at this time but a wire or connection that corroded can increase drops and make it electrically like a thinner gauge... When a wire corrodes I becomes stif and brittle so you can often feel where the problem is... Also might've inadvertantly loosened a connection while removing replacing the bulbs
 
Chris & Lenore

Chris & Lenore

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Apr 24, 2006
868
Aloha 32 Toronto, Lake Ontario
I had an issue similar to this on the last two boats I've owned. The "flicker" is so quick and subtle that it's difficult to see directly. More like your peripheral vision picks up on it first.
The cause was inexpensive LED's that have no voltage/current regulation coupled with my lead acid house batteries.
As lead acid's discharge, they produce tiny and rapid voltage variations. These are so minute and fast that regular incandescent bulbs do not react nor do analog or even digital meters.
The solution is to use higher quality LED's that have decent regulators built into them. I liked using strip LED's in several places (which have no internal regulation). I solved the flicker problem for those by running these lights from an inexpensive DC to DC inverter that I found at a robotics outlet. 6 to 35 volts in and a constant 12 out...

Could you borrow a high quality LED bulb and try that in one of the fixtures with the flicker? If that flickers then you have supply side issues.

Chris
 
HMT2

HMT2

.
Mar 20, 2014
899
Hunter 31 828 Shoreacres, TX
Chris & Lenore said:
Could you borrow a high quality LED bulb and try that in one of the fixtures with the flicker? If that flickers then you have supply side issues.
Click to expand
I will try this. Your description is right on. Thanks for the response.
 
R

Rick486

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Oct 1, 2007
1,858
Boston Whaler Super Sport Pt. Judith
Gunni said:
Proper boat LED lighting is not dependent on the range of voltages seen between common low-battery and high-charge voltage. The fixture is built for that predictable duty. And wire loss voltage drops are even less important, since the LED lamp load is a fraction of what the original incandescent lamp pulled. By a factor of 10. How could that be a problem if the wiring remains the same? This is not just some academic exercise, if you have flickering, surging LED lighting you are playing with a potential for failure of the LED circuitry that can and has caused a thermal event (fire).
Click to expand
"....thermal event......". Cool. One could refer to being shot as "...a penetration event..." :)
 
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