LED "certification"
Maine Sail wrote: In short it is a gamble many are willing to take for the sake of saving a few bucks.
I recently opined about the use of LEDs inside cabins, noting that the minimal amount of energy they save may not be worth the cost. We use a trawler lamp, have lotsa incandescent, halogen and fluorescent lighting, but only use the powered lights for short periods of time, when doing the dishes after dinner, reading before bed and we usually hit the rack early. Others may stay up with lights blaring til all hours of the night. However, when compared to the total daily electrical load with a fridge, reasonable use of interior lighting is a small amount of the total daily energy budget. This would be for a 400 ah house bank with a fridge. For those with smaller 220 ah battery bank and no fridge, same thing. Lighting may be a lot, but a small portion of the house bank capacity.
Similarly, so is the energy required of navigational lights UNLESS the boats are sailing offshore, when it becomes a HUGE part of the daily energy budget.
See this for an energy budget with the three daily draws: daysail, overnight and ocean: http://c34.org/bbs/index.php/topic,3976.0.html Click on the pdf file on the first entry in the topic.
So given that, the "race" to include LED lights in nav fixtures is interesting, but I wonder how many folks actually use their nav lights for a real overnight sail which would "require" that drastic and helpful a reduction in energy loads which the LEDs do provide. [A few hours an evening for all our nav lights is not that big a draw. We also have a lamp oil anchor light, but I would replace the electric anchor light with an LED right away, we already "partially" did that with a Davis Mega light years ago.]
And, whether or not nav lights are a big portion of your energy budget, why even bother with Dr. LED after all the bad press?
Maine Sail wrote: In short it is a gamble many are willing to take for the sake of saving a few bucks.
I recently opined about the use of LEDs inside cabins, noting that the minimal amount of energy they save may not be worth the cost. We use a trawler lamp, have lotsa incandescent, halogen and fluorescent lighting, but only use the powered lights for short periods of time, when doing the dishes after dinner, reading before bed and we usually hit the rack early. Others may stay up with lights blaring til all hours of the night. However, when compared to the total daily electrical load with a fridge, reasonable use of interior lighting is a small amount of the total daily energy budget. This would be for a 400 ah house bank with a fridge. For those with smaller 220 ah battery bank and no fridge, same thing. Lighting may be a lot, but a small portion of the house bank capacity.
Similarly, so is the energy required of navigational lights UNLESS the boats are sailing offshore, when it becomes a HUGE part of the daily energy budget.
See this for an energy budget with the three daily draws: daysail, overnight and ocean: http://c34.org/bbs/index.php/topic,3976.0.html Click on the pdf file on the first entry in the topic.
So given that, the "race" to include LED lights in nav fixtures is interesting, but I wonder how many folks actually use their nav lights for a real overnight sail which would "require" that drastic and helpful a reduction in energy loads which the LEDs do provide. [A few hours an evening for all our nav lights is not that big a draw. We also have a lamp oil anchor light, but I would replace the electric anchor light with an LED right away, we already "partially" did that with a Davis Mega light years ago.]
And, whether or not nav lights are a big portion of your energy budget, why even bother with Dr. LED after all the bad press?
