An interesting article about LED's...

Voiles et Voiliers, the French sailing magazine, really knows how to put sailboats and products through their paces (real tests with no concern about advertising revenue) and their recent testing of LED lighting is no exception... Check it out!

For those Boat Bits readers who don't read French may I suggest you use Babel Fish...

Can't have too many flashlights...

I've always been of the "You can't have too many flashlights on a boat" camp... Too many is just enough!

On "So It Goes" I keep trying to find a better flashlight of the LED variety but keep running into problems. All of the expensive flashlights don't seem to perform as well as the less expensive flashlights I have bought of late which has made me wonder no small amount...

Those pseudo police wonders that begin with "M" if anything are the worst flashlights on the boat and as they are also the most expensive... Well, it makes you think! I have one of those multi-cell wonders that are supposed to shine brightly as well as being able to hit people over the head with... Truth be told the sucker does not shine at all but I have hit myself on the head with it a time or two in frustration over spending so much money for something that works so badly.

Dorcy, on the other hand, makes a really nice cheap flashlight that just works... We have had three so far and they just work and work even the one in the dinghy which is more often than not wet. For less than $10 you have say YOWZA!

Which is why I am seriously interested in the $25ish flashlight Dorcy now has on offer as reports from friends is that it is not only compact but very very bright! If it holds up half as long as the under $10 dollar Dorcy, it's a winner!

On kicking some serious butt with LED's...

One of the ongoing discussions that comes up far too often about boats and suchlike is the whole "guns and cruising" thing.

Just to make sure no one gets the wrong idea here... I think guns on boats is a seriously dumb idea!

But... There is a need to want to protect you and yours. It's primal and I understand  but I also realize having guns on board a boat is a recipe for making things worse, not better.

Over the years I have spent a lot of time and thought on various cunning and not-so-cunning plans to keep bad folks off the boat and to get the upper hand if they do. I should also be truthful and tell you that after all these years I have come up with pretty much zip. So I basically just work on the premise that I need to keep my ear to the ground and avoid places and situations where I might have a problem. So far so good!

But the idea of a non-lethal form of defense is no bad thing and I do keep my eyes open. Recently on one of my electronics geek reads, I came across a sorta/kinda neat project over at Adafruit... The Bedazzler!

Apparently the US Gov and Homeland security wanted to develop a non-lethal weapon that would make folks barf and otherwise spoil their day. They came up with a flashlight that apparently walked the talk and like everything from Government it cost some serious money but what is a million here or there if you have taxpayers footing the bill?

Anyway, clever techie folk realized that they could build the same thing for less than $250. Now I have no idea if it works but it is very cool and as I can think of any number of worse ways to spend time than an electronic project that might do double duty as a real interesting party game... I might even actually give it a try as if it does not work on the barf angle, it might make a very cool disco light!

LED worklamp followup...

A while back I mentioned I was getting one of these LED work lamps to try and having had a couple of days to play with it I'll go over my first impressions...

The unit puts out a lot of light. This would make an excellent light to use under the bimini for sitting around the cockpit and reading or whatever. It is also very well suited for mounting as the two "hooks" allow for various mounting scenarios as does the supplied magnet clamp. By the way if you lose the magnet the remaining clamp makes a great bulkhead mount...

The build quality is not bad and while the wall wart charger and the 12V charger cord are a little flimsy for my tastes they are no different than any marine item I have encountered over the last few years as it seems everyone cheaps down on cords and cables.

I should also point out that it is a great work light which (surprise,surprise) is what it is actually designed to be!

The jury is still out on how long the rechargeable battery section will work but my past experience of rechargeable spotlights has been good, so color me optimistic!

So far so good as they say and certainly not bad for less than $40! Fact is I am buying a couple more...

Real world lighting costs...LED

Yesterday I was at the local marine store and spent some time looking at various LED lights for the boat and was not overly impressed by the quality of the various LED light fixtures but was impressed by the hig prices... and not in a good way!

Why is it that a so-called, made in China marine unit with three LED's not using tinned wire or marine friendly materials, costs over $100?

While at the same time I can buy a rechargable LED worklight with 78 LED's with charger for less than $40?

This worklight looks kind of neat and I will be getting one or two to play with and see how they work...

Short Takes: Bowsprits, Solar panels, LED's

I've been looking at installing a bowsprit on So It Goes and the process has been somewhat problematic but as they say there is light at the end of the tunnel having narrowed the choice down to two different kits and a home brew solution.. Forte have a neat kit for a carbon spar as do Selden for one in Aluminum...The problem is that both kits wind up costing quite a bit in that being in the land of dimensional shipping rates I am afraid to ask just what a nine foot tube costs to get down here. More on this subject in greater detail as soon as I make a decision...

While researching home brew bowsprit solutions I came across a great site for Beneteau 235 owners group which also had an interesting discussion on clever use of those cheap Volkswagen solar panels...I can recognize a good thing when I see it and already have several cunning plans for these cheap and small solar panels!

Couple of weeks ago I received the BEBI replacements for the Tricolor and anchor lights and will be reporting on their performance as time goes on. For the record anyone considering about the possible shipping hassles of buying gear from FIJI might be surprised to know that the shipping from FIJI to our mail service in the States is as quick ( and often quicker) than getting stuff sent from WEST or other Marine megastores...And you get neat stamps!

Seemed like a good idea at the time department...

LED's have been a something of a frustration aboard the test bed that "So It Goes" is becoming these days as the new boat design is coming into focus so wanting to get all the systems right before going into the construction of Loose Moose 3 ( or Ultima Moose...) that we can just build it and not have to do any thinking in the process.

LED's provide a lot of light and don't use a lot of power in the process which sounds like just the thing for a boat with an energy budget..LED's are also cheap and promise lives so long that they appear to live a lifetime. Sounds like the best thing since sliced bread...

The problem is that it seems the sliced bread analogy is a bit moldy...None of the LED's lamps we have purchased for SO It Goes have lasted anywhere near their claimed life...Point of fact none have even lasted as long as their low tech bulbs they have replaced and in talking to other cruisers and the guy who is the local whiz at the St Martin Budget Marine we are not the only ones having problems...Even those lovely hockey puck units costing several hundred dollars and more seem to be coming back on a regular basis ( they melt it would seem).

Our first foray into the world of LED lights were new replacements for our Bicolor and poop light from Orca ...Now being somewhat handy with things I thought long and hard about the fact that I could buy some LED's from a company like Superbright LEDS for a few dollars and cobble together something...But I fell for that if it costs a hundred times more ( plus that it was USCG approved) it had to be better...and being seen at night is no bad thing...So I stumped up for the Orca lights. A BiColor replacement led light source for the Aqua signal I had in place and a complete LED lighting fixture for the poop light. Which worked quite well were certainly as bright as the Aquasignal lights they were replacing and the fact that they consumed milliamps instead of amps made my battery bank happy. The fact that the Poop light which was sealed from the factory had lot of moisture trapped inside the unit gave us some pause but we figured in time it would go away ( It never did...which in a way says a lot about the purported waterproof quality of their construction...Vapor tight is impressive!) But a couple of years later they shall we say expired...First the port side of the LED array went then the next time I tried them the poop went south as well...maybe 80 hours as opposed to the claimed Gazillion hours all of the LED folk like to claim for the never need replacing advantage of the LED lamps. Orca also has the habit of never answering email...So frankly I have not a clue what they think of the problem though a recent thread on the Seven Seas Cruising Association bulletin board did reveal I am not the only one having this non answering problem...or problems with their products. I might add that Orca has changed the design of their lights quite a bit since ours were built and no longer offer the replacement light sources for the Aquasignal Navigation lights...Their new stuff looks excellent and has a matching price tag but with our 100% failure rate with their products as impressive as the new stuff looks the chance of finding its way into any boat we have is doubtful.

We then heard in the cruising grapevine about BEBI electronics down in Fiji who were doing some good NAV lights at very reasonable prices though they do have a somewhat shall we say Agricultural appearance being cobbled together from PVC pipe but we heard good things and ordered a new Tri Color unit ($58.50)and anchor light ($36.) from them...They sent them quickly and we were very impressed by the light output and the frugal nature of their amp draw. Our anchor light fizzled out quite soon after and the folks at BEBI dispatched a replacement immediately though that has also now had several LEDs go bad as well. Truth be told I am not looking forward to climbing up the mast and seeing how our tricolor has fared...

In talking to others we have heard of several instances of melting tri color lights in some of the hyper expensive LED tri color units and in one of the local marine stores a 40% failure rate on LED replacement bulbs they are selling...So one does wonder where they get those never needs replacing with such a high failure rate.
We do know that in the automotive world LEDs are very much established and actually do have the sort of performance and longevity that the hyper priced Marine units claim but sadly do not deliver...Which is pretty much par for the course for anything labeled "marine" or "yacht".

So this week I am going to buy a whole bunch of LED's from Super Bright LEDs (http://superbrightleds.com/led_prods.htm)and cobble my own system together including replacement units but at a few bucks I can certainly afford to have several backups.
So for the moment we rate LED's as Not ready for prime time unless you do them yourself...ORCA certainly is not ...BEBI is better and their service excellent but to be honest we won't bother getting a replacement to our Anchor light as on something as important as navigation lights two strikes is enough to put you out of the game.