Re: Anyone moved to LED Lighting?

[salty@xxxxxxx]

On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:37:57 -0500, "Robert L Bass"
<Sales@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>salty wrote:
>>
>> ... The simple answer is that most LED replacements
>> for incandesent bulbs in almost ANY application other
>> than indicator lights on a panel,  are accomplished by
>> use of arrays of LED's, not a single LED.
>
>Therein lies the problem.  Lamp housings using reflectors or prismatic lenses
>for nav lights and other purposes are designed to use a light coming from a
>single point.

You are already off course. ;-)

>Incandescent bulbs do that rather well.  An LED array can't work
>as well in that type of lamp because only a few of the LEDs are at the focal
>point.  Light emitted from the rest of the LEDs will be scattered in wrong
>directions.

Way off course. The alarms are now sounding and crew are running up on
deck.

>
>That does not mean that LEDs can't serve well in nav lights -- only that they
>don't work well as replacements for standard bulbs in *existing* lamps.

Not true. As I said, they have to perform to strict legal standards -
and they do. I did not replace any fixtures for my nav lights. All
done with drop in LED arrays made to completely and legally reproduce
the same or better light. Couldn't do it if they didn't comply. LED's
can be mounted in arrays on the surface of any shape in order to give
full brightness in all directions needed. They individually have a
fairly narrow beam, but you simply mount a bunch of them so that the
beams overlap. I'm not speculating about this. I have them on my
sailboat. So do a lot of other folks.

>If
>someone designs a lamp around light coming from the broad surface of an LED
>array it may turn out to be a better choice for sailboats.  Sailing is in that
>respect analogous to living "off the grid."  Folks interested in learning ways
>to conserve energy might learn a lot from folks who sail.

Electrical power on a sailboat is precious. As I mentioned previously,
I have a written "electrical budget" that details the draw of every
single piece of equipment on the boat, including draw for things like
the separate "memory" power lead of the digital am/fm/CD which draws
miniscule amounts of power. This draw spec is not from the specs that
come with the devices. It is measured at the power source (breaker
panel) to take into account all losses inherent in the system.

I know at all times how many amp hours I'm consuming, and how many I'm
generatingfrom various sources. I also have to compute how long at how
many amps I have to input power to replace used amp hours. It is not a
1:1 ratio. Battery charging is not simply stuffing juice back in to
replace the amount used.