Gonna change the oil
With few people at work, its hard to get much done. Today I woulda got
more done on the boat but spent it at work. I'll go to the boat to
change the oil and engine zinc on my Yanmar 2GM tomorrow.
Tried to find some 600 ohm resistors at Radio Shack for my homemade
ultra-bright LED anchor light but no luck, will havta order em. |
dbohara
Dec 29
2005
|
| WHACK on the head! All my calculations for naught .... Eisboch |
Eisboch
Dec 30
|
| Now *this* is what wrecked.boats is all about ..... Hilarious ... Eisboch (gasping for air laughing) |
Eisboch
Dec 30
|
| Since my boat came with 2 batteries, and this is similar to most of the
smaller cruisers I have seen, how do most people handle the refrigerator at
night, do they only keep it on when the engine is running? Without some major work, it would be hard to add a 3 rd battery in the
bilge. |
Reggie
Dec 30
|
| Eisboch,
I am glad I could bring some joy to your day. ; ) |
Reggie
Dec 30
|
| Without a generator, a cooler and lotsa ice is your best bet. A refer will
kill a group 24 or 27 battery in about 4-6 hours. Eisboch |
Eisboch
Dec 30
|
| We never had a problem running a refrigerator while away from shorepower
overnight. But the boat had 3 group 31 deep cycle batteries though. |
Dec 30
|
| Ok, I guess it is time to get a new boat with a genset.
Thanks for the help. |
Reggie
Dec 30
|
| OK yes that must be right because the light on the white cabin top is in
streaks, I assume being focused by the plastic lens. K |
K.
|
| It's not an "approved" anchor light I think I mentioned it here probably
at least 2 yrs ago, it's just a large garden light, the transformers
that come with them are 12 volts so they're OK, all plastic so no
corrosion & the current one has been there at least 2 but probably 3 yrs
now. Even though they've come down in price it was only $20 back then. Ummm a bit sheepishly:-) I better give credit when it's due Chuck; good
job on the NG well done. K |
K.
|
| JimH, I have a deep cycle gel battery, When I use my anchor light, it has never
made it through the night without being completely discharged. Is this
normal? |
Reggie
Dec 30
|
| I never had that problem. Something you can consider is a portable anchor light such as this one
http://tinyurl.com/akeg7 |
Dec 30
|
| JimH, This is exactly what I need, it uses one tenth the power of a 12 volt bulb. I saw that there were some all around LED lights to replace the 12 volt
bulbs, but they were substantially more expensive, and only saved 1/2 the
power. I forgot to mention that the Gel Deep Cycle battery also powered the
refrigerator, so that is probably why it always died during the night. |
Reggie
Dec 30
|
| I'll bet it was the bulb in the refrigerator that did it! On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 10:37:53 -0500, "Reggie Smithers" <removethislantaga@yahoo.com>
wrote:
|
JohnH
Dec 30
|
| JohnH,
You might be correct, we keep the refrigerator door open so we could have a
nightlight on. ; ) |
Reggie
Dec 30
|
| It also keeps the cabin cool. ;-) |
Dec 30
|
| For those not inclined to make their own LED lights, here's a link to a
site with additional information about one particular brand: http://www.mmboatyard.com/New_From_MMBoatyard.html
The one disadvantage to these lights, so far, is their cost. The offset
could be that for
any lights (like a masthead light) that some boaters might currently be
paying somebody to replace the price of installing one LED light that
should last 50,000 hours (will never wear out in typical pleasure boat
service) will be less than sending a worker up the mast
a second or third time during the ownership of the vessel. They are very bright, and far more bulletproof than a lightbulb. Lopo also makes interior cabin lights. |
chuckgould.chu...
Dec 30
|
| Nah. The light in the fridge goes out when you close the |
JIMinFL
Dec 30
|
| = It had better, otherwise it will keep Schrodinger's cat awake. http://www.phobe.com/s_cat/s_cat.html |
Wayne.B
Dec 30
|
| What brand of LED are you using? There are some (pricey) LED lights made in the Netherlands, called LOPO
lights, that are certainly a lot brighter than a standard bulb. I first
noticed them about a year ago at a boat show and they appeared
dazzlingly bright even in an indoor setting with a tradeshow light
level. You could probably get a "deal" on some if there isn't currently a
distributor in AUS. http://www.lopolight.dk/ |
chuckgould.chu...
Dec 30
|
| Maybe a little more, but not much. The trucks use them for the same reason
I went to LED's on the boat trailer. Longevity. they do not have to waste
time, explaining to the cops why the clearance lights are not all working.
They are very voltage sensitive. to little voltage, not enough current and
the LED is black, increase voltage to a point and they get brighter,
increase more and they start getting dimmer, and too much voltage and they
are bright for a few milliseconds, and the magic smoke is released. |
Bill
Dec 30
|
| There is a seller on EBAY from Asia, that sells the bright LED's for a
decent price. I think the shipping is for 20 at a time. |
Bill
Dec 30
|
| There are replacement LED lights that plug into the standard socket. May
have to do a google search for them. |
Bill
Dec 30
|
| It seems the LEDS are the thing, trucks etc & I assume your traffic stop
& speed limit lights are all LED arrays now??? Here they're replacing
them with LEDS, apparently much less power & of course if one dies the
traffic light is still functional. Torches are all going LED & still seem to have plenty of punch. As for anchor lights we have used them for about 3 yrs now, but we buy them. The problem with using them as a "real" anchor light is compliance, in
the probably unlikely even you were run down in the night while at
anchor the insurance people would use whatever they could to claim you
were not using legal lighting. The one on my boat is "maybe" visible at 2 miles, in complete darkness
you can see a pin prick of light but it's so tiny you're not sure if
it's just what you see when you look that hard at the dark:-) but by
well over a mile it's definitely in play & by 1 mile very clear. Here the pleasure boat rules just require "visible" at 2 miles. K |
K.
|
| Here, at least some are being sold as "USCG approved" and suprisingly have
only 2 or 3 LEDs. Same requirements: visible at 2nm. Part of the
brightness secret is the use of a molded Fresnel lens. Even the truck
lights have mini Fresnel lens molded into the plastic housing. Fresnel lens
have been used in lighthouses since they were first built and concentrate
the light for maximum visibility. Eisboch |
Eisboch
Dec 30
|
| Exactly. And boy do I have the experiments in the "shack" to prove it. :>) |
Shortwave
Dec 30
|
| I wonder what that means in English? |
Harry
Dec 30
|
| ~~ snippage ~~ |
Shortwave
Dec 30
|
| I think it means she buys used anchor lights. Eisboch |
Eisboch
Dec 30
|
| Maybe. It's funny, sort of. As you know, Washington, D.C., has people
from everywhere in the world, lots of "furriners," and I've yet to
encounter someone from a country where English is the native tongue and
whose command of it is as bad as hers. Yes, I know there is a lot of
peculiar "Aussie" slang, but her sentence construction and composition
is so bad, she makes some of the "third-worlders" I encounter sound
perfectly understandable, and they've only just learned "Americanese." You could almost take her posts here to a class of grammar school kids
and pass them around as examples of how not to write in English. |
Harry
Dec 30
|
| Are the LEDs part of the parallel branches of the circuit? Meaning: 12v_________/\/\/\/\/\/\/\_________LED_________Ground
12v_________/\/\/\/\/\/\/\_________LED_________Ground
12v_________/\/\/\/\/\/\/\_________LED_________Ground
12v_________/\/\/\/\/\/\/\_________LED_________Ground
12v_________/\/\/\/\/\/\/\_________LED_________Ground
12v_________/\/\/\/\/\/\/\_________LED_________Ground or are they: 12v__________/\/\/\/\/\/\/\____________LED_____Ground
12v__________/\/\/\/\/\/\/\_____l______ LED_____Ground
12v__________/\/\/\/\/\/\/\_____l______ LED_____Ground
12v__________/\/\/\/\/\/\/\_____l______ LED_____Ground
12v__________/\/\/\/\/\/\/\_____l______ LED_____Ground
12v__________/\/\/\/\/\/\/\_____l______ LED_____Ground ??? Eisboch |
Eisboch
Dec 29
|
| First version, otherwise why use 6 resistors instead of one single
lower ohmage one of higher power. |
dbohara
Dec 29
|
| >right, it was less than 1/2 of a 12 watt bulb. I am speccing 1 watt
>resistors for it though (6 resistors in parallel each in series with an
>LED). ====== How many LEDs in series would it take to use no resistors at all? Six 1 watt resistors per LED sounds like a lot of wasted power to me. |
Wayne.B
Dec 29
|
| I was trying to roughly calculate the power requirements. You said 600 ohm
resistors, correct? The voltage drop on the LED will be minimal when
forward biased or "on", so each branch must be about .02 amps, times six
equals .12 amps, so the power must be about 12v times .12 or about 1.4
watts. Probably a bit more when you factor in the LED drop, whatever it is.
Significantly less than a regular light bulb! Eisboch |
Eisboch
Dec 29
|
| In fact, the more I think about it, somethings wrong here. I must have
misunderstood your hookup. Do you plan to use six, 600 ohm resistors in
parallel for *each* of the LED segments? If so, the power consumed will go
up big time. Or is it a single 600 ohm resistor per LED segment. If so,
one watt resistors won't hack it. Eisboch |
Eisboch
Dec 29
|
| Most LED's are in the <400mw range. |
Bill
Dec 30
|
| 1 watt resistor can dissipate 1 watt of power across it, does not mean there
will be that much power. We always used 1/4w resisters. |
Bill
Dec 30
|
| Does that include the new, high powered ones? The are being used on trucks
for brake lights, turn signals and other places to replace bulbs. They are
incredibly bright. Maybe the brightness is due to optics being used, like a
Fresnel lens or something. Eisboch |
Eisboch
Dec 29
|
| How about the standard 12v bulb used for anchor lights? |
Dec 29
|
| OK, my recollection from a web site about LED use said to figure a
voltage drop of 3.4 volts for the white ultrabrights leaving about a 9
volt drop for the resistor. At 600 ohms, this gives about .015 amp
through each resistor and LED. Yes, the correct resistor wattage is
less than 1/4 watt but I hate blowing resistorswhen odd things happen
and space saving is not a consideration here. Radio Shack had nothing
even as alrge as 1/4 watt less than 1000 ohms. |
dbohara
Dec 29
|
| I don't know what their wattage rating typically is. My guess would be
somewhere between 10 - 20 watts, given that they are required to be seen,
what, 2 miles away at night? Eisboch |
Eisboch
Dec 29
|
| For the sake of comparison, a normal anchor light is 12 watts. These
LEDs are seriously bright, ordered em from Digi-Key. |
dbohara
Dec 29
|
| That's what I really dislike about the "new" Radio Shack. I suspect once
their inventory of discrete components are gone, you won't be able to buy
*any* resistors, capacitors or anything there. Eisboch |
Eisboch
Dec 29
|
| I'll admit, half the stuff I try doesnt work but i suspect this will.
Anothetr thing I am trying is to wire my solar panel as a way to turn
off the anchor light at night. I got the idea from a web site I saw so
I lay no claim to it. They connect a NC relay across the solar panel.
When it generates power, it powers the relay (30 mWatt) which turns off
the anchor light. Of course I'll incorporate a switch to turn off the
entire thing, relay incluided. Radio Shack did have the relay. |
dbohara
Dec 29
|
| You have a great attitude. People get smart not by always knowing what
works, but rather what doesn't. You never know until you try. Eisboch |
Eisboch
Dec 29
|
| What is the benefit for a boater on the hook overnight besides having a
brighter anchor light? Is there a significant less draw on the house
battery over a 10 hour period? |
Dec 29
|
| Less than half the draw on the house battery. |
dbohara
Dec 29
|
| Yes. These lights may be purchased with all the dropping resistors built into the
housing.
The OP is a do-it-yourselfer, enjoying the challange of designing his own
circuits. Eisboch |
Eisboch
Dec 29
|
| There is a commercially available LED anchor light that sells for about
$113 but for some strange reason I had to try to make it myself. The
difference in cost is not significant when you consider what most of us
get paid/hr and the time it will take me. In fact, I'll probably lose
money so I am not sure why I am making it myself. |
dbohara
Dec 29
|
| Thanks. I take it this is not a cost effective thing for the casual night boater to
do, unless a brighter light and more visibility is wanted. |
Dec 29
|
| Brighter, they are, and that's not a bad thing. They also have a long life
when compared to a regular bulb. It would take a while to recover the
initial cost compared to the cost of replacement bulbs however. Eisboch |
Eisboch
Dec 29
|
| If you have time on your hands, maybe it is cost effective. The LEDs
are about $2.00 each and the resistors cant be any more than $.50 each
and the relay is $4.50 for a total cost of components of about $20.00. |
dbohara
Dec 29
|
| I just checked a USCG approved LED anchor light. 3 watts at 12 volts.
2nm visibility. Over 100 bucks. Eisboch |
Eisboch
Dec 29
|
| It'd be more efficient to put 2 or 3 LED's in series with one resistor
so more of the power goes to lumens rather than heating resistors. -rick- |
-rick-
Dec 29
|
| When you are using a bunch of LEDs on a circuit you get every extra
one in series for free. Why waste power through 6 resistors. At least
go 3 and 3 starting with a resistor in the 100 ohm range. I bet they
will drop more than 2v each so you probably can't do six in series.
Even if they light you still want some resistance in there. |
gfretwell
Dec 29
|
| How much less power draw will that new LED anchor light have over a standard
12v light? |
Dec 29
|
| I'd like to know also. Truckers are putting them all over their rigs and
they are *bright*. One my last trip to Florida, while driving at night, I
gave a trucker who was passing me the lights off/on routine to let him know
it was safe to pull back over. He flashed all his lights in a "thanks" and
damn near blinded me. Eisboch |
Eisboch
Dec 29
|
| When I drop by work on the way to the coast tomorrow, I'll get the
specs from the LED package for current draw and calculate the power. I
am using 6 of the LEDs so it oughta be fairly bright. If I remember
right, it was less than 1/2 of a 12 watt bulb. I am speccing 1 watt
resistors for it though (6 resistors in parallel each in series with an
LED). |
dbohara
Dec 29
|
