Forums, Electrical Systems, Navigation and Safety equipment, LED Navigation lights

Nick Howes at 27/03/2014 20:08:41
I would like to replace the existing nav lights on Quest with LED ones, does anyone have any experience of the best spec., make etc. Any input would be very gratefully received. Thanks, Nick

George Isted at 28/03/2014 10:19:02
Lopo LED lights seem to be the “rolls royce” of LED lights but they come with a price tag to match. I have a NASA “supernova” and have been very pleased with it. Having sailed in company with other boats at night I’m told it is very clear and bright at quite a distance.

Nick Howes at 28/03/2014 11:46:02
George thanks for all the information, I will look at the ones you recommend. That’s a great help. All the best, Nick

George Isted at 28/03/2014 12:07:06
The Nasa one is so cheap you could buy 2 and keep one as a spare. Lopo is ~4x the price and they have suffered some failures (although not recently AFAIK).

Nick Howes at 28/03/2014 12:12:14
George since I received your post I have looked around the internet and came to the same conclusion, they are VERY expensive. It seems they are a very good company with good products but I think this article has some validity:

http://www.morganscloud.com/2012/10/31/lopolight-beware-the-time-suck-of-complexity/

Nick

waratah912 at 28/03/2014 22:24:14
If fitting new LED, I’d use some of the power saving and double the visibility of the light by going to the <20m spec in place of the <12m spec. which rules out the NASA. The LOPO at this spec is so expensive you could probably pay the boatyard to take the mast out to repair a cheaper one and still have some change!
Having replaced the tri / white already, I cheated and put LED bulbs in it.

Nick Howes at 31/03/2014 18:05:57
Thanks Paul, when I get the existing light down I`ll see if that a possibility

waratah912 at 08/04/2014 21:19:02
I’ve just returned from taking the SS Shieldhall from Southampton to Falmouth. It’s the first time I’ve kept watch on a ship’s bridge at night. I was surprised how much being enclosed restricts your visibility compared with an open cockpit. Ok it was fairly wet and windy, but there were periods of good visibility, even so we tracked another vessel about 6 miles ahead down channel and we never saw her lights or silhouette even though we could track her on radar and AIS.
It’s a shame, but not surprising, there were no yachts out last night to be able to judge their lights… or maybe we just didn’t see them either visually or on radar or AIS – quite a sobering thought.