AMULET’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE” #43
Chris and Nancy Aboard S/V Amulet
Comment on LED Lights for Boats
| Chris and Nancy from S/V Amulet, had the following to say about LED lights in general, and
Bebi Electronics Marine LED lights in their ' AMULET’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE” #43 (AEA #43)' newsletter. |
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As of this writing (May 2007), they are currently in the Marshalls, after visiting us here in Fiji (the '#43' is the number of countries they've been to, so far). There are no omissions is what they have written, although we've taken the liberty to inject a few comments, which are denoted with brackets and italics). |
| LED lights are beginning to make inroads into the marine market. Unfortunately many are of poor quality and design and have been disappointing. Chief among these are the bayonet fitted bulbs as sold thru West Marine. They lack the circuitry needed for reliable performance and the LEDs all face outward directing their light in that direction which does not work well in many applications such as navigation lights. The LED lights from Bebi Electronics address these two major problems. | 
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| Chris & Nancy in Kiribati |
| Bebi was started in 2004 by two cruisers, Mike and Kendra, who sailed into Fiji, liked it and decided to set up a
small manufacturing business at a village in Fawn Harbor, Vanua Levu. Their “factory” is literally located under
the palm trees and in grass huts. The “factory” provides employment for the villagers and puts food on Mike and
Kendra’s table. Mike is an electronic guru {ed-note: blush!} who I was impressed with and has done what I think is a wonderful job
of designing reliable long lasting LED lights. His lights incorporate a circuit board that allows a wide range
of voltage inputs 11-16vdc (22-32vdc for 24v models) while limiting the current so that the LEDs are only pushed
to about 30% of their maximum power, ensuring long life. Quality seems to be of paramount importance, tin plated
wiring is used, the highest quality LEDs employed and all lights are set in polyester resin and are waterproof.
The major negative is most of the lights are not a finished fixture, are not exactly user friendly and you must
be a little handy and creative to use them. Their website offers many tips and suggestions for employing them in
different fixtures such as the Aqua Signal navigation lights. They will ship anywhere in the world and have
shipped to every continent (except Antarctica). We bought a couple and were so impressed we ended up buying a
total of 18 lights! The 18-LED “Cockpit And Anchor Light “ (“Beka Kaukaua”, they all have difficult local names!){Not for us! ed. note} is one of our favorites. It is bright (at least 3-4nm visibility), draws less than 0.10 amps and comes with 5m of good quality tin plated wire. You must provide your own plug/fuse arrangement and it does NOT have a built in photo cell for automatic on/off operation. This last is of mixed concern, the amp draw is so little we don’t mind leaving it on if we think there’s a chance of returning after dark, however we’d prefer not to advertise to everyone that we may be away til after dark. In the Pacific this last concern is much less than it would be in the Caribbean. The light costs about $50 USD including shipping, less if you buy it directly from Bebi at their Savusavu, Vanua Levu, Fiji retail outlet. The 30-LED Tri-Color Replacement (“Masina Malosi, about $65 USD) we bought to replace our 25-watt (almost 2 amps!) Aqua Signal Tri-color bulb, it draws less than 0.160 amps. By the way, I’ve checked accurately and all the Bebi LEDs we bought draw about 10-15% less than their advertised amps. We’ve always felt bad about leaving our tri-color on during overnight passages but have always done so, many cruisers we’ve come to learn sail with no lights or maybe only a low draw anchor light. Now we don’t feel bad at all and if we forget to turn it off in the morning so what, the amps are miniscule and the LED (like all Bebi LEDs) has a lifetime warranty and an estimated life in excess of 100,000 hrs. The masthead replacement comes with a special PVC spacer that made converting our Aqua Signal fixture quite easy. Some gluing and soldering is needed but not a difficult task. Our Aqua Signal has the Quick-Fit base option that allowed me to remove it and work on it more easily down below. Since I’ve mentioned soldering, Mike recommends soldering the LED leads whenever possible as the amp draw is so little any contact resistance (like from corrosion) can become a problem. This is why solid-state devices and circuit boards are always soldered to have the least contact resistance possible. We were concerned with the brightness of the converted masthead light. It does appear less bright than the 25 watt Aqua Signal bulb. At anchor we did some nighttime dinghy reconnaissance using another boat as a reference and yes it is a little less bright. On passage we’ve confirmed it was visible by another cruiser who was 3 nm away (distance confirmed by radar) {Editor Note-Emphasis added. We conservatively rate our lights in keeping with the COLREG definitions of visibility. To read more about this, please go to our specs page}. The night had about a ½ moon so on a totally dark night it would be even more visible. In likewise fashion we bought the 18-LED “Masina ‘Afa” lights (about $45 USD) to convert our deck level bow and stern running lights. We bought 9 of the 15-LED “Kalokalo” lights (about $35 USD) to use for interior lighting over the galley and nav station. The LEDs in these lights are arranged in a pleasing radial star pattern. This makes them somewhat more “finished” looking than the others. By simply drilling 1 5/8” holes in our headliner we could glue these in, recessing them a little, for a finished look. They are quite directional though so some we angled a little to get the light to land where we wanted. Mounted about 3’ above the work surface they create about a 2’ diameter lighted area. They also have a front mounted FET (discreetly mounted in the center of the star pattern) that means you can apply caulking or whatever to the backside to mount them to something, in our case the overhead. All the Bebi lights have this FET someplace, it is used for cooling and it must not be covered by caulking/glue etc. Finally (sorry this is so long) we bought a few 9-LED “Doe” lights (about $18 USD). These are the least expensive lights they sell and would be handy as individual reading lights. They have their FET at the rear near where the wire exits so do not cover this with caulking or glue. We devised a neat way to use them (see photo) to light the port and starboard corners under our dodger as we usually sit in these protective corners while on passage or at anchor. We devised a plastic cap that we can place over them to cut down the light intensity so as to provide enough light to read by and not totally destroy our night vision while on passage. |
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