Installing a Masina LED Light Into An Aqua Signal Series 40 Bi-Color and Stern Navigation Light on S/V AKA

As follows is how Ed installed his Bebi Electronics Masina 'Afa LED running lights. Our editing is limited to adding some additional information, printed in italics, nothing in his presentation has been deleted.

I was surprised at the construction differences between their bicolor bow light and our own (click here) installation.

s/y AKA Savu Savu Fiji We're back for more, this time replacing our bow mounted Aqua Signal series 40 bi color lght bulb and our stern light with Bebe Electronics 20 pt. LED lights. The bow bicolor was very straight forward. The light was removed,the bulb socket was taken out[ 2 screws] ,the LED light with pvc adapter was glued into the light fixture. The hardest part of this installation is seperating the light,lens assembly. Remove 4 screws from the back of the assembly,gently pry the metal back off the plastic front[they used caulking to join the peices] once opened ,instalation of the LED and adapter is quite simpl,. lead the wires out the bulb mounting hole and make wire connections to 12 volt wires [observing polarity] in screw in bulb assembly. Wires tuck nicely up into LED adaptor pvc. Screw connector back on bi-color light,turn on and see if you can notice amp meter move[best part of job]. The stern light was a little more fiddeling. it is a small festoon bulb assembly. We had to cut a slot in the lens to move the LED out far enough to clear the 12 volt wires that came in from the back of the unit.There again we just took out the metal parts, glued the LED into the lens with a clear co-polomer caulk, soldered the wires to the power leads,and reassembled.The stern light covered the individual LED lights that were outside the stern light arc. We used to draw 2.5 amps running the bi-color and the stern navigation lights,now it's more like .2 of an amp,meaning we can run the lights for 10 hours for the same ampere draw as 1 hour with the old system. thanks again and looking forward to finding more places to use the LED bulbs. Ed &Fran McLaughlin s/y AKA Nakama Creek, Savu Savu, Fiji

Navigation Light Fixture Back		Light bi-color light completely dis-assembled before installation of the ultrabright waterproof LED light assembly

Masina 'Afa and spacer glued into the fixture with Selley's. Note that Ed discarded the energy inefficient lamp base (actually, it went into the junk box, but that's another story!) Effective May, 2008, there are also three holes around the 'skirt' of the light and the matching spacer for a 'belt and suspenders' approach to securing them together.

Back re-attached to the light fixture, then mounted on the bows (below). Similar to ourselves, Ed first soldered the main feed to the Masina 'Afa, then waterproofed the connection with heat shrink tubing. I prefer to leave a drip loop in a feed wire, but Ed was not able to pull out a longer length of wire. (By the way, that is Nawi Island in the background, which is what gives the Nakama Creek anchorage protection from the West).

Bebi now has a LED port, starboard and stern festoon running light replacement, called the Masina Kuaka , but we're pretty intrigued by Ed's technique (we gave Ed the lights,he did it his way, no prompting by us) for installing the Masina 'Afa LED into his navigation light fixture. If you want to see how we installed our Masina Kuaka, click here.

Close up of the Masina 'Afa installed in the stern light. He didn't use the spacer to center the LED assembly, just the adhesion of the Selley's. Since the Masina 'Afa is completely waterproof at the depths that a stern light should see, exposing the lenses harms it not at all (compare THAT to an incandesent festoon bulb!). By the way, the framed picture in the background is a painting of'Aka'.

Stern light mounted on the radar mast. One of the really nice aspects of a Bebi Marine Waterproof LED light replacement is the directionality of the LED's prevent the watch from loosing their night vision. Mounting the light high and behind the radar mast cuts the glare to almost nothing.

Yacht Aka on it's way back to Hawai'i from Fiji. Ed and Fran has been in region on and off since the early 1980's. They'll be back. Once you get cruising the Pacific on your sailboat in your blood, you'll never go back!