On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:22:25 -0500, "Josepi" wrote:

Apparently you don't understand the scale used for illumination by your
silly comment used to attempt to disguise it. I will assume the rest is
bull**** then too, for now.


Go back to sleep.


wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:36:32 -0500, "Josepi" wrote:

Not according to testing labs that have made lumen mesurements. Are you
including the inverters or other lossy type gadgets to accomodate
different
types of bulbs?

No inverters or "lossy gadgets" involved, other than what is built
into the base of the lamps. The draw measured includes any and all
parts of the assembly.

Have you actually measured the "equivalent" light output or
does it just look about the same?

Measured. Nav lights have to meet strict legal requirements and be
certified.

Brilliance is a logarithmic scale and can
be very deceiving to the human eye.


You really can't stand being wrong, can you?

Trouble with the lab measurements is they are not usually dated when
completed and the technology advances quite rapidly.


Sorry that you have such a hard time with reality.



wrote in message
...
On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:27:09 -0500, "Josepi" wrote:

LEDs are still reported to only be slightly more efficient than
incandescent
bulbs.

Say WHAT?

I have replaced all of the incandescent lamps on my sailboat ,
including the navigation lights. The LED's use 1/10th the power for
the same amount of light. That's not a random number - a typical light
that drew 2 amps gets replaced by an LED that is a little brighter and
draws slightly less than .2 amps.

On a cruising sailboat, you have to keep careful track of your
electrical budget.

wrote:
On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:43:59 -0500, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

I've seen LED replacments for tail lights. Any good? Dunno.
Would be nice to see fairly priced LED replace for household
bulbs. I've not seen them yet.

A lot of new cars already come equipped with LED tail Lights. They are
very bright, and if one LED fails, you still have a lot of light. The
only thing I don't like about them on my car is that there is no
warmth generated to de-ice the lenses in winter. Tail light lenses are
plastic, so there is a limit to how much you can do to clear them with
an ice scraper without scratching them.


Right, my original comment was referring to retrofitting
LEDs in an older vehicle. Nothing good seems to be available there, at
least not in a plug and play (or nearly so) solution.

nate

--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

More appropriately, your most intelligent argument should have been

"Say Watt?"


wrote in message
...
On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:22:25 -0500, "Josepi" wrote:

Apparently you don't understand the scale used for illumination by your
silly comment used to attempt to disguise it. I will assume the rest is
bull**** then too, for now.


Go back to sleep.


wrote in message
. ..
On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:36:32 -0500, "Josepi" wrote:

Not according to testing labs that have made lumen mesurements. Are you
including the inverters or other lossy type gadgets to accomodate
different
types of bulbs?

No inverters or "lossy gadgets" involved, other than what is built
into the base of the lamps. The draw measured includes any and all
parts of the assembly.

Have you actually measured the "equivalent" light output or
does it just look about the same?

Measured. Nav lights have to meet strict legal requirements and be
certified.

Brilliance is a logarithmic scale and can
be very deceiving to the human eye.


You really can't stand being wrong, can you?

Trouble with the lab measurements is they are not usually dated when
completed and the technology advances quite rapidly.


Sorry that you have such a hard time with reality.



wrote in message
m...
On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:27:09 -0500, "Josepi" wrote:

LEDs are still reported to only be slightly more efficient than
incandescent
bulbs.

Say WHAT?

I have replaced all of the incandescent lamps on my sailboat ,
including the navigation lights. The LED's use 1/10th the power for
the same amount of light. That's not a random number - a typical light
that drew 2 amps gets replaced by an LED that is a little brighter and
draws slightly less than .2 amps.

On a cruising sailboat, you have to keep careful track of your
electrical budget.

LED tail light are not "very bright". The illumination is very poor.

However LED lights are very focused and play on the human vision system to
compete with the effectiveness of incandescents.

Many incandescent tail lights have taken a lesson in efficiency also and
many of the so-called LED taillights on vehicles are actually incandescent
bulbs. Take a closer look and you will see many peanut bulbs in a reflector
with small pockets.

When will we see back-up LED lights on vehicles? Not likely in the near
future. The total luminence is not there to illuminate an area. Something
LEDs have failed at, to date.


wrote in message
...
On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:43:59 -0500, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

I've seen LED replacments for tail lights. Any good? Dunno.
Would be nice to see fairly priced LED replace for household
bulbs. I've not seen them yet.

A lot of new cars already come equipped with LED tail Lights. They are
very bright, and if one LED fails, you still have a lot of light. The
only thing I don't like about them on my car is that there is no
warmth generated to de-ice the lenses in winter. Tail light lenses are
plastic, so there is a limit to how much you can do to clear them with
an ice scraper without scratching them.

Josepi wrote:
LED tail light are not "very bright". The illumination is very poor.

However LED lights are very focused and play on the human vision system to
compete with the effectiveness of incandescents.

Many incandescent tail lights have taken a lesson in efficiency also and
many of the so-called LED taillights on vehicles are actually incandescent
bulbs. Take a closer look and you will see many peanut bulbs in a reflector
with small pockets.

When will we see back-up LED lights on vehicles? Not likely in the near
future. The total luminence is not there to illuminate an area. Something
LEDs have failed at, to date.

I've seen LED back up lights on a couple of newer Luxury cars.
BTW, The 2009 Cadillac Escalade Platinum has LED headlights.

On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:18:48 -0500, Nate Nagel
wrote:

wrote:
On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:43:59 -0500, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

I've seen LED replacments for tail lights. Any good? Dunno.
Would be nice to see fairly priced LED replace for household
bulbs. I've not seen them yet.

A lot of new cars already come equipped with LED tail Lights. They are
very bright, and if one LED fails, you still have a lot of light. The
only thing I don't like about them on my car is that there is no
warmth generated to de-ice the lenses in winter. Tail light lenses are
plastic, so there is a limit to how much you can do to clear them with
an ice scraper without scratching them.


Right, my original comment was referring to retrofitting
LEDs in an older vehicle. Nothing good seems to be available there, at
least not in a plug and play (or nearly so) solution.

nate

I've seen plenty of direct replacements for 1157 incandescents,
complete with standard bayonet base.

On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:35:31 -0500, "Josepi" wrote:

LED tail light are not "very bright". The illumination is very poor.


Once again, you are COMPLETELY wrong. The only thing in this
conversation that is not very bright, is you.

However LED lights are very focused and play on the human vision system to
compete with the effectiveness of incandescents.

Many incandescent tail lights have taken a lesson in efficiency also and
many of the so-called LED taillights on vehicles are actually incandescent
bulbs. Take a closer look and you will see many peanut bulbs in a reflector
with small pockets.


Once again, you are COMPLETELY wrong. Just so I could say I knew for
certain, I just went out and looked again. LED's, dopey. Nine in each
tail/brakelight. Looked in the manual and in the list of replacement
bulbs, there is nothing listed for tail lights. They are not expected
to need replacement in the lifetime of the vehicle. If they are
damaged in an accident, you replace the whole light array as an
assembly.

Game, Set, Match

When will we see back-up LED lights on vehicles? Not likely in the near
future. The total luminence is not there to illuminate an area. Something
LEDs have failed at, to date.


Once again, you are COMPLETELY wrong. Have someone (who can read) look
up the word "array" in a dictionary and explain it to you.

On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:06:21 -0500, Congoleum Breckenridge
wrote:

Josepi wrote:
LED tail light are not "very bright". The illumination is very poor.

However LED lights are very focused and play on the human vision system to
compete with the effectiveness of incandescents.

Many incandescent tail lights have taken a lesson in efficiency also and
many of the so-called LED taillights on vehicles are actually incandescent
bulbs. Take a closer look and you will see many peanut bulbs in a reflector
with small pockets.

When will we see back-up LED lights on vehicles? Not likely in the near
future. The total luminence is not there to illuminate an area. Something
LEDs have failed at, to date.

I've seen LED back up lights on a couple of newer Luxury cars.
BTW, The 2009 Cadillac Escalade Platinum has LED headlights.

Careful. You'll make Josepi's head explode.

You base your whole argument and insults on the back of some vehicle parked
at the back of your scrap yard? Show me the money.

At least if you are going to use over 2348 (your figures) different nyms
you should attempt to change your stupid insult style of words. It would
make trolling and stalking much more effective for you.

**sigh** The newbies.

You can run but you can never hide. Better luck next time.

wrote in message
...
On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:35:31 -0500, "Josepi" wrote:

LED tail light are not "very bright". The illumination is very poor.


Once again, you are COMPLETELY wrong. The only thing in this
conversation that is not very bright, is you.

However LED lights are very focused and play on the human vision system to
compete with the effectiveness of incandescents.

Many incandescent tail lights have taken a lesson in efficiency also and
many of the so-called LED taillights on vehicles are actually incandescent
bulbs. Take a closer look and you will see many peanut bulbs in a
reflector
with small pockets.


Once again, you are COMPLETELY wrong. Just so I could say I knew for
certain, I just went out and looked again. LED's, dopey. Nine in each
tail/brakelight. Looked in the manual and in the list of replacement
bulbs, there is nothing listed for tail lights. They are not expected
to need replacement in the lifetime of the vehicle. If they are
damaged in an accident, you replace the whole light array as an
assembly.

Game, Set, Match

When will we see back-up LED lights on vehicles? Not likely in the near
future. The total luminence is not there to illuminate an area. Something
LEDs have failed at, to date.


Once again, you are COMPLETELY wrong. Have someone (who can read) look
up the word "array" in a dictionary and explain it to you.

wrote:
On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:18:48 -0500, Nate Nagel
wrote:

wrote:
On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:43:59 -0500, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

I've seen LED replacments for tail lights. Any good? Dunno.
Would be nice to see fairly priced LED replace for household
bulbs. I've not seen them yet.
A lot of new cars already come equipped with LED tail Lights. They are
very bright, and if one LED fails, you still have a lot of light. The
only thing I don't like about them on my car is that there is no
warmth generated to de-ice the lenses in winter. Tail light lenses are
plastic, so there is a limit to how much you can do to clear them with
an ice scraper without scratching them.

Right, my original comment was referring to retrofitting
LEDs in an older vehicle. Nothing good seems to be available there, at
least not in a plug and play (or nearly so) solution.

nate

I've seen plenty of direct replacements for 1157 incandescents,
complete with standard bayonet base.


I've tried a couple out of curiosity, they range from "OK but about half
the apparent brightness of a 1034 or 1157" or "so dim you'd have to be
insane to even think about using them." Nothing actually "acceptable."

None of the vendors of same are willing to put in their documentation a
comparison of brightness between their "bulbs" and a standard 1034/1157.

nate

--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:45:08 -0500, "Josepi" wrote:

You base your whole argument and insults on the back of some vehicle parked
at the back of your scrap yard? Show me the money.

At least if you are going to use over 2348 (your figures) different nyms
you should attempt to change your stupid insult style of words. It would
make trolling and stalking much more effective for you.

**sigh** The newbies.

You can run but you can never hide. Better luck next time.


Now you have become pretty much incoherent. I have been on usenet
since... well, a very long time. I have changed my nym maybe 5 or so
times in 20 or so years. I only use one at a time, usually for many
years, before changing to another.

And you remain completely wrong on everyting else, too. Now the list
of things you are confused about is just longer.



wrote in message
.. .
On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:35:31 -0500, "Josepi" wrote:

LED tail light are not "very bright". The illumination is very poor.


Once again, you are COMPLETELY wrong. The only thing in this
conversation that is not very bright, is you.

However LED lights are very focused and play on the human vision system to
compete with the effectiveness of incandescents.

Many incandescent tail lights have taken a lesson in efficiency also and
many of the so-called LED taillights on vehicles are actually incandescent
bulbs. Take a closer look and you will see many peanut bulbs in a
reflector
with small pockets.


Once again, you are COMPLETELY wrong. Just so I could say I knew for
certain, I just went out and looked again. LED's, dopey. Nine in each
tail/brakelight. Looked in the manual and in the list of replacement
bulbs, there is nothing listed for tail lights. They are not expected
to need replacement in the lifetime of the vehicle. If they are
damaged in an accident, you replace the whole light array as an
assembly.

Game, Set, Match

When will we see back-up LED lights on vehicles? Not likely in the near
future. The total luminence is not there to illuminate an area. Something
LEDs have failed at, to date.


Once again, you are COMPLETELY wrong. Have someone (who can read) look
up the word "array" in a dictionary and explain it to you.

On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 12:21:55 -0500, Nate Nagel
wrote:

wrote:
On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:18:48 -0500, Nate Nagel
wrote:

wrote:
On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:43:59 -0500, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

I've seen LED replacments for tail lights. Any good? Dunno.
Would be nice to see fairly priced LED replace for household
bulbs. I've not seen them yet.
A lot of new cars already come equipped with LED tail Lights. They are
very bright, and if one LED fails, you still have a lot of light. The
only thing I don't like about them on my car is that there is no
warmth generated to de-ice the lenses in winter. Tail light lenses are
plastic, so there is a limit to how much you can do to clear them with
an ice scraper without scratching them.

Right, my original comment was referring to retrofitting
LEDs in an older vehicle. Nothing good seems to be available there, at
least not in a plug and play (or nearly so) solution.

nate

I've seen plenty of direct replacements for 1157 incandescents,
complete with standard bayonet base.


I've tried a couple out of curiosity, they range from "OK but about half
the apparent brightness of a 1034 or 1157" or "so dim you'd have to be
insane to even think about using them." Nothing actually "acceptable."

None of the vendors of same are willing to put in their documentation a
comparison of brightness between their "bulbs" and a standard 1034/1157.

nate

I haven't tried them myself, as my cars already have LED tail and
brake lights. My greatest experience is in use of LED's to replace
interior lights in yachts, as well as Navigation lights, which have
very strict requirements set by the government. They have to be
visible for a specified distance, and in specific arcs of coverage,
both vertical and horizontal. They need to have full brightness in the
specified coverage parameters. Obviously single LED's won't do that,
which seems to completely stymie Josepi. 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.

Congoleum Breckenridge wrote:
Josepi wrote:
LED tail light are not "very bright". The illumination is very poor.

However LED lights are very focused and play on the human vision
system to compete with the effectiveness of incandescents.

Many incandescent tail lights have taken a lesson in efficiency also
and many of the so-called LED taillights on vehicles are actually
incandescent bulbs. Take a closer look and you will see many peanut
bulbs in a reflector with small pockets.

When will we see back-up LED lights on vehicles? Not likely in the
near future. The total luminence is not there to illuminate an area.
Something LEDs have failed at, to date.

I've seen LED back up lights on a couple of newer Luxury cars.
BTW, The 2009 Cadillac Escalade Platinum has LED headlights.

The only problem with high output LED lights is the need for cooling.
Like most semiconductor technologies, excessive heat will damage them.
The Cadillac LED headlights have built in cooling fans.

TDD

"Josepi" wrote:

More appropriately, your most intelligent argument should have been

"Say Watt?"

Heh, heh, heh... :^)

"Stormin Mormon" wrote:

For sure, good lighting is essential. What's the bag limit
on snow birds, or are they a nussiance creature, and you're
encourged to shoot all you want?

The bag limit works in reverse with these "birds". The typical conversation in
their car goes something like this:

Blue Hair: "George, you just ran a red light!"

No Hair: "Oh, am I driving?"

Regards,
Robert

On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:37:57 -0500, "Robert L Bass"
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.

salty wrote:

Careful. You'll make Josepi's head explode.

That's not helping.

On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:51:58 -0500, "Robert L Bass"
wrote:

salty wrote:

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...

OK, I believe you.

...I'm not speculating about this.

I was speculating. Clearly you know what you're talking about.

I know at all times how many amp hours I'm consuming,
and how many I'm generating from 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.

Now you've got my curiosity piqued. What do you use to generate power while
under way?

Most of the time the solar panels make up for whatever the sporadic
running of the engine doesn't take care of. I'm pretty frugal about
using electricity, and I pay attention to my electrical budget out of
long established habit. I have all the wiring hookeups needed for
connecting to shore power if I am at a dock that has it available, but
I've never used it. Just don't need it if you are used to not having
unlimited power all the time. I don't have refrigeration or air
conditioning, which would be huge consumers of electrical power. If I
had them, I would probably have to add a wind generator. Most people
with air conditioning can only use it at the dock on shore power,
except for very large yachts with dedicated gensets.

Going to all LED's was a very important part of how I manage power
usage. Just running the incandesent anchor light for 10 hours every
night when it drew 2 amps was a problem. That was 20 amp hours of
battery capacity just for that. Now it draws just under .2 amps. for
10 hours which consumes 2 amp hours. Big difference!

At home, I use CFL's everywhere practical, which is almost everywhere.
It dropped my electrical usage so much that it qualified me for
rebates on my electrical bill on top of the savings from the lower
usage itself. I figure my CFL's will mostly be near the end of their
service life about the time that LED replacements will be cost
effective.

A lot of new cars already come equipped with LED tail Lights. They are
very bright, and if one LED fails, you still have a lot of light. The

According to state and/or Federal regulations, if you're driving
with a tail light with one burned out LED, do you deserve a ticket,
even if you still have a lot of light?

Sometimes what appears to be redundancy actually increases the
failure rate.

writes:

On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:37:57 -0500, "Robert L Bass"
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. ;-)

Umm... you know boats and I don't, but when talking about automotive
taillights he's exactly correct.

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.

No... exactly correct for autos.

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.

This I can readily believe -- but that's absolutely not what the
automotive "replacements" that try to drop a bunch of LEDs in to replace
an 1157 are like.
--
As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should
be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours;
and this we should do freely and generously. (Benjamin Franklin)

On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:47:30 -0600, (Gordon
Burditt) wrote:

A lot of new cars already come equipped with LED tail Lights. They are
very bright, and if one LED fails, you still have a lot of light. The

According to state and/or Federal regulations, if you're driving
with a tail light with one burned out LED, do you deserve a ticket,
even if you still have a lot of light?


Probably not. I wouldn't be at all surprised if my tailights far
exceed the minimum requirements, so that losing a number of elements
would still leave me with more than is required. Very unlike an
incandescent tail light that if it loses one lamp, goes completely
dark.

I'm sure you have noticed that the tail lights on cars vary greatly in
size. The DOT specifies a MINIMUM size and brightness.

On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:19:05 -0700, Joe Pfeiffer
wrote:

writes:

On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:37:57 -0500, "Robert L Bass"
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. ;-)

Umm... you know boats and I don't, but when talking about automotive
taillights he's exactly correct.


Sorry, but he's not

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.

No... exactly correct for autos.


No, not correct for autos.

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.

This I can readily believe -- but that's absolutely not what the
automotive "replacements" that try to drop a bunch of LEDs in to replace
an 1157 are like.

We are not talking about the cheap chinese 1157 replacements.

I have a car that came from the factory with LED tail light/brake
lights. Trust me, they are a lot more visible from any angle then any
incandescent tailight you have ever encountered.

On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:15:14 -0500, "Robert L Bass"
wrote:

salty wrote:

Most of the time the solar panels make up for whatever the sporadic
running of the engine doesn't take care of. I'm pretty frugal about
using electricity, and I pay attention to my electrical budget out of
long established habit. I have all the wiring hookeups needed for
connecting to shore power if I am at a dock that has it available, but
I've never used it. Just don't need it if you are used to not having
unlimited power all the time.

I assume that makes for less problems with galvanic loss of any metal in contact
with the water. I've been told (don't know how true it is) that boats
comnnected to shore power need some sort of sacrificial anode. True or legend?


Even boats not connected to shore power need sacrificial anodes.

Sometimes, if there is a problem in a Marina's wiring, serious damage
can happen VERY quickly. Imagine what happened if a bronze thruhull
gets eaten. Your boat sinks!

It is also possible to be electrocuted swimming near marina docks with
shore power issues.

I don't have refrigeration or air conditioning...

Aha! I knew there was a reason I never took up sailing. :^)


It is exactly what I like about sailing. If I wanted it to be just
like home, I could save a lot of money by... staying home!

Going to all LED's was a very important part of how I manage power
usage. Just running the incandesent anchor light for 10 hours every
night when it drew 2 amps was a problem. That was 20 amp hours of
battery capacity just for that. Now it draws just under .2 amps. for
10 hours which consumes 2 amp hours. Big difference!

Huge. Designing fire alarm systems, we become accustomed to considering every
small drain on power because they have to be able to operate on backup battery
alone for 24 hours (in some cases 72 hours) and then run all sirens, strobes,
etc., for 15 minutes. Every small add-on impacts the battery requirements.

At home, I use CFL's everywhere practical, which is almost
everywhere.

I started using them a while ago and they serve well enough for everything
except my PC desks. There I use incandescant lights. Since I work online as
much as 12 or 14 hours some days I afford myself the "luxury" of incandescant
lighting. I have a number of recessed can fistures in the ceilings, which are
12 and 14 feet high in most of the house. Bulb replacement is a royal PITA with
those so any time one goes out it gets a CFL.

It dropped my electrical usage so much that it qualified
me for rebates on my electrical bill on top of the savings
from the lower usage itself...

We have a pool pump running 8 to 10 hours a day, two freezers, two
refrigerators, two central AC systems and, until recently, as many as 5 PC's
running for at least 8 hours a day. Somehow I don't hink I'll be able to get a
rebate on my FPL bill. Maybe they'll offer me stock in the company though. :^)

I'm currently looking into installing a geothermal system for heating
and cooling my house. My boiler will be nearing it's expected service
life end in about 4 or 5 years. Since I would be paying to replace
that at that time anyway, it helps make the numbers work very well.
Replacing it earlier would not be nearly as cost effective. What I
would pay for a new boiler and central air is about half of the total
cost for the geothermal system. Then of course, there are all sorts of
rebates, tax credits and "green" programs to cut the cost even
further.

writes:

On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:19:05 -0700, Joe Pfeiffer
wrote:

This I can readily believe -- but that's absolutely not what the
automotive "replacements" that try to drop a bunch of LEDs in to replace
an 1157 are like.

We are not talking about the cheap chinese 1157 replacements.

I have a car that came from the factory with LED tail light/brake
lights. Trust me, they are a lot more visible from any angle then any
incandescent tailight you have ever encountered.

A taillight engineered around an LED array can work at least as well as
incandescents, with all the longevity and energy savings of LEDs. I can
also believe in an LED array engineered to fit behind a particular
existing lens, which would also work as well, though I've never seen it.
But this discussion started (when I brought up the topic) with drop-in
retrofits for auto taillights -- ie cheap Chinese 1157 "replacements".

And those fail for all the reasons that have been quoted enough times in
this discussion that I snipped them this time.
--
As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should
be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours;
and this we should do freely and generously. (Benjamin Franklin)

On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:48:23 -0700, Joe Pfeiffer
wrote:

writes:

On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:19:05 -0700, Joe Pfeiffer
wrote:

This I can readily believe -- but that's absolutely not what the
automotive "replacements" that try to drop a bunch of LEDs in to replace
an 1157 are like.

We are not talking about the cheap chinese 1157 replacements.

I have a car that came from the factory with LED tail light/brake
lights. Trust me, they are a lot more visible from any angle then any
incandescent tailight you have ever encountered.

A taillight engineered around an LED array can work at least as well as
incandescents, with all the longevity and energy savings of LEDs. I can
also believe in an LED array engineered to fit behind a particular
existing lens, which would also work as well, though I've never seen it.
But this discussion started (when I brought up the topic) with drop-in
retrofits for auto taillights -- ie cheap Chinese 1157 "replacements".

And those fail for all the reasons that have been quoted enough times in
this discussion that I snipped them this time.

If you look around a little more thoroughly, you will find drop in
replacements that DO work well.

They exist.

This appears to be an article written as a student project.

http://footprint.mit.edu/energy/apres.html

However if you'll scroll down you'll see an interesting table, with
more than just luments per watt. It also includes dollars per lumen
and lifetime numbers. I didn't see the reference.

There is an interesting one liner at the end, giving lumens per watt
of a laser at about 700. Dunno where that data came from.

wrote:
On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:48:23 -0700, Joe Pfeiffer
wrote:

writes:

On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:19:05 -0700, Joe Pfeiffer
wrote:
This I can readily believe -- but that's absolutely not what the
automotive "replacements" that try to drop a bunch of LEDs in to replace
an 1157 are like.
We are not talking about the cheap chinese 1157 replacements.

I have a car that came from the factory with LED tail light/brake
lights. Trust me, they are a lot more visible from any angle then any
incandescent tailight you have ever encountered.
A taillight engineered around an LED array can work at least as well as
incandescents, with all the longevity and energy savings of LEDs. I can
also believe in an LED array engineered to fit behind a particular
existing lens, which would also work as well, though I've never seen it.
But this discussion started (when I brought up the topic) with drop-in
retrofits for auto taillights -- ie cheap Chinese 1157 "replacements".

And those fail for all the reasons that have been quoted enough times in
this discussion that I snipped them this time.

If you look around a little more thoroughly, you will find drop in
replacements that DO work well.

They exist.


Link? I've been waiting for years for someone to recommend a good one
and have seen lots of websites and hype but not one person who's been
able to say "I used this particular product, and it's as bright as a
1157 and works well."

nate


--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

In article , Robert Green wrote:
"Jeff Volp" wrote in message
...
Except for the "intricately curved delicate glass tubes", 120V LEDs have
essentially the same production and noise issues as CFLs.

That's a pretty big exception. As a guy who custom builds electronics by
hand, I am sure that you realize that even one delicate step in a process,
say soldering an SMD component to a circuit board by hand, can cause your
reject rate to soar. Take a look at some of the spiral shapes of bulbs and I
think you'll realize that it takes some significant heat and tooling to
create narrow but even diameter glass tubes that then must be twisted into
spiral shape, uniformly coated internally with phosphor, primed with
mercury, and then sealed and capped with electrodes. Forgive me for taking
a technical note and turning it into polemic, but this is an important
issue.

Even if LED and CFL production costs were equal, manufacturing CFL's means
increasing the mining for mercury and causing much more of the neurotoxin to
enter the world at large.

Along with several more pages of tirading on mercury

Compared to incandescents, in USA on average CFLs actually reduce mining
of mercury-containing materials and transfering mercury to the
environment. This is because about half of all electricity produced in
the USA is obtained by burning coal, a major source of mercury pollution.

LEDs are better once they become sufficiently cost-effective and
cost-effectively improve upon CFLs in energy efficiency and do so in
versions with similarly warm color high color rendering index light.
Until then, mercury is a good reason to use CFLs instead of incandescents.

- Don Klipstein )

A lot of new cars already come equipped with LED tail Lights. They are
very bright, and if one LED fails, you still have a lot of light. The

According to state and/or Federal regulations, if you're driving
with a tail light with one burned out LED, do you deserve a ticket,
even if you still have a lot of light?


Probably not. I wouldn't be at all surprised if my tailights far
exceed the minimum requirements, so that losing a number of elements
would still leave me with more than is required.

This was a legal question, not a technical one. The laws tend to
be written to make it easy to write tickets. I wouldn't be at all
surprised if there was a maximum of 0 dead lights regardless of
whether you could get it certified if you simply removed all the
dead lights. The history of single incandescent bulbs that die and
leave you with no light makes it more likely that "driving with a
dead tail light" is a ticketable offense with 1 dead LED and 99
working ones. This more likely comes from the state vehicle code,
not the DOT which is more aiming its regulations at manufacturers,
but you're still stuck with both sets of rules.

I seem to recall that there are FAA regulations that you have to
have at least two independent methods of measuring something (I
forget, this may have been altitude or airspeed) but if you add a
GPS unit, you now have three methods of measuring something. But
you can't take off unless *all* of them are working, so adding the
GPS just added another point of failure.

Assume that a tail light setup was certified to be 25% more than
sufficiently bright with 100 LEDs. It is likely to be ticket-worthy
if there's one dead light. It may be ticket-worthy if there are
101 working LEDs and one dead one. It might be ticket-worthy if
there are 101 working LEDs and no dead ones and it wasn't re-certified.

I'll ask the same question about boats, which one poster said had
very strict regulations. Can you get your setup certified if you
have a dead light in it (without removing the dead one)? If you
got your setup certified with N lights (N is, say, around 100) with
a 25% margin over minimum lighting intensity, and one of N burns
out, is that acceptable without re-certification (or fixing the
dead one)?

Very unlike an
incandescent tail light that if it loses one lamp, goes completely
dark.

I'm sure you have noticed that the tail lights on cars vary greatly in
size. The DOT specifies a MINIMUM size and brightness.

"Gordon Burditt" wrote:

I seem to recall that there are FAA regulations that you have to
have at least two independent methods of measuring something (I
forget, this may have been altitude or airspeed) but if you add a
GPS unit, you now have three methods of measuring something. But
you can't take off unless *all* of them are working, so adding the
GPS just added another point of failure.

It's been a long time since I read the FARs but I can tell you this much. It's
a lot more "interesting" making a anding without electrical power to the
instrument panel. On a flight with my CFI years ago we were returning to SRQ
(Sarasota) when a fuse blew. Then we noticed a faint smell of somethying
electrical burning. There was no visible smoke and everything that doesn't need
electricity worked. Strangely, the radios also worked.

In order to land at SRQ you usually approach from the North and have to fly
briefly into Tampa International's airspace. Tampa's controllers get pretty
busy and often tell GA pilots to stand by. That afternoon was no exception.

After a couple of minutes I called them again. Same answer.

I replied "Cessna ***** standing by with electrical failure and odor of smoke in
airplane."

They took care of us really fast. We landed without incident, taxied to the
shop and walked away (definition of a good landing). The A&P guy found a short,
fixed it and said all was well. Next time we flew that airplane, we lost
electrical power to the panel again. Shortly after that I had to stop due to
health issues. I assume they finally got things straightened out.

Assume that a tail light setup was certified to be 25% more than
sufficiently bright with 100 LEDs. It is likely to be ticket-worthy
if there's one dead light...

First the cop has to see the one dead LED. Then he has to be the one moron in
twenty who would ticket you for it. Of course, with my luck... :^)

"Robert L Bass" wrote:

He began with the premises...

Doh! Make that "premise" -- not premises. :^)

Robert

On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:32:33 -0600, (Gordon
Burditt) wrote:

A lot of new cars already come equipped with LED tail Lights. They are
very bright, and if one LED fails, you still have a lot of light. The

According to state and/or Federal regulations, if you're driving
with a tail light with one burned out LED, do you deserve a ticket,
even if you still have a lot of light?


Probably not. I wouldn't be at all surprised if my tailights far
exceed the minimum requirements, so that losing a number of elements
would still leave me with more than is required.

This was a legal question, not a technical one. The laws tend to
be written to make it easy to write tickets. I wouldn't be at all
surprised if there was a maximum of 0 dead lights regardless of
whether you could get it certified if you simply removed all the
dead lights. The history of single incandescent bulbs that die and
leave you with no light makes it more likely that "driving with a
dead tail light" is a ticketable offense with 1 dead LED and 99
working ones. This more likely comes from the state vehicle code,
not the DOT which is more aiming its regulations at manufacturers,
but you're still stuck with both sets of rules.

I seem to recall that there are FAA regulations that you have to
have at least two independent methods of measuring something (I
forget, this may have been altitude or airspeed) but if you add a
GPS unit, you now have three methods of measuring something. But
you can't take off unless *all* of them are working, so adding the
GPS just added another point of failure.

Assume that a tail light setup was certified to be 25% more than
sufficiently bright with 100 LEDs. It is likely to be ticket-worthy
if there's one dead light. It may be ticket-worthy if there are
101 working LEDs and one dead one. It might be ticket-worthy if
there are 101 working LEDs and no dead ones and it wasn't re-certified.

I'll ask the same question about boats, which one poster said had
very strict regulations. Can you get your setup certified if you
have a dead light in it (without removing the dead one)? If you
got your setup certified with N lights (N is, say, around 100) with
a 25% margin over minimum lighting intensity, and one of N burns
out, is that acceptable without re-certification (or fixing the
dead one)?


As with automotive lamps, the specifications for boats do not
stiplulate how many elements are in the fixture or how many are lit.
All that is required to be legal is to have the minimum specified
illumination, and in the case of automobile tailights, there is also a
requirement of the size of surface area exposed. If you have an array
of 100 LED's and 50 are not lit, you are still legal in both an
automobile and a boat as long as you still meet the minimum
specifications.

If there is a spec of dust on the lens of your tailight will you get a
ticket?

Very unlike an
incandescent tail light that if it loses one lamp, goes completely
dark.

I'm sure you have noticed that the tail lights on cars vary greatly in
size. The DOT specifies a MINIMUM size and brightness.

In article , Josepi wrote:
Interesting. Everything I have ever heard says the opposite about
fluorescents, of the right colour.

How can UV from the sun affect these maladities? Sun exposure usually
affects many maladities in a good way. Breast cancer is one that is
statistically reduced, big time.

The flickering of fluorescents was always blamed for some problems but the
sun doesn't flicker at 120Hz.

"Chuck" wrote in message
...
I will stay with old fashion bulbs as long as I can. My wife can't be
exposed to florescence bulbs. People with immune problems (arthritis or
lupus or fibromyalgia) react badly to the CFL type bulbs. They emit ultra
violet light like the sun does.

Furthermore, CFLs emit less UV than is found in even a similar quantity
of daylight that has passed through a window.

- Don Klipstein )

Josepi wrote:
Interesting. Everything I have ever heard says the opposite about
fluorescents, of the right colour.

How can UV from the sun affect these maladities? Sun exposure usually
affects many maladities in a good way. Breast cancer is one that is
statistically reduced, big time.

The flickering of fluorescents was always blamed for some problems but the
sun doesn't flicker at 120Hz.

wrote in message
...
I will stay with old fashion bulbs as long as I can. My wife can't be
exposed to florescence bulbs. People with immune problems (arthritis or
lupus or fibromyalgia) react badly to the CFL type bulbs. They emit ultra
violet light like the sun does.


Hmmm,
Old/little knowledge is worse than lack of knowledge. How about vitamin
D then? Auro immune disease did not happen over night. When it was
coming with all kinds of signal/symptoms, I wonder what people did to
prevent it.

In article , Stormin Mormon wrote:

With the energy required to manufacture LED bulbs. And the
cost of the bulbs. I doubt there is any real savings. Either
to your wallet, or to the planet, by converting to LED light
indoors.

Osram, who makes incandescents, CFLs and LEDs, did a study indicating
very well that only a very small percentage (about 2%) of energy used by
all 3 of these throughout their life cycles, including manufacturing and
transportation, is in everything other than the electricity consumed by
them over their lifetimes.

http://www.ledsmagazine.com/news/6/8/4

http://www.osram-os.com/osram_os/EN/About_Us/
We_shape_the_future_of_light/Our_obligation/
LED_life-cycle_assessment/More_Information/index.html

- Don Klipstein )

In . com, Pete C. wrote:

wrote:

On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:36:32 -0500, "Josepi" wrote:

Not according to testing labs that have made lumen mesurements. Are you
including the inverters or other lossy type gadgets to accomodate
different types of bulbs?

No inverters or "lossy gadgets" involved, other than what is built
into the base of the lamps. The draw measured includes any and all
parts of the assembly.

Have you actually measured the "equivalent" light output or
does it just look about the same?

Measured. Nav lights have to meet strict legal requirements and be
certified.

Brilliance is a logarithmic scale and can
be very deceiving to the human eye.

You really can't stand being wrong, can you?

Trouble with the lab measurements is they are not usually dated when
completed and the technology advances quite rapidly.

Sorry that you have such a hard time with reality.

LEDs are considerably more efficient than ordinary incandescents, but
they are still less efficient than CFLs. Many of the fixtures you'd be
using on a boat benefit from the directionality of LEDs, which is
another reason they perform better.

There are now white LEDs more efficient than CFLs - but this level of
efficiency is largely limited to cool white ones without high color
rendering index, or to laboratory prototypes.

Nav lights involve colored lights, and LEDs have an extra advantage
there from the fact that there are efficient LEDs specializing in
producing one color or another of light. Incandescent red and green nav
lights have filters that remove something like 70% of the light.

- Don Klipstein )

In , wrote
in part:

They now have LED's that produce as much as 200 lumens per watt.

Compare that to a CFL. :-)

Can you tell me where I can buy an LED exceeding 150 lumens/watt?

(I have ones claiming 150 lumens/watt - Nichia NSPWR70CSS at 20 mA
drive current, 8.7 lumens at .058 watt, 5000 K color temp. with color
rendering index appearing to me to be in the mid or maybe low 60's.)

- Don Klipstein )

In article , Nate Nagel wrote:

What I don't understand is why LEDs are so excellent in flashlights (the
3W Task Force light kicks a Mag-Lite's ass BTW) bike head/taillights,
truck taillights and traffic lights but it is so difficult to find good
ones for home lighting and/or retrofitting into car taillights?

Flashlight bulbs tend to mostly be less efficient than ones used for
home lighting.

One advantage LEDs have for flashlights is that their energy energy only
changes slightly (mostly improves slightly) when the batteries weaken,
while incandescents greatly lose energy efficiency.

Another thing: The cost of LEDs needed to achieve an 800, 1600 or 1710
lumen light is fairly prohibitive, more so for warm white, and the amount
of heatsinking needed is a tall order now to get into something the size
of a regular lightbulb.

As for LED taillights: They make those. Cadillac has been using them
for many years already. Some other cars are now being made with them.

An LED retrofit bulb to put into a taillight made for an incandescent is
another story. It is quite a tall order to get an LED light source with
the same emitter shape and size and same radiation pattern and suitable
output so as to achieve the same optical results as with incandescent.

A light to serve a legally required function on a motor vehicle has to
fall within both lower and upper limits of candela into a few dozen
different specified directions, and must be properly certified to do so,
in order to be street legal. An incandescent light with an LED retrofit
bulb generally fails to achieve this, let alone be certified to do so with
any particular mfr/part-number LED bulb. It is illegal to refit a legally
required motor vehicle light with a bulb other than one it is certified to
use.

- Don Klipstein )

In , wrote:

On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:18:48 -0500, Nate Nagel
wrote:

wrote:
On Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:43:59 -0500, "Stormin Mormon"
wrote:

I've seen LED replacments for tail lights. Any good? Dunno.
Would be nice to see fairly priced LED replace for household
bulbs. I've not seen them yet.

A lot of new cars already come equipped with LED tail Lights. They are
very bright, and if one LED fails, you still have a lot of light. The
only thing I don't like about them on my car is that there is no
warmth generated to de-ice the lenses in winter. Tail light lenses are
plastic, so there is a limit to how much you can do to clear them with
an ice scraper without scratching them.


Right, my original comment was referring to retrofitting
LEDs in an older vehicle. Nothing good seems to be available there, at
least not in a plug and play (or nearly so) solution.

I've seen plenty of direct replacements for 1157 incandescents,
complete with standard bayonet base.

And they produce less light than 1157s, have different directional
characteristics than 1157s, and produce light from different physical
locations than 1157s do. They do not achieve the same optical results,
and none of them have much chance of meeting specified upper and lower
limits of candela in every one of the dozens of specified directions in
any legally required motor vehicle external light fixture ever certified
to work properly with incandescents.

They do make street-legal LED fixtures to serve taillight, brake light,
rear turn signal, and backup light functions. They even make aftermarket
ones, though they generally fit more easily into buses and trucks than
into cars, pickups or SUVs.

- Don Klipstein )

In , Robert L Bass 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. 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.

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.

There are nav lights out there sufficiently simple and non-critical
in design such that someone can make an LED retrofit for the bulb that
gets the light to meet the spec - despite the difference in emitting
surface geometry and directional characteristics.

Motor vehicle lights are not as easy to make LED incandescent-retrofit
bulbs for with achievment of legal requirements being maintained.

- Don Klipstein )