Globe/bulb lightning up in seawater

[BertKu]

Hi forum members, lets philosophy. I am using a bulb/globe in South Africa that when the electricity falls away, that the light/bulb/globe still stays on for approx 6 hours. This is a 230 Volt globe/bulb.

Now my question, should we not convince the Chinese manufacturer to make one for 12 Volt, whereby it could be used on yachts and ships. Should the yacht take on water and the electricity falls away by fled-ding of the engine room, at least, some globe/bulbs would still be on or get switch on, due to the salt water or any water switch on.

Attached 2 photo's a bowl with water and a globe.

Well what do you think? useful ?
Bert

 

[rwatson]

Is it done with big capacitors and LED's ? Might not suit 12 volt.

 

[BertKu]

Is it done with big capacitors and LED's ? Might not suit 12 volt.

No, I suspect that it has a small lithium battery build in. Although the globe/bulb is 230 Volt, it has a high constant current 1,5 Volt LED what gives you that light. Bert

 

[BertKu]

The working of this type of lamp.

The globe/bulb has a small integrated circuit which charges the Lithium battery. Should the mains falls away and you did switch beforehand the light on, the integrated circuit senses that when the electricity has fallen away, a short circuit. That is logical, because the connection is made via millions of parallel using items, like lamps, fridges,stoves, tv etc. Thus it switches the globe/bulb on from the build in Lithium battery. Should you now NOT have switched the light on beforehand, the sensor senses open circuit and therefore does not switch on. Very clever. This feature could be used for yachts in my view. either when the battery fails or the generator falls away, or the yacht collects lots of water, the globe/bulb would stay on or come on when under water. I personally think, at least one globe/bulb should be on every yacht installed.
Bert

 

[philSweet]

Am I the only one who wants one so I can do like Shemp or Uncle Fester?

 

[CDK]

This is something I've only seen with illusionists. All LED lamps in my house are off when the power goes down. The incandescent ones as well.

Does your lamp maintain the same intensity when on battery? It looks like a 3-8 Watts type, so it must have several LEDs inside, usually wired in series, there must be quite a battery inside to keep that going for 6 hours.

 

[Jamie Kennedy]

Am I the only one who wants one so I can do like Shemp or Uncle Fester?

I only found out the other day the rest of the story behind Jackie Coogan who played Uncle Fester. Got his start with Charlie Chaplin. Interesting fellow. There is a law in California named after his to protect child actors from their parents or guardians taking all their income.

p.s. Back to the more serious topic, Uncle Fester is 110v not 220v. ;-)

Here is Jackie Coogan with Charlie Chaplan in 1920 a year before "The Kid" was released...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhl-3lAI9Ss

 

[BertKu]

This is something I've only seen with illusionists. All LED lamps in my house are off when the power goes down. The incandescent ones as well.

Does your lamp maintain the same intensity when on battery? It looks like a 3-8 Watts type, so it must have several LEDs inside, usually wired in series, there must be quite a battery inside to keep that going for 6 hours.

Hi CDK, When we bought the first one, I was so impressed, that I bought 3 more and have them in my office, the bathroom, the lounge in a table lamp and
by the alarm system, in case I have to reset or whatever. We have in South Africa miserable load shedding by the electricity company, because the idiots did not listen to the engineers they kicked out years ago and now only realized that the population growth needs more electricity and a new power station takes up to 10 years to build from scratch, drawing phase to implementation.
It is a single automotive low voltage chip and it keeps the intensity for more than 5 hours (6) when it slowly start fading. I thought to put some wires on and place the wires in the keel, if I collect water, it will switch on. It is just a little bulky for a boat and therefore I thought to find a 12 Volt smaller type. The battery should not be that big, if lithium. At 3,6 Volt , they are 7 watt types, thus about 2 ampere. Thus a 10 - 12 Amp hour single cell lithium battery is not that big. You could use it also in your place. They cost here +/- 8 Euro and state 50.000 hours lifetime , which is normal for a good quality LED globe/bulb. Bert

 

[BertKu]

I only found out the other day the rest of the story behind Jackie Coogan who played Uncle Fester. Got his start with Charlie Chaplin. Interesting fellow. There is a law in California named after his to protect child actors from their parents or guardians taking all their income.

p.s. Back to the more serious topic, Uncle Fester is 110v not 220v. ;-)

Here is Jackie Coogan with Charlie Chaplan in 1920 a year before "The Kid" was released...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhl-3lAI9Ss

Your guys are hilarious, I cannot put two wires onto the legs of Charlie Chaplin in the hoop that he starts glowing in his face when I collect water in the bilge. Come on Jamie, come up with more applications for a small 12 Volt LED device which has an integrated circuit in it to sense the circumstances and a lithium battery. Bert

 

[CDK]

It could be indeed a useful product if something like a 12 Volt 12 watt, with a built in sensor for sensing failure of the 12 Volt supply, still to have, for a few hours, some light on board, for other yachts to see.

 

[Jamie Kennedy]

Perhaps Buster Keaton has some answers...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cfhq0IFMSHw

 

[Jamie Kennedy]

I like the idea of semi-autonomous independent systems. It would rely on the 12v system only for recharging. Could you take it a step further and distribute your batteries as well so that a failure in one part of the system does not kill the entire system everywhere. Graceful degradation. There might be a penalty in extra wiring and associated resistance losses but perhaps this to could be taken care of with some smart circuits, with two busses running the length of the boat but perhaps on along the hull and another along the deck or some such thing. Solar and other power sources could tie in to one or more busses anywhere. Lights and other powered devices could have a local battery as well as their own connection to one of the distribution busses when power is available for the device or the battery is in need of charging. That is the idea anyhow but not exactly how it might work in practice in terms of smart circuitry.

 

[BertKu]

It could be indeed a useful product if something like a 12 Volt 12 watt, with a built in sensor for sensing failure of the 12 Volt supply, still to have, for a few hours, some light on board, for other yachts to see.

Thank you CDK. I thought, maybe to approach KickStarter, if we can come up with some specification. Normally not enough attention is given by the manufacturers to our industry, being yachts and small boats. Your idea of higher power for the LED is indeed very useful.
What should it be for the:
a) Masthead light,
b) Starboard light,
c) Stern lights or
d) Pilot lights.
e) any other light?

How should such a bulb/globe look like that it could fit into the average casings? A lithium battery has 3% degrading per year, thus if a yacht is not used for 1 or 2 years, the electronic will be in sleep mode and uses micro ampere, that is thus also not a problem. However if you are at night having a failing battery/generator problem, such globe/bulb giving light for a few hours would be very useful. Special that you do not wish to climb into the mast to hang a light up there, or do you start waiving for a few hours with a torch, but who is then repairing the battery system? The lithium battery will automatically be charged, as soon you switch the light on and your battery system is up and running again. The size of the battery is a concern, because if the power of the LED goes up, the battery has to be bigger. Except if we can come up with a compromise for the time that such light stays on. Just to give enough time to repair or find the problem. Should it be 1/2 an hour, 1 hour, 2 hours, 4 hours??

Those members who will say, simply, we put ourselves a battery in as buffer, they forget, where do you get the sensor and integrated circuit from, which re-charge the battery and control the situation?.
Bert

 

[BertKu]

I like the idea of semi-autonomous independent systems. It would rely on the 12v system only for recharging. Could you take it a step further and distribute your batteries as well so that a failure in one part of the system does not kill the entire system everywhere. Graceful degradation. There might be a penalty in extra wiring and associated resistance losses but perhaps this to could be taken care of with some smart circuits, with two busses running the length of the boat but perhaps on along the hull and another along the deck or some such thing. Solar and other power sources could tie in to one or more busses anywhere. Lights and other powered devices could have a local battery as well as their own connection to one of the distribution busses when power is available for the device or the battery is in need of charging. That is the idea anyhow but not exactly how it might work in practice in terms of smart circuitry.

Hi Jamie, indeed I love to have some globe/bulbs all over the boat, which carries on its work, when the main supply fails. You don't even need to run extra wires nor extra busses all over the place. Just finding a product which suits our sailors. Any idea, what the lumen output is, required for the various lights, Masthead, 12 or 20 meter, but what does that convert into lumen? Are there specifications? Gonzo can you help us out here?
Bert

 

[Jamie Kennedy]

Found this crazy formula. Have at it...
http://www.sltf.com/Copy of marine/knowledgebase/kb_light_intensity.htm

Navigation Light Intensity

Here's the section from the USCG Navigation Rules (COLREGS), page 142 explaining how to calculate the brightness of a navigation light. You can use this procedure to see if the LED replacement buls you bought are bright enough for the application.


8. Intensity of lights

(a) The minimum luminous intensity of lights shall be calculated by using the formula:

I = 3.43 x 106 x T x D2 x K-D



where:


I is luminous intensity in candelas under service conditions.

T is threshold factor 2 x 10-7 lux.

D is range of visibility (luminous range) of the light in nautical miles,

K is atmospheric transmissivity. For prescribed lights the value of K shall be 0.8, corresponding to a meteorological visibility of approximately 13 nautical miles.

Example

Your boat, at 38', is less than 12m, which requires an anchor light that's visible for 2 nm. Using the above formula, the result is a light with a brightness of 1.1 candelas. To convert from candelas to lumens, use the formula:

Lumens = Candela * 2 * π * (1 - cos(θ/2)) (θ in radians)

The anchor light is an all-around white light (360° or 2π radians) light. In this situation, the 1.1 candelas is 13.8 lumens. Compare this number to the lumens value on the LED package to see if it is bright enough for your needs.

Remember, this method isn't USCG approved, so caveat emptor.
=========================================

So I think the distances required are 3nm for 12m and 5nm for 20m for the masthead lights and 2nm for all others lights like anchor lights.

If 2 nm works out to 13.8 lumens, so maybe 0.33 watts.
then 3nm should work out to 31 lumens, so maybe 0.75 watts
and 5nm should work out to 86 lumens, maybe as little as 2 watts.
Not sure how correct all this is. They all seem kind of low even if you can get 43 lumens per watt from an LED.
Also, you might need extra power for the port and starboard running lights because of the colour filters, and I think even the white filters if pretty thick.
I was wondering also about the positive effect of a reflector in the back of a running light that projects less than 360 degrees.