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"K. Smith" wrote in message
...
wrote:
With few people at work, its hard to get much done. Today I woulda got
more done on the boat but spent it at work. I'll go to the boat to
change the oil and engine zinc on my Yanmar 2GM tomorrow.
Tried to find some 600 ohm resistors at Radio Shack for my homemade
ultra-bright LED anchor light but no luck, will havta order em.

It seems the LEDS are the thing, trucks etc & I assume your traffic stop &
speed limit lights are all LED arrays now??? Here they're replacing them
with LEDS, apparently much less power & of course if one dies the traffic
light is still functional.

Torches are all going LED & still seem to have plenty of punch.

As for anchor lights we have used them for about 3 yrs now, but we buy
them.

The problem with using them as a "real" anchor light is compliance, in the
probably unlikely even you were run down in the night while at anchor the
insurance people would use whatever they could to claim you were not using
legal lighting.

The one on my boat is "maybe" visible at 2 miles, in complete darkness you
can see a pin prick of light but it's so tiny you're not sure if it's just
what you see when you look that hard at the dark:-) but by well over a
mile it's definitely in play & by 1 mile very clear.

Here the pleasure boat rules just require "visible" at 2 miles.

K

Here, at least some are being sold as "USCG approved" and suprisingly have
only 2 or 3 LEDs. Same requirements: visible at 2nm. Part of the
brightness secret is the use of a molded Fresnel lens. Even the truck
lights have mini Fresnel lens molded into the plastic housing. Fresnel lens
have been used in lighthouses since they were first built and concentrate
the light for maximum visibility.

Eisboch