LED light sources for marine use have a lot going for them. The extremely
low power consumption is an obvious advantage, added to this is that the low
wattage of the led lamps means that voltage drop through the wiring is not
so much of a problem. The one area where you need to be careful with led
lamps is that some do not give an adequate spread for use as nav lights.
There are available led arrays that can be simply retrofitted (retrofitted ?
not sure I like the word but...) into existing bayonet or bipin lampholders.
By the way, I'm not trying to dissuade you from getting new nav lights. By
the sounds of things your old ones are way past there use by date and let's
face it nav lights are not the most expensive thing on your boat to replace.
My point has been that even crappy old nav lights will work if the
connections and wiring are good unless of course the lampholders themselves
are corroded beyond redemption.
My basic suggestion still stands. Rig up a test lampholder and starting at
the lights themselves see what happens. If nothing at the light itself then
work back until you get to the battery.
Cheers
Andrew

ps - Anyone thinking of replacing there cabin lights with LED lamps should
first try one out for the quality of the light. They are good for reading
and chart work perhaps but they are a very "unfriendly" light source. I'm
going LED for my nav and chart table lighting but sticking with incandescent
and halogen for everything else and that's because of the quality of the
light itself.

A

"Harlan Lachman" wrote in message
...
In article , tdw wrote:

It might be a tad hard to rewire. Depending on age of boat, but presuming
she is a few years old and plastic then the wiring may well be embedded
in
the fibreglass which makes rewiring a bit hard. I reckon it's a
connection
issue. Nav lights are so damn simple that about the only things that can
stop them completely are blown lamps (bulbs , light globes , call 'em
what
you will) and bad connections. If you have dirty connections in the light
itself then while replacing them will solve your problem a good clean,
freshly stripped ends, maybe even a bit of solder on the tips will do
just
as well for a lot less money. On the other hand if the bad connection is
at
the board or in a junction box then nothing will be solved by new lights.
In
the light itself the bad connection may even be a corroded terminal in
the
lampholder itself.
Cheers
Andrew
"Harlan Lachman" wrote in message
...
In article , tdw wrote:

Quick question first - are we talking masthead lights , i.e port
,starboard
and all round in one unit up top ?

That might be a better solution. But no! I have deck lites for port and
starboard and about a third the way up the mast a white steaming light.

I have a white light hanging on the rail on the stern.

No anchor lite but a switch on the panel.

If so I'd reckon there are a couple of obvious areas to be looked at.
First
up you should check the size of the wiring up the mast. If it is
undersized
you will have severe voltage drop problems and this will contribute to
the
lack of reliability.

Secondly check all the terminals. It's quite possible
that connections are badly corroded and only occasionally making a
contact
of any sort. You should have a connection box somewhere near the mast
step.
If you rig up a test lamp and connect it to each connection in turn
you
will
at least know whether the problem is at deck level or up top. If it is
the
connectors replace them with all brass units. Be careful cos amazingly
enough some brass connectors come with mild steel screws which of
course
is
a recipe for disaster.
Regards
tdw

These are all good suggestions.

Maybe I should fix what I got but I was wondering if there was a
replacement strategy which was sure to work.

harlan

--
To respond, obviously drop the "nospan"?

Thank you Andrew. I like the solder idea.

Someone else thought I could replace just the bulbs with LEDs. Any
thoughts about this?

--
To respond, obviously drop the "nospan"?