Say Larry..
 

(or anyone else familiar with IC circuits)

The LED flasher in my homemade MOB pole was scavenged from a bike light.
See first two pictures he

http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/MOB.htm

I test it from time to time and it has started coming on as a steady light.
Sometime it will start flashing after about a minute. Usually if I turn it
off and back on again with the magnetic reed switch, it will start flashing.
Once flashing, it works properly until the next time.

Since these are LED's and the circuit board appeared to be all IC's, I don't
think this is the delay you sometimes see when mechanical flashers take a
few seconds to warm up.

The pole is probably just about as good with a steady light but I wouldn't
want a recovery confused by the light switching from steady to flashing. Of
more concern is the possibility that the circuit board is failing and the
light might not go on at all.

Any idea what could make a circuit like this act weird in this inconsistent
way? The reed switch is well separated from the circuit board so that isn't
a factor.

No chance of replacing these components. They were all embalmed in epoxy to
be sure water could never get in. I'll have to build a new pole section
next winter.

--
Roger Long

Say Larry..
 

Reed switches often have short unhappy lives

Brian Whatcott Altus OK

On Sun, 5 Aug 2007 20:38:47 -0400, "Roger Long"
wrote:

(or anyone else familiar with IC circuits)

The LED flasher in my homemade MOB pole was scavenged from a bike light.
See first two pictures he

http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/MOB.htm

I test it from time to time and it has started coming on as a steady light.
Sometime it will start flashing after about a minute. Usually if I turn it
off and back on again with the magnetic reed switch, it will start flashing.
Once flashing, it works properly until the next time.

Since these are LED's and the circuit board appeared to be all IC's, I don't
think this is the delay you sometimes see when mechanical flashers take a
few seconds to warm up.

The pole is probably just about as good with a steady light but I wouldn't
want a recovery confused by the light switching from steady to flashing. Of
more concern is the possibility that the circuit board is failing and the
light might not go on at all.

Any idea what could make a circuit like this act weird in this inconsistent
way? The reed switch is well separated from the circuit board so that isn't
a factor.

No chance of replacing these components. They were all embalmed in epoxy to
be sure water could never get in. I'll have to build a new pole section
next winter.

Say Larry..
 

"Brian Whatcott" wrote

Reed switches often have short unhappy lives

Good to know but the switch works fine. It's what happens next that is odd.

--
Roger Long

Say Larry..
 

"Roger Long" wrote in news:46b66da5$0$8977
:

http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/MOB.htm

"I also found this nifty little light. Press or hold the switch and it
strobes. Press it again and it can be used as a steady flashlight. Twelve
bucks. The tiny little module (see insert) will weigh almost nothing on
the pole and is all ready to be wired to batteries in the bottom and a
switch. The light module weights less than the quarter next to it and is
bright enough to light up a room."

I copied this paragraph from your webpage......

Notice how you have to HOLD the switch CLOSED to get it to go into
strobing mode? What happens when the switch gets a little old and
holding it down results in a noisy connection is the IC keeps seeing
intermittent presses, not a steady-state hold down for X seconds. One
little intermittent interruption when your finger moves is enough to
reset the timer that's trying to time down into strobe mode. It's a
stupid design with such cheap switches.

Clip a jumper wire across the reed switch and see if it doesn't start
strobing reliably. If so, it's the reed, even though it will read fine
on an ohmmeter which cannot see the pulsing probably going on.

I bought a whole bunch of these little 3 really bright yellow LED
"Emergency Flashers" from a flea market dealer. He wanted $1 each, but
sold me the whole box for $10, what was left. I've given all of them
away except what I wanted to keep. The button in it is unreliable in
this same way. It's a rubber switch pressing on the circuit board pads.
Its sequence is a little different than yours. One press gets a "steady
on" light, which is an optical illusion because the LEDs are actually
switching on and off at a very fast rate, 50% duty cycle, to save
batteries. Press it again and the flash rate goes to about 2 per second
at full power. Press it again and SOMETIMES the damned things will turn
off....SOMETIMES...(c;

The correct term for your observation is called "contact bounce" and has
plagued data engineers since before ICs were invented. Most ICs that are
forced to interface with humans have a timer circuit at each interface
point that takes input, then refuses to take more input until the timer
has timed out, several milliseconds, to keep the cheap, noisy switch from
giving it 500 button pushes with each finger push. It's called a
"debouncer", obviously. Your little light's debouncer isn't timed long
enough, now that the switch is crap.

ICs are way too fast for their own good....(c;



Larry
--
Democrats are raising taxes on oil companies by $16,000,000,000.
Oil companies don't pay taxes, just like every other company.
Consumers pay all taxes, corporate and individual.
What's the price of a gallon of regular going to go to to pay $16B more?

Say Larry..
 

Did you try replacing the batteries? Initially cold and low voltage, flow a
bit of current and they get a wee bit warmer and a wee bit higher voltage.
Just a thought.
And why smoke alarms always give low voltage warnings in the early
morinings.



"Roger Long" wrote in message
...
(or anyone else familiar with IC circuits)

The LED flasher in my homemade MOB pole was scavenged from a bike light.
See first two pictures he

http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/MOB.htm

I test it from time to time and it has started coming on as a steady
light. Sometime it will start flashing after about a minute. Usually if I
turn it off and back on again with the magnetic reed switch, it will start
flashing. Once flashing, it works properly until the next time.

Since these are LED's and the circuit board appeared to be all IC's, I
don't think this is the delay you sometimes see when mechanical flashers
take a few seconds to warm up.

The pole is probably just about as good with a steady light but I wouldn't
want a recovery confused by the light switching from steady to flashing.
Of more concern is the possibility that the circuit board is failing and
the light might not go on at all.

Any idea what could make a circuit like this act weird in this
inconsistent way? The reed switch is well separated from the circuit
board so that isn't a factor.

No chance of replacing these components. They were all embalmed in epoxy
to be sure water could never get in. I'll have to build a new pole
section next winter.

--
Roger Long

Say Larry..
 

Thanks Larry. That makes sense.

I discovered when I put the thing together that just turning power on and
off to the circuit board would result in its always going into flash mode so
I just cut the wire to the original switch. A chattering reed switch could
certainly be doing this though.

Brian's observation about reed switches jibes with my other reed switch
experience. I installed an AquaLarm raw water sensor in the boat three
years ago. All was fine the first season and it did save me once from
overheating my exhaust hose and or engine. Last year, however, it began
sounding every time I started the engine and not going off until I went
below and moved the adjustment back and forth or banged on it. Big pain.
It's been better this year but is starting to do it again. This unit has a
magnetic reed switch in it.

Too bad. The ideas of a switch hermetically sealed from any moisture is
conceptually attractive but I'm not sure thay belong on boats in critical
applications any more.

--
Roger Long

Say Larry..
 

"Roger Long" wrote in
:

Too bad. The ideas of a switch hermetically sealed from any moisture
is conceptually attractive but I'm not sure thay belong on boats in
critical applications any more.



Other than it all being a cheap piece of boat crap, that aside, reed
switches have, after being left on (magnetized) for a time, the
perpensity to become magnetic, themselves. The reeds are not supposed to
be magnetized, but they get that way. Once this happens, they become
either always on by their own magnetism, or so sensitive any magnetic
field stronger than the background earth magnetism will switch them on,
rendering them pretty much useless.

The other problem is the glass case. You wouldn't think it could bend,
being brittle glass, but it can! It only has to flex a tiny bit to make
the reeds touch "on" again. Sometimes the heat on one side of the glass
is more than the other and it'll bend them on without breaking them.

I've made a fairly good living on reed switches because Hammond Organ
used reeds actuated with pieces of refridgerator magnet rubber for pedal
switches for years. All this information comes from observing this
design defect and replacing reeds soldered into a really flimsy, cheap
circuit board wrapped in a curve around wood screwed down with sheet
metal screws as cheaply as possible. Hammond would have never used them.
Electromusic in Chicago has no scruples to cheapness under the Hammond
name. They made them this way.

Well, I just had a panic call from a pudgy little Phillipino girl who
plays the organ at her church. When they turned the organ off last
night, it stayed on and smoke came rolling out from behind the power
switch. The power switch has a paper bypass capacitor to keep it from
making a pop in the audio amp and I suspect it shorted and all the organ
current went through its short causing a little fire. I got an old
Hammond to fix at 1 then I'll meet her after work at 6 to have a look...
It's gonna be a profitable afternoon! SEND MORE THUNDER STORMS!!

Larry
--
Democrats are raising taxes on oil companies by $16,000,000,000.
Oil companies don't pay taxes, just like every other company.
Consumers pay all taxes, corporate and individual.
What's the price of a gallon of regular going to go to to pay $16B more?

Say Larry..
 

So Larry, what would you recommend for this MOB application?

I have one of those plastic mounted magnetic switches used on windows in
burglar alarm set ups epoxied into the pole. The magnet is glued into a
Velcro strip with a line to the boat. When the MOB pole goes overboard, the
magnet stays behind and the light goes on. Perfect - except for reed
switches being unreliable.

What would be flush, watertight, and reliable?

--
Roger Long

Say Larry..
 

On Mon, 6 Aug 2007 16:55:40 -0400, "Roger Long"
wrote:

So Larry, what would you recommend for this MOB application?

I have one of those plastic mounted magnetic switches used on windows in
burglar alarm set ups epoxied into the pole. The magnet is glued into a
Velcro strip with a line to the boat. When the MOB pole goes overboard, the
magnet stays behind and the light goes on. Perfect - except for reed
switches being unreliable.

What would be flush, watertight, and reliable?

There is a reed switch - a mercury wetted reed switch - which is less
bad than most - though environmentally suspect.

Brian W

Say Larry..
 

"Roger Long" wrote in news:46b78aba$0$30688
:

What would be flush, watertight, and reliable?


http://www.nitro-pak.com/product_inf...roducts_id=802
&osCsid=810cd61405cfedde7f1534bb270970af

Not sure about "flush"....???

I just hate to think someone's life isn't worth more than a strobe from the
flea market when this one is only $20. There's one on my Sospenders with
the 10 year Lithium D cell. I go all out when I'm drowning....(c; Why not
use the same one on the pole?

Larry
--

Say Larry..
 

"Larry" wrote

I just hate to think someone's life isn't worth more than a strobe from
the
flea market when this one is only $20. There's one on my Sospenders with
the 10 year Lithium D cell. I go all out when I'm drowning....(c; Why
not
use the same one on the pole?

Actually, it was a brand new bicycle light that I took apart for the pole.
Bike lights are subject to a lot of shock and weather and are a pretty
critical safety item so I don't think it's being cheap.

The real issue was weight. I could have bought a ready made MOB pole, with
a light even, but a lifetime of doing stability calculations told me that
the ones I saw in stores and catalogues were going to blow pretty much flat
in the water in heavy weather. I wanted to get the light high and the
center of gravity as low as possible. Now that we have GPS with instant MOB
waypoint input, the primary purpose of the light is to enable the person in
the water to find the pole. Trying to find a strobe floating at the surface
can be hard for a swimmer because half the ocean seems to light up. Every
foot of height counts. The super light bicycle components with a large
battery pack making up part of the ballast still seems like a good solution.

The rest of the ballast is a length of steel pipe filled with lead. This
sucker is heavy but should stand up in any wind that the boat can work
against to get back to the person in the water.

I just need a reliable switch.

--
Roger Long

Say Larry..
 

On Aug 7, 6:49 am, "Roger Long" wrote:
"Larry" wrote

I just hate to think someone's life isn't worth more than a strobe from
the
flea market when this one is only $20. There's one on my Sospenders with
the 10 year Lithium D cell. I go all out when I'm drowning....(c; Why
not
use the same one on the pole?

Actually, it was a brand new bicycle light that I took apart for the pole.
Bike lights are subject to a lot of shock and weather and are a pretty
critical safety item so I don't think it's being cheap.

The real issue was weight. I could have bought a ready made MOB pole, with
a light even, but a lifetime of doing stability calculations told me that
the ones I saw in stores and catalogues were going to blow pretty much flat
in the water in heavy weather. I wanted to get the light high and the
center of gravity as low as possible. Now that we have GPS with instant MOB
waypoint input, the primary purpose of the light is to enable the person in
the water to find the pole. Trying to find a strobe floating at the surface
can be hard for a swimmer because half the ocean seems to light up. Every
foot of height counts. The super light bicycle components with a large
battery pack making up part of the ballast still seems like a good solution.

The rest of the ballast is a length of steel pipe filled with lead. This
sucker is heavy but should stand up in any wind that the boat can work
against to get back to the person in the water.

I just need a reliable switch.

--
Roger Long

A mercury switch?

Terry K

Say Larry..
 

On Tue, 7 Aug 2007 05:49:51 -0400, "Roger Long"
wrote:


"Larry" wrote

I just hate to think someone's life isn't worth more than a strobe from
the
flea market when this one is only $20. There's one on my Sospenders with
the 10 year Lithium D cell. I go all out when I'm drowning....(c; Why
not
use the same one on the pole?

Actually, it was a brand new bicycle light that I took apart for the pole.
Bike lights are subject to a lot of shock and weather and are a pretty
critical safety item so I don't think it's being cheap.

The real issue was weight. I could have bought a ready made MOB pole, with
a light even, but a lifetime of doing stability calculations told me that
the ones I saw in stores and catalogues were going to blow pretty much flat
in the water in heavy weather. I wanted to get the light high and the
center of gravity as low as possible. Now that we have GPS with instant MOB
waypoint input, the primary purpose of the light is to enable the person in
the water to find the pole. Trying to find a strobe floating at the surface
can be hard for a swimmer because half the ocean seems to light up. Every
foot of height counts. The super light bicycle components with a large
battery pack making up part of the ballast still seems like a good solution.

The rest of the ballast is a length of steel pipe filled with lead. This
sucker is heavy but should stand up in any wind that the boat can work
against to get back to the person in the water.

I just need a reliable switch.

I don't really want to get between Larry and an electrical problem but
I did once know a bloke that had a built in tube, in the transom,
where he stored his MOB pole. It apparently had a mercury switch built
in. If it was horizontal it was off, vertical on. Seemed to work all
right. As an aside I believe he had some sort of launching device,
i.e., pull the handle and WOOSH the pole was deployed.


Bruce in Bangkok
(brucepaigeATgmailDOTcom)

Say Larry..
 

wrote

I don't really want to get between Larry and an electrical problem but
I did once know a bloke that had a built in tube, in the transom,
where he stored his MOB pole. It apparently had a mercury switch built

And Terry,

I had that thought and, environment aside, it is probably what I would do
except that the pole has to be stored in a vertical positon on my boat.
Even if I felt like cutting up the boat for a stern tube, the pole would
extend into the main cabin.

The reason I want something flush is to minimize things that can snag. The
line to the horseshoe lifering will be in the water with the PIW's feet so
the less projections, the better. I also wouldn't want the light to get
kicked off accidentally by being kicked.

Something like a jetski kill switch might work but the elegant thing about
the magnetic reed switch is that a pull on the Velcor strap in any direction
will strip off the magnet. If the lanyard has to pull straight out to
activate the switch, it's going to be hard to rig so it works reliably. I
don't want the person releasing the pole to have to remember to turn it on
in the heat of the moment.

--
Roger Long

Say Larry..
 

There is no switch more reliable than a mercury wetted switch. There are no
moving parts. The pole should be graphite and all the electrics should be in
the bottom, including a 406 MHz EPIRB. Store pole on the rail bottom up.
Steve

"Roger Long" wrote in message
...

"Larry" wrote

I just hate to think someone's life isn't worth more than a strobe from
the
flea market when this one is only $20. There's one on my Sospenders with
the 10 year Lithium D cell. I go all out when I'm drowning....(c; Why
not
use the same one on the pole?

Actually, it was a brand new bicycle light that I took apart for the pole.
Bike lights are subject to a lot of shock and weather and are a pretty
critical safety item so I don't think it's being cheap.

The real issue was weight. I could have bought a ready made MOB pole,
with a light even, but a lifetime of doing stability calculations told me
that the ones I saw in stores and catalogues were going to blow pretty
much flat in the water in heavy weather. I wanted to get the light high
and the center of gravity as low as possible. Now that we have GPS with
instant MOB waypoint input, the primary purpose of the light is to enable
the person in the water to find the pole. Trying to find a strobe
floating at the surface can be hard for a swimmer because half the ocean
seems to light up. Every foot of height counts. The super light bicycle
components with a large battery pack making up part of the ballast still
seems like a good solution.

The rest of the ballast is a length of steel pipe filled with lead. This
sucker is heavy but should stand up in any wind that the boat can work
against to get back to the person in the water.

I just need a reliable switch.

--
Roger Long

Say Larry..
 

On Tue, 7 Aug 2007 05:49:51 -0400, "Roger Long"
wrote:

The real issue was weight. I could have bought a ready made MOB pole, with
a light even, but a lifetime of doing stability calculations told me that
the ones I saw in stores and catalogues were going to blow pretty much flat
in the water in heavy weather. I wanted to get the light high and the
center of gravity as low as possible.

As you may know, the traditional solution on offshore racing sail
boats, where a MOB with STROBE is mandatory equipment, is to use a
floating auto-activated STROBE attached to the pole with a short
length of line. The STROBE is usually hung from the stern pulpit
directly behind the helmsman, and a quick chuck overboard activates
the light and pulls the MOB into the water along with it. These
things are ready made for the purpose, reliable, visible and have
withstood the test of time. Unless you just like to tinker I'd go
with the proven solution.

http://www.landfallnavigation.com/sfwl1.html

Say Larry..
 

Well, I do like to tinker.

If reed switches worked as advertised (burglars must really love the things
since they are ubiquitous on alarm systems), I would have an excellent set
up right now. It clearly is the switch because I can sometimes get it to
switch from steady to flashing mode by banging on the pole.

In a racing boat charging hard under a spinnaker it may take a couple of
miles to get things under control enough to start back. In that case, you
need a really bright strobe. The rules were also written before GPS track
back and MOB waypoint entry so the search area could rapidly become several
square miles.

I'll get back within about 100 feet of where I punched the MOB button on the
GPS and in any conditions where I can make the boat go back, the turn will
take place within a few hundred feet at worst. There just isn't anything
complex to deal with in the rig. I want something to guide the PIW to the
pole and life ring.

There is a very interesting passage in an early edition of "Heavy Weather
Sailing" describing how hard it was to locate and get to a floating strobe
in waves because it lit up so much water and wasn't above the waves long
enough to fix a visual location.

I would put the strobe on the lifevest and I have those as backup.

--
Roger Long

Say Larry..
 

On Tue, 07 Aug 2007 01:04:19 +0000, Larry wrote:

"Roger Long" wrote in news:46b78aba$0$30688
:

What would be flush, watertight, and reliable?


http://www.nitro-pak.com/product_inf...roducts_id=802
&osCsid=810cd61405cfedde7f1534bb270970af

Not sure about "flush"....???

I just hate to think someone's life isn't worth more than a strobe from the
flea market when this one is only $20. There's one on my Sospenders with
the 10 year Lithium D cell. I go all out when I'm drowning....(c; Why not
use the same one on the pole?

Larry

A strobe is so much more visible than any LED that this has to be a
good pick.

Brian W

Say Larry..
 

"Brian Whatcott" wrote

A strobe is so much more visible than any LED that this has to be a
good pick.

So, what's "more visible" got to do with it? The LED strobes are visible
for much farther than anyone is going to swim and more than the search
radius of a boat that can be turned back almost instantly under all
conditions. This isn't a pole intended to guide aircraft into a 10 mile
search box.

If I start carrying spinnakers at night, I probably will add a standard
strobe to the MOB package or build a similar pole with the same bulbs and
circuitry as in the floating strobes.

I have strobes for the individual lifejackets. I would prefer to have the
brightest light on the PIW. If the PIW can't make it to the MOB pole, I
don't want that to be the brightest thing out there distracting and ruining
night vison while the PIW is a couple hundred feet away with maybe just a
lightstick.

The light on the pole is just to help the PIW get to it in the dark. It's
plenty bright enough for that. If they don't get to it, it isn't going to
be much use.

--
Roger Long

Say Larry..
 

Brian Whatcott wrote in
:

On Tue, 07 Aug 2007 01:04:19 +0000, Larry wrote:

"Roger Long" wrote in news:46b78aba$0$30688
:

What would be flush, watertight, and reliable?


http://www.nitro-pak.com/product_inf...roducts_id=802
&osCsid=810cd61405cfedde7f1534bb270970af

Not sure about "flush"....???

I just hate to think someone's life isn't worth more than a strobe
from the flea market when this one is only $20. There's one on my
Sospenders with the 10 year Lithium D cell. I go all out when I'm
drowning....(c; Why not use the same one on the pole?

Larry

A strobe is so much more visible than any LED that this has to be a
good pick.

Brian W


Mine is a strobe! It makes your eyes go buggy it's so bright if you dare
look at it, destroying your night vision, of course.

Larry
--
Democrats are raising taxes on oil companies by $16,000,000,000.
Oil companies don't pay taxes, just like every other company.
Consumers pay all taxes, corporate and individual.
What's the price of a gallon of regular going to go to to pay $16B more?

Say Larry..
 

"Larry" wrote

Mine is a strobe! It makes your eyes go buggy it's so bright if you dare
look at it, destroying your night vision, of course.

And that's going to make the panicked and difficult operation of getting a
possibly semi-consious and helpless person back aboard a lot easier isn't
it? Ever noticed how hard it is to think straight around emergency vehicle
lights at night if you aren't used to it?

Another reason I don't want a mega bright strobe on the MOB pole.

--
Roger Long

Say Larry..
 

"Roger Long" wrote in
:

The light on the pole is just to help the PIW get to it in the dark.
It's plenty bright enough for that. If they don't get to it, it isn't
going to be much use.



You can even spot the strobe in sunlight. It just makes it easier to see
after your unfledge "crew", that hasn't a notion of how to come about to
get you, finally figures out how to get it turned around in their panic
and you're 2 miles astern of it.

-----------------------------

Roger, while out crusing with your family and friends, totally
unannounced while they're not standing there talking to you, SLIDE
OVERBOARD QUIETLY. Just slip over the side and let them all sail away
without you. See how long you have to float before they even notice
you're gone and have conducted the "cabin search" for your carcass. It's
really hilarious to watch the Chinese Fire Drill.

Don't do it on a nearly calm day, either. Do it in a nice, stiff breeze
where you're fighting the sheets and coming about is a problem. Uh, uh,
no fair waiting until 3 other captains from down the dock are sailing
with you, either! Regular crew ONLY. This is a realtime, unplanned
drill.....or at least it will be until you see them sail over the
horizon...(c;

The MOB pole will never be deployed because noone noticed you falling
overboard in the first place, so there'll have to be a real search to
find you. Just to be fair, please do hide your Sospenders in your pants
so you won't tire and drown before they get their act together. The
drill is well worth that nearly-out-of-date CO2 cartridge you were going
to replace anyways. The MOB pole ASSUMES someone saw someone falling
overboard.

Noone goes on deck untethered after dark......ESPECIALLY the captain!

Larry
--
Next overnight cruise, throw a floating cushion overboard and shout "MAN
OVERBOARD" at 3AM and ring the bell until all hands are ready to retrieve
"him". If that doesn't get the message across to be firmly tied to the
boat in your harness EVERY TIME, nothing will...(c;
After you get the pole fixed, throw it overboard at 3AM instead of the
cushion and see if they can find it with your little bicycle light on it.
Test that on a MOONLIT night when the moon's reflection is flashing in
your faces off the water. The moon flashes drive me crazy searching at
night.

Say Larry..
 

On Aug 8, 7:54 am, "Roger Long" wrote:
"Larry" wrote

Mine is a strobe! It makes your eyes go buggy it's so bright if you dare
look at it, destroying your night vision, of course.

And that's going to make the panicked and difficult operation of getting a
possibly semi-consious and helpless person back aboard a lot easier isn't
it? Ever noticed how hard it is to think straight around emergency vehicle
lights at night if you aren't used to it?

Another reason I don't want a mega bright strobe on the MOB pole.

--
Roger Long

IIRC USCG standards require a strobe to be seen 3 miles.
If you go to e-bay you can buy a 5 pack for 40 dollars.

LED's just do not have the power to be of much use IMO.

You need a Xenon strobe. They are cheap and very effective. So cheap
everyone aboard should have one.

http://cgi.ebay.com/STROBE-RESCUE-LI...QQcmdZViewItem

You need a strobe on your life ring IMO to be tossed at the same time
as the MOB pole. The only ptatical LED is an IR LED strobe. They are
very effective for IR night vision used by the USCG.

I guess it would not be a bad ideal to strap a light to the MOB as
long as it will not effect bouyancy and drift rate, as MOB poles are
designed to drift at the rate a human will drift. Some expensive MOB
poles have strobes buildt into them.

I've thought about taping one of these to a MOB pole:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ofh37qcFuk4

It would be very effective with any spray as a beacon.

Going overboard at night in bad seas is a very bad thing.

Joe

Say Larry..
 

On Wed, 08 Aug 2007 07:16:25 -0700, Joe
wrote:

If you go to e-bay you can buy a 5 pack for 40 dollars.

Those are OK for life jackets where they can be turned on manually by
an experienced person but a MOB pole or a life ring should have a
STROBE which turns on automagically.

Say Larry..
 

On Aug 8, 4:31 pm, Wayne.B wrote:
On Wed, 08 Aug 2007 07:16:25 -0700, Joe
wrote:

If you go to e-bay you can buy a 5 pack for 40 dollars.

Those are OK for life jackets where they can be turned on manually by
an experienced person

How experienced do you have to be to turn on a switch?
As Captain of your vessel when anyone steps aboard that you will be
taking out/offshore you need to make sure they understand where all
safety and survival equipment is located and how to properly use, and
deploy it. Everything from dunnage


but a MOB pole or a life ring should have a
STROBE which turns on automagically.

Agreeded, and many companies make them that do just that. I have a
self launching ACR that when turned upright turns on. It is spliced
onto the life ring with a 20 ft poly line. It's 20+ years old but
works like new.

Joe