2014 Work on the O'day 192

LED Lights all around - March 28

I ordered LED lights for the bow and stern navigation lights and for the dome light. The bow light is the most challenging to replace because it shines through a bi-color lens (red & green) and the view angle should be nearly 180 degrees.

I shopped around and bought a replacement LED that is warm white in color (supposed to work best with colored lenses) and that is a "360 degree" light. It is actually 4 lights at 90 degrees. The company sent me by mistake, a single row, warm white light.

Single row, warm white LED --------------------- 4 x 90 degree warm white LED ----------------------------- original incandescent LED lights are from superbriteleds.com

So I was interested to see how these compare, both in color rendition, brightness and view angle to the original incandescent light.

The original incandescent

Single row LED

4 x 90 LED

Outside with the naked eye, I couldn't really tell the difference with these lights. From a distance of 10 feet, the brightness overwhelms the naked eye. However I didn't examine them at a distance. Maybe the differences would be more discernible with the naked eye.
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With the photos, the single row LED looks the best, even better than the incandescent. Certainly it looks good enough to work as a replacement. The 4 x 90 LED however doesn't look so good. The color isn't true. You can especially see that on the red side.

I did not make a comparison viewing the lights at an angle. I now wish that I had. I had the 4 x 90 light mounted so that the lights were centered at approximately 45 degrees from straight on. I wonder if the color rendition changes with the viewing angle?

One huge difference I noticed. When I removed the incandescent bulb, I burnt my fingers. The little sucker got really hot. The LEDs were as cool as could be!

The stern light and dome light should not be such an issue. They both have clear lenses and shine white light. The stern does have a bit of a viewing angle requirement, but I think the new light will be bright enough to work just fine.

December 29, 2014 - Charge the battery

Charged the battery. This is an AGM battery so you need a high falootin' battery charger to do it. This is first time I've charged it since I got it. And I really like this charger. The manufacturer has really paid attention to all the details. Only thing I would change is to have a voltmeter on it.