Boat led navigation lights?

In my search for a cost effective led navigation lights for my boat I came up with very little so I decided to make my own. Its a real simple setup with 4 red and 4 green leds. The Problem I have is apparently our eyes pick up red much better than green so the red appears much brighter. My question is how would I match up the green so they "appear" the same brightness for on coming boats? Could I just get a green with a higher MCD, and if so how much? I'd also like to find them with the 40* viewing angle as that works good for the way I set them up.

Heres the specs. on the leds. Just some over priced Radioshack ones, but it was a I need something to do on a rainy day project.

Red
# Size: T-1-3/4 or 5mm
# Typical voltage: 1.7, with a maximum voltage of 2.4V
# Typical wavelength: 660mm
# Typical MCD: 800
# Viewing angle: 40°
# 20mA (max)

Green
* Size: T-1-3/4 (5mm)
* Typical voltage: 2.1V, with a maximum of 2.8V
* Typical wavelength: 570mm
* Typical MCD: 620
* Viewing angle: 12°
* 30 mA current (max.)
* Sold in package of 1

There's a similar thread here which may give you some leads, but proper marine navigation lighting is something you need to take quite seriously, as you don't want a failure.

You may find other useful threads using the search function, if you enter "marine" or "boat" as keywords and specify "search titles only".

I should clarify this is just for my jonboat, in the backwaters bowfishing. The navigation lights is more of a compliance thing. If other boaters can't see me trolling around with 94800 Lumens from the 6 HPS lights they got other problems. Anyways we usually don't see any other boats out there but other bowfisherman. I'm not trying to come off sounding snide, just giving a little more background for this project. I did try the search, but either didn't look with the right wording or just couldn't find it.
Mainly I'm just trying to find out how to match the green with the red better and I know this is the place with the answers.

MYREDCHEVY said:

The navigation lights is more of a compliance thing. If other boaters can't see me trolling around with 94800 Lumens from the 6 HPS lights they got other problems.

Click to expand...

LOL! Good point, understood.

I hope someone here can come up with a solution for you.

MyRedChevy,

I am not sure that our eyes pick up red much easier than green. As I recall, both types of vision are most sensitive in the greens. If you could find the flux measures or output of your LED's you would have a better idea of the relative output. If the flux is measured in lumens, it is already biased towards visual sensitivity. If you match viewing angle and flux of your red and green sources, you should have reasonable balance and visibility provided they are intense enough to be obvious.

The LED's you mentioned in your post are giving you an intensity measure and not a flux measure.

Are you using a secondary optic to insure that your running lights are visible from the standard viewing angle as specified for running lights?

As you suggest, folks will see you with your work lights on but the point of navigation lights is not only recognition of your presence but more important, the ability to determine your heading and course from viewing the lights?!?! The intensity of your work lights might make this problematic and of course if you are not moving, your running lights shouldn't be on, any way.

Ok, I was wrong about being able to see the red better. No flux meters here, just the old eyes to tell me whats brighter. I did some digging around and apparently by them having different viewing angles, it changes the brightness (if I was reading correctly). I'll have to pick up some new leds with all the specs matching.
I mounted the lights (hopefully) so the HPS floods don't interfere too bad. The nav are setup with just the bulbs, no secondary optics. Got them to cover the 120.5* left and right range. I may have a little more on the back but shouldn't be too bad. When I make the replacements I've got an idea for a nice cut off to keep the angle almost perfect.

Got back on the water tonight and the lights worked good. The red is brighter (for now) but even with the flood lights on it was easy to see the navigation lights. The stern light I made is a little on the bright side (kills night vision when looking back) when driving but nicely lights up the rear of the boat when trolling around. When I think of it I'll get some pictures up for any one thinking of doing a similar project.

This sounds super cool. LEDs for nav lights are a great idea ... especially on sailboats where a trip to the top of the mast to change a bulb is a real hassle.

So regarding proper navigation lighting. Collision Regulations state that you need lights visible for 360 degs. Port = 112.5 degs [red]; Starboard = 112.5 degs [green]. If you're a power-driven vessel, you need a 360 deg all-round white lamp or it can be a 225 deg light in the front [aka steaming light] and 135 in the back [aka stern light]. You can probably find super-cheap lenses out there and then retrofit LEDs inside if you want to be 100% legit. Aquasignal comes to mind ...

Just be careful that they're close to 100% - fines for this kind of stuff can be steep. Or worse ... someone gets hurt due to a collision.

Great idea ... I'd love to see pics.