Good deck lighting is a workboat necessity, but while LEDs have inched their way into many vessel applications, it’s taken a while for them to break into the floodlight side of the market finds Stevie Knight.
However, Netherland’s based E-LED Lighting is now offering a range of floodlights centering on a ceramic LED; the 80W light gives out 10,400 lumens and the 120W version’s output reaches 15,600 lumens of ‘natural white’ (3900K) light.
As Jeffrey Rozemalen told MJ, the FLHQ series has an adjustable beam angle - 50°, 90° and 120°. He explained: “Even after the floodlight has been installed you can say, I want a wider beam, and go ahead and adjust the angle by simply changing the lens. We’ve made it very easy to replace, just by removing four bolts.”
More, ''We find customers are looking into to smarter lighting fixtures so E-LED Lighting is able to offer the new FLHQ series dimmable on request''.
But why has it taken so long for LEDs, which have enormous advantages over traditional lights (including longer life and a vastly reduced power draw), to gain a foothold in deck floodlighting?
Rozemalen explained the barriers. Firstly, technical: “The heat has been the biggest challenge,” he explained. “This is not from the LED itself, that runs fairly cool, but from the electronics and the driver that sits behind them. For example, ten years ago the 80W light needed to be three times as big to help dissipate this heat, but now we have better, more efficient electronic controls.”
Secondly, early developments had quality challenges and a higher cost than a similar halogen fitting. But over the past couple of years this changed, so now “we are able to offer a high-quality product for a fair price”, he said.
He added that reliability makes them a distinctly different beast to the domestic variety. “The lights we offer, they have to work at all times,” he said, pointing out that while at home you can manage if something fails, it’s a much more serious matter on a workboat deck at night were the lights are installed in hard to reach places.
“One of the biggest differences is that we really push on the special seawater proof coating combined with a strict quality control after production. Claims are less than 1% and we are working hard to reach an even lower claim percentage” he explained. As a result, the fixtures have a two-year warrantee, while the LED lighting chip and electronics have a five-year warrantee.
Visit E-LED Lighting at Seawork International 2018 on Stand SR18.
