Rope lighting uses, cockpit and cabin

[Sea Wolf]

Ken

No I don't know the EXACT reason, but you'll notice that it's only recently that bright white LEDs have become readily available in flashlights, etc.

LEDs are solid state devices kinda like transistors and diodes, but they emit light at the junctions of dissimilar materials.

The color of the light would probably be a function of the change in energy states or levels as electrons are accelerated accross the junction, then decelerated. This is from the Quantum Theory which explains much of light and atomic phenomena.

Different colors would then result from the different kinds of junctions from different materials, each one type of which would have or emit it's characteristic color based on the level differential or energy state change accross the junction.

A white LED would probably be harder to make in that white light is made of of all colors of visible light, so either the junction has to be mulltipile level, or there must be some coating around the LED that is excited by the characteristic junction color which then re-radiates the light in a mixed, broader spectrum, just like the coatings in fluorescent lights.

Such LEDs would or could be harder and therefore more expensive to make.

That's my best $0.02 shot, w/o looking it up!

Joe.

[Sea Wolf]

Ken-

So OK, now I looked it up and the four or so pages that start below offer a reasonable explanation and add some details:

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/led1.htm

Joe.

[CAVU]

Thanks Joe,
Very interesting stuff. I have used that site before but had forgotten how handy it is to answer lots of questions. Now I know.

[Sea Wolf]

Ken and the others that are still with us:

It turns out that my hunch about how they might use coatings to broaden out the spectrum to create white light from a narrower band-width or color LED is right on. Here's the dope on that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-emitting_diode

Joe.

[Sea Wolf]

Ok, to follow up on this thread, I'm posting some photos of the LED lights in my cabin. We also got into a similar discussion of the uses of LED's for use out in the cockpit on another thread.

The first photo is with just the LEDs on and the incadescent map lights on, the second is also with the flourescents also on so you can see the set up better. It's hard to photograph the LED's well because of internal reflections in the clear plastic tubes and the long exposure times.

The entire 17 ft string of LED rope lights uses a little over 0.5 amps of current!

The LED rope lights are secured to the top of the cabin with clear plastic wire straps at the inside where the screw heads are for the roof hand rails. (I have wooden ones, so there are seven screws, not four, as with the stainless ones.)





Joe.

[Butch]

Ken... porch lights . Spoken as a true southern boy. With me ....form follows function. Butch

[Plan C]

I haven't tried rope lights, but last summer at the Bellingham gathering, I bought an LED bulb to replace my anchor light. I wasn't sure if it would be adequately bright, but found it was very good, and can recommend it.

Dave