What if we had a type of resistor which could accommodate the changing voltage? There is such a device, and it is used by many LED cluster manufacturers.

The device is called a Linear Regulator, and it is a small step up in control technology from the primitive ballast resistor.

A Linear Regulator is a low-cost control method which can be thought of as a variable resistor that varies the resistance according to the load in order to provide a constant output voltage to the LEDs.

Because it is still a resistive device, it controls excess energy (above that required by the LEDs) by turning it into heat. But wait a minute, isn't HEAT the great enemy of LEDs?

That's right! Of course, with proper design one could dissipate some of the heat, but overall, Linear Regulator can only work for small voltage variations, which is fine for some applications, but again, not suitable for the full of battery banks, solar panels and generators and inverters of our electrically hostile marine world.

Hopefully the above makes it very clear why ballast resistor bulbs and cheap bulbs have no place on a boat.

From what you have read in the previous paragraphs, you are now considerably better informed than the average person looking for LED lighting.

Not only that, you are most probably better informed than most of the uninformed merchants out there selling LED bulbs to the unsuspecting boater.

So what else is available in state-of-the-art LED controls? It seems what we really need is a sort of closed-loop device that looks at the incoming voltage and maintains the constant current feeding the LEDs even as the voltage fluctuates, all of that while keeping minimum heat.

And, you guessed it, the device exists! It's called a DC/DC Buck Power Converter. It is an expensive way to supply energy to LEDs, but it has all the advantages that we are looking for.

fasadskylt belysning