Alarm lighting question...

I have 12 volt DC engine alarm lights on my fly bridge that are not visible in daylight. Before I purchase new daylight visible lights, I would like to know what color lights would be more discernible.

I'm sure about what color light but you could add an 85dB Piezo buzzer (s) in line with the light (s). Easy to wire in and no visual monitoring required (and cheap).

85nu llPie zoBuzz er21603 | eBay

Buzzer!!! Lights are too easy to miss. I screwed my buzzer to the overhead in pilothouse, it turns out that is right under your feet on the flybridge. So one buzzer covers both helms. Can't be ignored, but does have a silence switch. Got to be careful with the silence switch, can't leave it in silence or it defeats the whole purpose.

The system has a buzzer, but the lights identify what the problem is; battery, overheating, or low oil pressure. For some reason, light vendors do not identify whether their lights are daylight visible or not.

ancora said:

........... For some reason, light vendors do not identify whether their lights are daylight visible or not.

Click to expand...

That's because they don't know how much daylight you're talking about. If they would be visible in bright daylight, they would surely blind you at night.

I would check pacergroup.net

Blue.l have a radar detector that flashes a blue light on my sport bikes that always catches my attention..bright daylight or night...bikes are too loud for a audible slarm...it is a 1/4" led pointed in my eye sight.
Hollywood

If in daylight, if buzzer goes off, hold hand over lights to shade enough to read which one is lit.

The systems I set up use a buzzer only, for simplicity and reliability. If buzzer goes off it is due to one of the following: Low oil pressure, high coolant temp in one of a couple places, high exhaust temp. A gauge scan, check exhaust water flow, a dive in the engine room will identify the issue. Which is what you would do with the lights, anyway.

I have red lights and I don't have to put my hand over them to see which is lit, even in bright daylight (I also have a buzzer).

And, I sure as hell don't want to have to take the time to dive into the engine room to determine what the problem is. I want to know immediately.

Lights are nice, but they do complicate the circuitry to make the system function. It can't be a simple "anything wrong ground the buzzer negative". There must be relays or such involved. That decreases reliablility of the alarm system.

With the simple buzzer system: Buzzer goes off. Check oil pressure gauge, check temp gauge. If ok, engine is at least safe. Check spill water out tailpipe. Then dive the engine room and check that. It may be more difficult to determine the exact sensor that caused the trip, but having a rock solid reliable alarm system is more valuable than a more complex and failure prone system that might be able to segregate the alarm source.

It easily possible to have buzzer triggered by fault without the use of relays but to have latching relays switch on a light for the fault circuit. That way, for an intermittent fault such as low oil level causing momentary loss of oil pressure the buzzer will sound then turn off but the light will stay until fault condition disappears and relay is reset. This is the simplest system available and only offers preotection to the first alarm trigger. If a sensor is faulty that relay must be removed to continue protection for the other parameters. This gives the robustness of a simple circuit to alarm on fault but the flexibility to indicate what fault without sacrificing reliability.

I purchased 10, yes, 10 red lamps for every bit of $4.12 for all ten of them, from Amazon. User comments advised that these lamps are day light visible. Won't find out for a month, as they are coming from China.

I recently installed 2 bells in lieu of the Cummins installed buzzer. Now everyone in the marina knows when I start my engines. The bell monitors only high coolant temp and low oil pressure, so if a bell sounds I check the oil and temp gauges.
I also have a borel alarm system that monitors raw water temp: Welcome to Borel Manufacturing