12v LEDs for under gunnel lighting

[charleville]

I reckon I would be better off with the Dolphin torch option.

Not in any way, whatsoever. I have used mine a couple of times now and will do so at 2 am tomorrow morning and I have to say that they are stunning. I used six strings of 70 cm each in the back of my little runabout.

I also wired in waterproof switches at front and rear of boat for them and that has proven to be a terrific idea as well.

Ya gotta feel for the poor old caught fish though. Just imagine being in the dark below and being hauled out of the water and dropped on the floor of the boat in the dark and all of a sudden they get hit with a blaze of brilliant white light when you switch on the lights.


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[Axl]

Look who is going to be ready for the winter night fishing this year!!!


Yippeeeeeee!!!!


I have just finished wiring my boat this afternoon with 420 LEDs on strips under the gunwales.


'Tis the best lighting that I have ever had in my little runabout. Awesome!


These lights will only be switched on as required for baiting, re-hooking, donging giant tailor, etc so I have wired them with a switch at the helm where I only occasionally sit under the canopy and also with concealed waterproof switch under the gunwale adjacent to where I normally sit on the rear seat when it is in or on my big esky (usually) at the back of the boat.



Click for full size - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch

Awesome!


Thanks to the people who advised the sources of the strip lights in this thread.


(Yes - I know that the inside of my boat could do with a good clean up but the reason for that is that my boat got used this week whereas yours didn't! )




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Charleville how did you attach them did you use double sided 3M tape?

[leelee]

h though. Just imagine being in the dark below and being hauled out of the water and dropped on the floor of the boat in the dark and all of a sudden they get hit with a blaze of brilliant white light when you switch on the lights.


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I have blue on mine and need a dimmer switch, but they are far superior for night vision the white led's. If you catch a glimpse of the white led when fishing at night it can make seeing very difficult for a few minutes. That is why red or blue is better.

Cheers

Lee

[charleville]

Charleville how did you attach them did you use double sided 3M tape?

No.

Where I could, I used cable ties to tie them securely to existing cabling supports and existing cable looms.

Where there was inadequate support, I used these clips which utilise double sided tape but it is intrinsic to the clip ...

Click for full size - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch


I have discarded the container that these clips came in but I think that they might be a 3M product anyway.

In some cases, I used a cable tie to secure the LED strips into these clips.


I used such clips several years ago to support other cabling in my boat and they have held well over six or seven years so far.

All of the soldered wiring joints have been sheathed in shrink plastic tubing.



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[finga]

Hey Charlie...
I had a look at the site you posted the link to and got one of these to try.
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.33059
No worries about the night vision. Once it's on it's all over red rover for any vision for about 2 minutes if you look at it.
Bright as.
I fact I'm thinking about putting them in the shed as lighting over the bench. I won't be able to clobber fluoro tubes any more if I use LED's.
Thanks for the link

[scuttlebutt]

Some of my cheapies off ebay arrived today. Strewth they are bright! The wiring is fairly light but the light strip itself seems fairly rugged and maintenance free. The whole light assembly is set in a clear rubberised plastic. They say they are waterproof and they do appear to be.

I'm planning on stitching them onto the canvas of my canopy (when it arrives) to give a large area of light from overhead. I went with the white ones. This talk of night-vision does concern me a little, though I've only ever fished with white light before and never noticed an issue.

[charleville]

This talk of night-vision does concern me a little, though I've only ever fished with white light before and never noticed an issue.

It would be a problem if you were to be driving your boat with them on or immediately after switching them off.

However, if you are not driving the boat with them on, there would be no problem at all, IMHO. Your eyes would need a few minutes to adjust to the dark but it would not take too long.

Yes, the connecting wires are lightweight but perfectly sound. Enclosing the wires in shrink plastic tubing or any tubing, I guess, would protect them from being damaged by your head or hands on the canopy.


'Tis a good idea to stitch them to the canopy, I reckon. I have been thinking about replacing the insipid boot light in my car with a couple of lengths of these as well.


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[charleville]

Hey Charlie...
I had a look at the site you posted the link to and got one of these to try.
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.33059
No worries about the night vision. Once it's on it's all over red rover for any vision for about 2 minutes if you look at it.
Bright as.
I fact I'm thinking about putting them in the shed as lighting over the bench. I won't be able to clobber fluoro tubes any more if I use LED's.
Thanks for the link

'Tis my pleasure, Finga. The good part about that site is that the delivery is free.

BTW, I reckon that I saw something very similar to those ones in the 4WD section of the Tackle & Tinnie show last month for $47 per strip. So $12.22 delivered to your door looks like a good deal to me.

I have generally been happy with the products from that site. I have bought a fair bit of stuff from them.


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[charleville]

I have blue on mine and need a dimmer switch, but they are far superior for night vision the white led's. If you catch a glimpse of the white led when fishing at night it can make seeing very difficult for a few minutes. That is why red or blue is better.

I am ecstatic about the amount of light that now floods the floor of my boat but after the last couple of night fishing trips, I though that I might now add a couple of short strips above my sitting position as tying knots is better with light above rather than under as is the case with the under-gunwale mounted lights.

I shall take the advice of Finga and yourself and get some blue ones for that purpose. There is so much flexibility in application offered by these waterproof plastic strips that canopy mounted lights or cutting board mounted lights etc are just so viable and so dirt cheap.

I would not think that the plastic strips are UV stabilised though so it is probably best to shield them from the sun.

[Razgo-]

jeez, with all this bright light night fishing going on moreton bay will be well lit up with lights all over the place. planes better not mistake a row of boats for a landing strip

[charleville]

jeez, with all this bright light night fishing going on moreton bay will be well lit up with lights all over the place. planes better not mistake a row of boats for a landing strip

Well, I reckon that it will certainly confuse all of those "spy" satellites that you see soon after dark out there when the sun is still illuminating them above the horizon.

There sure are a lot of them to be seen.


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[leelee]

I am ecstatic about the amount of light that now floods the floor of my boat but after the last couple of night fishing trips, I though that I might now add a couple of short strips above my sitting position as tying knots is better with light above rather than under as is the case with the under-gunwale mounted lights.

I shall take the advice of Finga and yourself and get some blue ones for that purpose. There is so much flexibility in application offered by these waterproof plastic strips that canopy mounted lights or cutting board mounted lights etc are just so viable and so dirt cheap.

I would not think that the plastic strips are UV stabilised though so it is probably best to shield them from the sun.

I am actually gettign a dimmer switch for mine asap as i cannot run my decklights as they are just to bright.

need to get the boat back from some warranty repairs and i will take some pics of the boat at night with all the lights on.

My led strips have a lifetime warranty so any failures and I get new ones sent to me straight away.

Cheers

Lee

[Axl]

No.

Where I could, I used cable ties to tie them securely to existing cabling supports and existing cable looms.

Where there was inadequate support, I used these clips which utilise double sided tape but it is intrinsic to the clip ...

Click for full size - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch


I have discarded the container that these clips came in but I think that they might be a 3M product anyway.

In some cases, I used a cable tie to secure the LED strips into these clips.


I used such clips several years ago to support other cabling in my boat and they have held well over six or seven years so far.

All of the soldered wiring joints have been sheathed in shrink plastic tubing.



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Thanks charleville mate I have a question on wiring them up.

I am planning on buying six strips three up either side and I am assumming that you would take the three positive & negative wires solder them togehter (neg to neg pos to pos) and add an extension to them to get into my c/c.

This would leave me with 2 wires on either side 1 pos & 1 neg. I would then have four wires comming into my c/c 2 from either side they would be 2 neg & 2 pos.

Could I then solder them together (neg to neg pos to pos) adding another extension so i would then have 1 neg 1 pos to go to my switch panel where i have three spare switches 1 of which will become my floor lighting switch?

Does this sound alright?

Also what wire would you recommend to use as extension wire?

[finga]

Yeah Charlie...how would you wire them??

Yeah Axle that sounds good.
Any sized wire BUT tinned wire gives you a longer life span and use a suitably sized resin filled heat shrink over the soldered joints.
heat shrink like this...http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView...k&form=KEYWORD
Just make sure on an off cut of the teeny weeny wires that come with these LED's that the heatshrink shrinks small enough.
You should be able to see a band of goo come out of the heatshrink around the wire when you shrink it.
I should get off my lazy behind and go out to the shed and see. But as I mentioned...I'm lazy.
But I might have a look later as I have some of those LED's (I think/should) and some of that heatshrink.
Cheers Scott

[charleville]

Yup, Axl. That will do the job.

In my case, I just ran one pair or wires all the way around under the gunwales of the boat and across the back of the boat in a covered space available there and fed each set of LEDs off that, soldered and encased in heatshrink plastic , as Finga says.


I prewired the run before I installed it in the boat so it pays to be a bit generous with the length of wire. Any excess length midway does not matter as it will be hidden from view under the gunwales. Excess length at the ends can be cut off.

As for the size of the wire, I just bought the thinnest tinned copper wire that I could get from Whitworths when I was there one day. The gauge would be far thicker than really required but it was the thinnest that they had. Get your wire anywhere but it should be tinned if you want it to survive the marine environment.

There are not too many mistakes that you can make doing this job. If you use cable ties or double sided tape of clips as I have done and something does not fit as well as you would like, you can just redo the job without drama.

Such is my caution though, I have added a dedicated 5 amp fuse in the circuit just to be sure. It might have been 3 amp - I would have to check - but a 5 amp fuse will do the job.

Without knowing of your wiring experience, please forgive me for giving some simple advice - solder everything! Secondly, if you have not used heat shrink, just use a hot air gun or a hair dryer to blow warm air on the heat shrink. Don't be in too much of a hurry so as to melt the insulation on the tiny wires coming from the LEDs. If unsure, use lots of insulation tape instead.


Good luck. You will love the results. Remember that they are light emitting DIODES and so you need to wire the polarity the right way around otherwise you will get no light.


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