Boat lighting

Is there a way I could mount a LED flashlight to a flexible snake type holder? This would be mounted in my boat and I could direct the light anywhere I wanted instantly, even over the side of the boat for landing fish. Having a light you could direct anywhere in you r boat would be good eh? Headlights work well but I usually don’t like stuff on my head. Anyone have any better ideas? I’ve been waiting for this invention to be born but no one has done it yet. I like the LED lights because they last a long time and spotlights are too bright. A RAM type holder may work but I haven’t thought about that one too much. The winter is getting looooong!

Maybe one of them snake lights in a try pod holder

How’s about one of those clip-lights that has a spring clamp to grab onto the cover of a book?

i was thinking about mounting a coulpe of the small vehicle flood lights to my rodrack in the back of my boat. (the lights that are only a few inches wide – not the huge ones)

or you could get that “elbowing” stuff like what i had on my vexilar. it was used for aiming the tansducer into the ice whole. its bendy and holds its place when set. i have no idea what to call it or where to get it, so i am no help…..hahaha

maybe get a RAM mount like for a GPS or Locator. but get/make some sort of longer arm with it. and mount a led light to a RAM aparatus.

i rally make no sense…… i got the images in my head tho…..

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Is there a way I could mount a LED flashlight to a flexible snake type holder? This would be mounted in my boat and I could direct the light anywhere I wanted instantly, even over the side of the boat for landing fish. Having a light you could direct anywhere in you r boat would be good eh? Headlights work well but I usually don’t like stuff on my head. Anyone have any better ideas? I’ve been waiting for this invention to be born but no one has done it yet. I like the LED lights because they last a long time and spotlights are too bright. A RAM type holder may work but I haven’t thought about that one too much. The winter is getting looooong!

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12v rope light? you could get it in green or red so it won’t kill your night vis.

I didnt like head lamps either until I tried the Princeton Tech lights. At only 3 oz’s you wont even notice you have one on. VERY bright LED lights cover alot of area without the blinding effects of a Maglite type flashlight or Q-beam. I even use my Tech light for grillin on the BBQ after coming in from fishing.

Check these out. I’m not sure how much they cost, but they’re 12v and should work in your rig. Wholesale Fire & Rescue Ltd.

Something you may want to check out is the new lantern reflectors made by Soderbloom Manufacturing. I am picking up the one made for the Coleman Compact lantern to use for ice fishing. I have heard good things about these lantern relectors, for $12 it sounds like a good buy. Try this url: http://www.soderbloom.com/reflectralight.html

Hey Dirk – I have been trying to design a spotlight setup and then saw this one. Check out this light at the link. I’m thinking of rigging a similar light for this summer. I bought a Coleman Powermate 400 watt power inverter that will convert a 12 volt DC battery to 110 volt AC. I am going to make a pole light similar to this and run it off the 12 volt battery. I like the small halogen spotlight that he uses and may try to find a similar light. http://www.hookedoncatfish.com/lightpole.html

That is a great link. I’m going to make one too. Turn it around to light up the trailor when pulling out at night.

-J.

Dirk, the best plan I have heard so far is a guy getting a holder for a brake lightbulb and shovin it in a piece of pvc then coverin the thing with a 20 ounce pop bottle for a cover. They are just a few watts. led’s are better but you can get them to fit the same base. spotlights/foglights are too many watts.

I’ve been looking for the same type of light thats used in the link but only in LED. Haven’t found one yet thats in my price range. Its a good idea.

This is the best setup I’ve seen. A floodlight clamped to the rail on the center consol. It pivots up and down and spins 360. At night he puts up a white Bimini top and points the light up into it and it creates a glow that lights up the whole boat. That one is 12 volts and he uses a dedicated battery for it, but it works great. You just grab it and point it ahead for navigating, back and down to see in the boat, aim it to the side for netting etc…

Awesome! I have extra seat base poles that I could mount a PVC pole on! It will fit right in the seat mounts on the deck!

Hey Chris – I made a similar light this weekend. I originally tried to insert a 2″ PVC into the seat mount but it was a little wobbly. I also have an extra seat base pole so I placed a 6 foot 1 1/4″ inch PVC into it. I bought an outdoor spotlight base ($1.99 at Menards). I drilled out a 3/4″ hole on the end of the PVC and mounted the spotlight base. Bought a 15′ extension cord ($3 at Menards) and cut off the receptacle part and hooked it to the light to make a plug-in light. I ran all the cords down the PVC pipe and out a hole about 12″ up from the bottom of the PVC pipe (just above where the seat base ends) so it is uncluttered. I plugged it into my power inverter (changing DC to AC) which runs off my Trolling Motor battery. I tried it out in the basement and it worked great. I am using a 100 Watt yellow bug spotlight in the light base which gives a lot of light plus it will keep the bugs away. This is my initial prototype and one thing I noticed right away is the inverter has a bit of a hum to it and I’m not sure how much power the light will eat. When I was at Menards I saw a low watt yellow flourescent bulb that plugs into a standard light base, I may get one of those bulbs just for the power savings (it was only a couple of bucks). The florescent bulb eats something like 20 watts and supposedly produces a 100 watt’s worth of light.I have been wanting to build a cat light for some time and I am going nuts waiting for open water. It was a fun way to spend some fishing preparation time until I can get a line in the water. I am looking forward to a shake down cruise.

Great idea! Thanks for the tip! I have been using DC RV light bulbs in a trouble light that I can hang on my stern light with a little modification. I put in a cigarette lighter adapter for a power source. I like your idea better.
Tuck

I have a cigarette lighter adaptor plug hooked to my trolling motor battery. I use it to run all my special lights when fishing in the dark. I plan on using it to run my power inverter and my big 1,000,000 candlepower spotlight. I was at Radio shack and saw that they have a special lighter plug-in adaptor that will convert a single plug-in to a dual plug-in. I may get one so that I have my spotlight always handy and not have to be changing plugs to be able to use it. My spotlight is a rechargeable light but the battery doesn’t seem to hold a charge very long so I plug it in to the cigarette lighter plug so that I always have juice. The power inverter is a new thing that I am just adding, I’m not sure that it will work out yet but I picked it up on a clearance rack one day at Target for $15. It seemed like a good deal at the time and it should give me more flexibility with my lighting options. It has an internal fan that creates a humming sound and that may get a little irritating after a while. But I probably won’t be running the power inverter all the time anyway and just primarily use it when I have a fish on and need light to see what is going on.

THIS IS BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!!!!!