PIMP MY BOAT! LED strips, etc…

I came across this link from Walleye Central… He has an explanatory youtube video as well as links to the hardware he installed. The video looks pretty cool / useful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CpjT1EtR-8

He setup his boat with some LED stips mounted into the “Sportrac” system of he LUND…

I was thinking about doing a similar setup – would be very nice when night fishing walleyes/salmon.

I was just wondering what other guys have done and/or are thinking about doing. There are some AWESOME looking images of boats out there (fishing and otherwise) if you google waterproof boat LED strips…

Any recommendations, ideas, suggestions, photos, etc would be appreciated.. Just trying to get an idea of how I want to light up my fishing rig to make it more useful to a night angler… Or even just for rigging, etc in a dark parking lot or garage….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CpjT1EtR-8

Here is the direct link to his Youtube video… He lights them up in the dark at 2:30 into the video…

That is frickin awesome!!!

Ryan

WOW! Sure wish my Ranger had that kind of tracking system.
Wonder how much power they take at the higher settings and how long before a bettery would start to become weak?
Great thinking, that’s for sure

They are LED’s, so I think you could run them for a LONG time with very little draw…

You could probably add these to any boat, just get some double sided tape and/or some small mount brackets…

I ordered 12 of the 28″ strips, just need to figure out where to put them and run the wire.

That is SWEEEEET! Great idea, thanks for sharing this.

We did some LED lighting in my rebuild:

Alumicraft Rebuild

I actually bought that dimmer and didn’t like that if I lost the remote control I wouldn’t be able to turn them on and off anymore.

Might be the best of year Jakob!

I think the key with any lighting in the boat, they can’t be hitting the operators in the eyes. Nothing worse than being blind trying to stay on a break line at night trolling. Sure is nice to have the extra light to unhook fish and retie.

I find myself in the boat occasionally with Whittsend, so we’re in this together.

This weekend, my boat gets rigged. No dimmer controller yet, but it’s on the way. I will post pictures.

Jakob –

Cool rebuild.. Nice LED’s!

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WOW! Sure wish my Ranger had that kind of tracking system.
Wonder how much power they take at the higher settings and how long before a bettery would start to become weak?
Great thinking, that’s for sure

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I’ve got the same lights in my portable. 92″ of lighting draws approx. 850mA.

Here is a link for led lighting for boats. Good source of whats out there and available. Gives you draws and lumens for a particular lighting strip or light. Awesome on what is availabe.yacht lites

Another for marine wire and connectors.Use the technical calculator to determine what wire gauge to use

wire/connectors

Another to give an idea of what components in your boat draw for power consumption for comparison.

power draw

Personally I think I would go the rout of recess lighting over strip lighting. I dont know how much abuse strip lighting can take being exposed like that in the video.

In the video, he put them in a recessed groove… Some Lunds have that Sportrack groove, which is what he used… Should protect the lights considerably.

Scroll down on this site to see a few examples of what some guys have done…

http://www.supernovafishinglights.com/boat-lights

One thing to consider is to make everything or most of the lights red instead of white lights.

Red light doesn’t mess up your night vision as much as white light. It’s nice to be able to see inside the boat without messing up your ability to see outside the boat as well.

Grouse

Cool ideas out there thats for sure. Endless what one can do.
That track looks like it would protect the strip quite well.Myself still tying to decide on led flood lamps in combination with small recess or the strip lighting. Decisions ,Decisions.
I’m thinking I could use the flood lamp for ice fishing in the shanty.

Here is another link with some more fishing specific photos (along with other applications)… Skeeters/Rangers/Tritons/Nitros, etc with deck, compartment and exterior lighting, etc… Some trailer lighting…

Cool stuff, looks useful if you are out past dark…

http://www.bluewaterled.com/samples.php

Geez….that link you put up whittsend just reminds me of high school where all the ‘cool’ kids were putting ground effects on their crap civics thinking they were hot stuff.

There is a line where usefulness turns into overkill and ridiculousness, and there’s a couple pictures on the site that cross that line.

I do however do see how some very cleverly places LED lights, possibly with motion or pressure sensors, could help with storage compartments and unloading at the end of the day.

I’ll keep that in mind if I ever decide to drive a civic off the boat ramp… LOL…

Agreed, though…. Not a ton of good fishing boat pics out there. Most guys that post photos are either trying to show off or sell you something. But most fishing boats (including my Lund) horribly lack sufficient night lighting. Just trying to get ideas, then git r dun.

Whittsend and I have been trading emails back and forth since Wednesday. Turns out, the company I work for makes LED strip lighting for the furniture industry. We happened to have some slightly lighter blue, 5050 LED waterproof strips sitting around.

Mounted them UNDER the gunnels on my boat. Cut a board at a 45degree angle to tilt the strips towards the center of the boat.

Looks pretty nice, isn’t crazy bright. I will be adding a dimmer to them as well.

Had I had to purchase the lights, I would have gone with white. Using the blue messes with the colors in the boat – so you may think you are tying on chartreuse, when in reality you grabbed purple.

Was a very easy project though, and should be useful for a long time to come.

enjoy!
Herrberg