Adding LED lights under the gunnels, inside..

TinBoats.net

Help Support TinBoats.net:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

richg99

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 27, 2010
Messages
5,105
Reaction score
33
Location
Houston, TX & Crossville, TN
This morning I was reading, on another fishing site, about someone adding some LEDs inside of his boat.

It was a chilly morning here in Houston, TX and I wasn't going fishing or golfing.

Some months ago, I bought three strings of LEDs for about $5.00 per 15-foot length. I used a partial string for a light in my bathroom. That left about 10 or so feet unused.

But, my lights were a very bright white, about 4000 K. I know that one can lose their night vision if they encounter a bright white light. Doing some reading, I found that the military has gone to GREEN instead of the older RED lights to preserve night vision.

I had some light green nail polish in my "lure adjusting" kit. I painted the faces of the LEDs that I was going to use for my boat. The color came out a nice faded green. How long it will hold up with the heat of the LEDs I do not know, but so far, I had no current investment in the project.

I also had an old cigarette-lighter style power cord from a piece of discarded equipment. I soldered the wires together and added a quick-release plug to make dis-assembly easier.

Tomorrow, I'll bring the tinny home and glue the lights under the gunnel.

I rarely night fish, but, I do participate in a local bass club that has three night time tournaments in mid summer. I hope these lights will help to unhook some bass.

regards, richg99
 

Attachments

  • IMG_20170126_165510.jpg
    IMG_20170126_165510.jpg
    83.8 KB · Views: 1,358
  • IMG_20170126_165519.jpg
    IMG_20170126_165519.jpg
    72.2 KB · Views: 1,358
  • IMG_20170126_165531.jpg
    IMG_20170126_165531.jpg
    52.1 KB · Views: 1,358
  • IMG_20170126_165504.jpg
    IMG_20170126_165504.jpg
    80.8 KB · Views: 1,358
richg99 said:
This morning I was reading, on another fishing site, about someone adding some LEDs inside of his boat.

It was a chilly morning here in Houston, TX and I wasn't going fishing or golfing.

Some months ago, I bought three strings of LEDs for about $5.00 per 15-foot length. I used a partial string for a light in my bathroom. That left about 10 or so feet unused.

But, my lights were a very bright white, about 4000 K. I know that one can lose their night vision if they encounter a bright white light. Doing some reading, I found that the military has gone to GREEN instead of the older RED lights to preserve night vision.

I had some light green nail polish in my "lure adjusting" kit. I painted the faces of the LEDs that I was going to use for my boat. The color came out a nice faded green. How long it will hold up with the heat of the LEDs I do not know, but so far, I had no current investment in the project.

I also had an old cigarette-lighter style power cord from a piece of discarded equipment. I soldered the wires together and added a quick-release plug to make dis-assembly easier.

Tomorrow, I'll bring the tinny home and glue the lights under the gunnel.

I rarely night fish, but, I do participate in a local bass club that has three night time tournaments in mid summer. I hope these lights will help to unhook some bass.

regards, richg99


Looking forward to seeing an update on this! I've been thinking about doing the same to mine!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Well, so far, the hardest part was soldering the larger wires from the quick-disconnect
plug onto the LED ends.

As you can probably see from the pix, the LEDs have two tiny little copper dots on the end. You can cut the strip anywhere, as long as you cut at those connectors.

Given that my small soldering iron is about 45 years old, I wasn't able to generate enough heat in a tiny spot to easily solder to them. I eventually got the wires to stick, but I am thinking of buying another proper soldering iron for future projects.

richg99
 
The Nail polish will hold up fine. Those strips draw milliamps per LED, they wont get hot at all. I had 300 wrapped around a PVC pipe and then stuffed in a clear tube for an underwater squid fishing light. Never got warm.
 
Rich, I bought some green LED strips for mine.

I hate them. Way too bright with low light. So much so that if it's dark (usually is at night) and I've been in the darkness for more than about 30 minutes, turn those LED strips on and it takes about 5 minutes for my eyes to adjust; if you call it "adjusting". I can't tie a lure with them on. Then when I turn them off, it takes another 5 minutes or so for my eyes to adjust back to the darkness and it's so bad that I'm basically blind for about 5 minutes. Everything is still "green" after the lights are off.

I never had that problem with regular old lantern that I had, which was an old railroad 6v battery powered incandescent light. It wasn't very bright but just enough to tie a lure or pull a hook out of a fish's mouth (or my hand/finger at times). It's almost as if the light is "different" somehow.

I want to try a different color, or at least a different brightness at the minimum. Our summer gets pretty warm and I work all day, so I do most of my summer fishin' at night. And I'm finding out that as I'm aging, my eyesight is also aging and doesn't seem to "like" the LED's.

They look cool though. But that's about it.
 
Of course I don't yet know how the light will affect me...But..In your case, I think I'd try putting some nail polish over them.

It will reduce the brightness. Might make yours work the way you want them to work. Richg99
 
I have red on the inside under my gunnels and green on the outside. Not sure how they'd be by tinting them a certain color, but I can say that the green strips attract bugs like crazy while the red ones don't. As for brightness, yes, almost any LED strip of any length will be way too bright for interior lighting, especially in a light colored boat. My reds are far too intense. I need a dimmer. I also have 10" blue strips wrapped around the speaker housings on each side of my CC and use them to light up the floor. For light to see by, I wrapped the top 6" of an 8' closet dowel with a white LED strip. I drop it in one of my rod holders on the center console and plug it into the cig lighter. It works just as good as a lantern, doubles as an anchor light, and can be seen from across the lake without mistake.



On the subject of heat, glued to the gunnels like that mine produce no noticeable heat. I build submersible lights, and have tested their run time out of water. Mine are also inside a lexan tube and will run without failure for hours, until you turn them off. They will get so hot you can barely hang on to them for any period of time though. It's only during the cooling down period, and the lens cooling at a different rate than the rest of the components, that I've had any failures, and it's usually one of the PVC fittings that cracks. As long as I keep them in the water they suffer no ill effects.

How many amps an LED strip pulls is dependent upon the length of the strip used, but if the strip is too long it suffers a voltage drop the farther away from the power source you get. When I first started building them I noticed one end significantly dimmer than the other. I now power the strips on my fishing lights from both ends and they draw about twice the current they do when powered from one end only, and the light output is measurably more, but so is the heat generated.

Just my experiences with LED strips. I've played around with them a good bit. Getting ready to light my whole shop with them in fact.
 
Also, selecting a lure by color under a colored light is almost impossible. As is, for me, tying anything on. That's why I chose the white light overhead.

The only problem I've run into with the white overhead light is I got slammed by a bat last summer and he got tangled up in my shirt, it was chasing bugs in the overhead light. Then got dead when I yanked my shirt off and slammed in down on the deck of my boat. Good thing I was alone that night, I probably looked about like my 8yr old daughter flailing around fighting a june bug.
 
We love it in our boat. Uses very little power and no heating issues. I have a YouTube video of it if interested in knowing more.
2013-08-09%2021.12.59.jpg
 
Here's the video I mentioned above. LED discussion starts at about 2 minutes in.

https://youtu.be/W57ACZws8-g

The video was made for another fellow who was restoring this same kind of boat.
 
Glued the LEDs on under the gunnel today.

I took the picture inside of my boat barn, with the doors partially closed. I probably won't be out night fishing until I get back in TN in April.

They don't appear to be too bright, but I really can't tell until I see them in real darkness and actually fish with them. If they are too bright, I can paint over every other LED with black paint and lessen the brightness.

The LEDs facing out from the back deck are green, but appear white in this shot.

richg99
 

Attachments

  • IMG_20170128_125402.jpg
    IMG_20170128_125402.jpg
    84.2 KB · Views: 1,261
There goes Rich again, thinking outside the box. Good job sir! That's an interesting shade of green as well. If the LEDs turn out too bright you could always put a heavier coat of green nail polish on. That should filter out a lot more of the "usable" light, making them a deeper green. You may also be able to install a rheostat somewhere inline...But LEDs generally have a "sweet spot" as far as voltage and resistance go. Take a few pics of your current setup when it's dark in there please!
 
You think so far outside the box you must have lost it...Not sure if that's a good thing or bad. LOL! But in case you did lose your box here's one just for you.



 
" I had some light green nail polish in my "lure adjusting" kit "

Sure Rich, whatever you have to tell yourself. :lol:

Seriously, nice job! I have some white LED's left over from the lights I installed in the storage compartments in my RV. I was thinking about using them on the boat but only doing a few short strips in strategic places. I might do the green coloring trick as well if they are too bright.
 
IMO, red is the best light for interior lighting. It doesn't attract bugs nearly as much as white or green and it doesn't destroy your night vision like other colors do. In the thread below you can see how the bugs are attracted to my green nav lights but not to the red.

https://www.tinboats.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=34042
 
I always thought that yellow lights were best for reducing bugs at night. :lol:

That's why light bulb manufacturers make yellow bug lights.

On a more serious note. To reduce the intensity of the LED lights you need to reduce the voltage to the bulbs. A simple 1 watt resister, maybe about 470 ohms should cut the intensity in half. About $2 or less online.

The resister should be put in line with the positive lead to the light string.

Good Luck. [-o<
 

Latest posts

Top