DIY LED cupholder rings
 

Did a little DIY on the boat this past week. I basically did the same thing that was done here on this link on the malibucrew, I also use waterproof RGB Led lights, and also used 3/8 tubing instead. Turned out great for around 100$. Did 14 cup holders and got everything on Amazon except the tubing, was like 6$ for 25ft at Lowes.
Also instead of using 1/4 inch tubing to hold the rings together, I used 1/4 stainless tubing
The lights are super bright, the picture with them on are during the day.

http://www.themalibucrew.com/index.p...der-rings-diy/

I just did this the last while as well. I've done all 6 inboats, 2 subs, 9 cup holders, and my rear blower vent.....and still looking to do more.lol. Also did under my truck/trailer.

Working on mine did you guys solder wires onto the strips or buy press connectors ?

I used the connectors. My soldering skills suck

These look great. How many hours did it take you to install? $100 is totally worth it, just hard to find the time. I imagine between installing on each cup holder, linking connectors, and stringing wire it took more than a day.

Learn to solder the connections. I did the stupid connectors and had to go back and solder everything. As soon as your boat starts bouncing around on the water those connections will fail. Half up my cup holders would lose connection just from pushing them back in to the holes. Take your time and learn....that's what I did. Strip a small section of wire. dip it in the flux and put a small dab of solder on the wire. Hold the end over the strip and heat the top of the wire. Once it melts lift the soldering iron and wait until it cools. It helps to tape the LED strip to your table so it doesn't move.

Brad, It took me more than a day but I was working at it a couple hours each day or evening when I had free time or once my kids were asleep. It just so happened we had a string of bad weather so I was able get it all done before I got the boat out again. I could knock off a cup holder in about 10 minutes near the end. I'm now planning on doing the 6 cup holders on my floor where my speaker location are as well.

You'll need to notch the cup holder holes in the boat so you can run the wired tail down. If yours are like mine the cup holder is already tough to get out. Even a couple layers of electrical tape would make it hard to push back in.

THese can also be found on the Malibu crew thread but I'd thought I'd add mine for reference as well.

Any shots of how the speaker grills go back on? Maybe some up close sharing it installed? Assumung you out them between the grill and speaker, do the screws to attach to the boat go thru them?

The rings are not between the speaker and the grill on the inboats. The ring just gets sandwiched between the speaker and the fiberglass of the boat. The picture below is how it looks on the speaker. On the subs I have mounted the rings between the front grill and the speaker. There I just made a small hole beside the sub to sneak the wired tail through the wall.

So it looks like the screws to mount the speaker into the boat is going thru the ring, correct?

Thanks!

Correct. You'll need to buy longer screws. It's also worth pre-drilling holes through the rings first before mounting.

I did this same setup in my Malibu last year. Turned out great and super easy.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_PM9Ux3HlcM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Has anyone tried it with clear tubing? I thought it would be good if you wanted more light.

Don't think you really need anymore light than what the frosted tubing already provides. It's bright enough for me. You still see the individual LEDs with the frosted. If anything it probably would help the colors blend a bit as the frosting diffuses the light a bit over what clear would provide.

Thanks for the info