Underwater LED Light Bar

I am about to get started on my next project. I wanna make a Light Bar that holds my transome underwater LED's. I decided to go with the Shadow Caster SC10's LED lights. I wanna make a Bar so I can mount all 3 of them. The idea is to make a bar that attaches to my factory swim platform brakets. All three lights will attach to the light bar and mount so the light in not just shooting straight back but also to the side's of the boat. I wanted the light to shine all around the back of the boat in a 180 degree pattern. Here is a quick sketch of what I was thinking.

The Oval Aluminum is the material im gonna use. The Light bar will mount in the aera between the 2 swim platform brakets

Grant-great idea! I was trying to come up w/something like this, but my FAE (dual exhaust) created too big an obstacle.
I found that the bottom two swim platform bracket bolts are "lag" types that screw into an aluminum plate, or reinforcement. The top two are bolt and nut combos. You may want to think about finding a third pick up point for the middle of your light bar, maybe the middle bracket, or the drain plug?
3 Shadow Casters??? Do you think your battery bank will handle it?

UPS showed up today and look what they brought. 3 brand new Shadow-Caster SC 10's in Bimini Blue

These 3 lights are what Im going to use for my light bar.


This is the New SC10. They have upgraded the connection at the back. It's a smaller hole and smaller wire. This will make a cleaner install

This is the back of the orignal SC10 Im only going to use 3 of them this is the 4th one that I have to send back

Tomarrow Im going to make a adjustable light bar out of wood with hinges at the corners. The hinge's will allow me to adjust the angle that the light's will project. When I adjust the angle that the beams intersect and make a perfect 180 Halo Ill set it and use those angles to make the light bar.

Here are some pick's of what I was messing with today.

I to 2 pieces of 3/4 MDF and glued them together to make 3 bars.

I took the Bars and added 3 inch hinge's to them



This is what its gonna look like from under the platform

This is what Im working with. Im adjusting the gap between the lights you can see it gap open and close as I change the angle.




It looks like Im gonna have to put these in the water to see how the beam is gonna spread. The garage floor gives you a idea what going on but not a true sence of what's going on

sence Definition from Wiktionary,

[edit] English
[edit] Noun

sence:

Common misspelling of sense.

Sorry I had to..

All that work to enlighten us on your progress and I feel like I'm back in English class!

About time you chose the right color
Looks great bro! Keep up the nice work.

I poly resin'd the MDF and made a adjustable arm so as soon as I figure out the angle that works I can lock it in and make my aluminum light bar using these angles.

Hate: Thank's for the correction. Keep up your good work contributing to W/W I don’t know what this place would be with out guys like u, LOL

Just curious Grant, Why blue? I understand you to have all red on your boat already, is it because you found blue to project better than red based upon your tests?

Cory: 2 reasons. #1 Shadow-Casters dosnt make a Red underwater light. I was told that Red light is absorbed into water much more than other color's. They need to find a much brighter Red Led to match the blue/white/green they already have. #2 The red lights I have seen look kinda erie. The water looks like Blood. IMO the Blue look more inviting. Yea the blue dosn't go with the red on my boat but I don't care. I hope it looks ok. I have seen a few boats with Red and Blue Led's and it looked kinda cool

Yeah the stuff you do is top notch. I seriously doubt you would do something that looks like crap. I was just curious.

Here are some pool pick's. Mike was nice enough to jump in the pool and adjust the light bar. You can see the gap's in the light close and come together as the light gets further away from the light bar.





The Lights were so bright and the pool so reflectieve you couldn't see the gap's with your own eye. The camera could capture it. We used the photos to adjust the beam

You can see in this pick the gap's are pretty much closed up and the light wraps 180 around.

After the test G had to work off his use of the pool!

Can't wait to see completed light bar. By the way am I the only one that noticed the $8,000 S-Works Transition in his garage. Beautiful bike Grant.

Brandon, You might be the only one other than G to even know that there are 8k bikes and you can identify them so easily!

I noticed the zipp wheels.
Looks good. I just got my 2 s-c Bimini blues last weekend and am going to work out the install soon. Jeff showed me this thread for some inspiration, we'll se if it works. I do miss the lights I had there so hopefully I'll get them on quick.

Wow, looks great. How come you've not gone with red to match the boat?

Am I the only one thinking this install looks way too simply for you grant?! No linear actuators or servos to move the lights around or sound sensors to make them flash with the music??!

I have started using the OceanLED amphibian series lights and love them... They look very similar to the Shadow Casters. We've had great results with them.

Brit, look a few posts up he answers the why no red lights question. I noticed it Brandon but only because he did a thread on it in the non-wake boarding discussion board otherwise I wouldn't have a clue. G, those lights are gonna be so sick they're so bright I'm interested to see them in the real world environment. So are you using aluminum brackets? Is the MDF just for testing? I don't typically correct spelling and grammar but I knew you would take it as a joke.

what about this light bar turning into a water scoop? how close is it to the bottom of the swim platform? You might get a jet stream of water shooting threw the swim platform. What about the wake? I would think this would mess with the rooster tail?

At wake surf speed's I can see the light bar dragging but at anything above that my transome is pretty much out of the water. We will see

Coming along nicely Grant! Gonna be sweet!

I have the "getto" version of of grants light bar. Works pretty good. It does drag at surfing speed, but then again, so does everything else.

I tried up loading pic's. How do you resize them?

Hi Grant sorry to get off topic but I was wondering where you found the LED pucks that are in the bottom of your cup holders.

Thanks, Nick

G, where did you get the oval aluminum bar, I've been comtemplating fabbing up a tower light bar and that would work nice...

Tail: How much do you need I had to buy 21 foot piece. I bought it at West Marine, They had to special order it. Its from a place called Tako Metals. West marine is a dealer

Nick; The pucks are made by Hella. I again bought them at west marine. They are not cheep. But you simply cut a hole in the bottom of the cup holdes and your done

Just back from the fab shop. Im gonna start installing the lights now. I already installed a relay and a switch just for the underwater lights.

Wow, looks great!

One thing, I take it that is raw polished aluminum? Are you going to anodize it or have any kind of finish applied? It'll dull and pit real fast underwater...

Cool project.

So I take it your not really concerned with any pressure the surf wake will put on the light bar & ultimately on the swimstep brackets or transom? No clue how much stress it would be, but might be a lot over time if you surf a lot.
How about installing a plate across the bottom of the light bar that would deflect the water down & behind it? Might act as a sort of trim tab though.

Brit: Im gonna take it apart after I try it out and have it either poweder coated or anodized.

Bill: I have no idea how this thing is gonna effect the wake or react? We never wakesurf in this boat so im not worried about it. But yes I can see your point. I was worried about how much drag this light bar would or is gonna create. I wish the bar could have been smaller or closer to the transome but "it is what it is". This weekend Im gonna try it out Ill let you know how it works

Mike brought up a good point. He said the light bar should drag way less than a wedge in the up position. I know a wedge is way more overbuilt than this but in theroy it shouldnt be a problem. We will see Im keeping my fingers crossed

I assume you would take it for a stress test before
bolting $1800 worth of lights to it - just in case?

Could you weld a plate on the bottom of the light bar that ran almost up to the boat to reduce the drag?

Something like this?

Ooo no! The Air chair engineers have now taken over my project.

Todd, please tell me you added an extra "0" in your post!

HEhe, yea Collin, thats what I was thinking.

Good luck with the water test, Grant! Let us know if you need an underwater camera to get a video of what is going on under there!

I know this is probably a silly question but...

Say you are driving down the road and your boat gets rear-ended...how would it affect insurnace coverage?

Don't think so - these babies are $$$$

from: http://www.binnacletackle.com/Shadowcaster.html

Shadow-Caster Marine LED Underwater Light
Shadow-caster Marine LEDs utilize state-of-the-art high powered LED technology combined with a rugged military design to bring you the best value in marine-grade underwater lighting. Our patent pending technology along with quality of design will surely fill your need for submersible lighting. Our lights are manufactured in the U.S.A. and are inspected to meet the highest standards of quality. If you've always wanted underwater LED lights for your boat, now is the time.
Now Only

$599.00

Shouldn't do anything for coverage, since it's built for the boat and mounted to it, coverage would extend.

Here are some more picks of the install. I finished it last night but was super tired. I fired the lights up and all I can say is Dammmmm. These suckers were so bright I can't wait to dip it in the water.
The instruction's that come with these light's are awesome. They have full size cut out that are great for trying to figure out where you can mount the light.

So all 3 light's are installed in the light bar. All 3 wires come to the end where I made a pig tail. I found this cool Antenna mount made by Blue Sea. It's a waterproof deck mount. The wires come threw this mount.
The gasket go's on first.

Then this ring go's over the gasket and is screwed down.

Then a rubber plug go's over the wire.

Then another cover go's over the rubber plug

Then U bolt it down and it smashes the wire tight

This is the Aqua Signal under water connection it is Bad A$$.




Then I drilled and counter sunk the 1 hole I had to drill into the boat.

Then I 4200'd it

The Aqua Signal diconect @ the back of the boat

Damn dude thats a sick project but I'm sick of you making this schitt look so easy! I actually think it looks pretty good even without being powder coated.

"Don't think so - these babies are $$$$

from: http://www.binnacletackle.com/Shadowcaster.html

Shadow-Caster Marine LED Underwater Light
Shadow-caster Marine LEDs utilize state-of-the-art high powered LED technology combined with a rugged military design to bring you the best value in marine-grade underwater lighting. Our patent pending technology along with quality of design will surely fill your need for submersible lighting. Our lights are manufactured in the U.S.A. and are inspected to meet the highest standards of quality. If you've always wanted underwater LED lights for your boat, now is the time.
Now Only

$599.00"

$499.00 for a limited time! http://www.wakeworld.com/MB/Discus/messages/3183/716738.html?1248173004

Here are last of the finished pick's off to the Lake. Ill take some night time over head pick's

Grant - Again, amazing work. I hope to see it this weekend.

Are you up Friday?

T

Trevor Yea we are comming up tonight. Call my cell phone we can hook up. Im gonna put the boat in the water tonight

Just look up Lake Tulloch on any satellite map tonight, the bright blue spot will be Bling-Bling...

Talked to Grant today about the "drag" affect of the light bar. Anybody that has ever seen a Malibu wedge in the up position will quickly realize that the light bar will not affect the wake or the boat in any way. The light bar hangs no lower than a stowed wedge.

I will expect to see in the water pictures by morning...

Amazing install Grant. Beautifull work as always. Whens the Boat Accesories for Dummies self help book series coming out? You always make all your installs look effortless and super clean!

Im at the Lake now I dropped the boat in last night and fired up the light's DAMMMMMMMM They are so awesome. Way better than I expected. The light is so much brighter than I thought. Ill have the picks up soon. The Marina was super lit up

Wow. Thats pretty impressive, even if it didn't work it would still be badass, lol!

Here are some pick's from Friday night. I was curious to see how much drag is @ the back of the boat and on the light bar itself. The water pressure under the swim deck back by the light bar is hardley anything. I put my hand back there while the boat was under way and diffrent speed's The water is all broken up. Its easy to hold your hand under the water back there Im guessing the water pressure is not much.

Im super happy with the light output and the spread of the light beam. Im going to try and take some picture's from over head. I can pull the boat under the bridge and take photo's shooting down. I wanna try and take some video from another boat to show the wake. At wakesurf speed's the wave all lit up. It would be cool to install some of these on a wakesurf boat and light up the wave. One of my next fun projects was to be to install a battery and some under water LED's in the bottom of a wakesurf board.

WOW! Thats awesome! I can't believe how bright that is!

Robert: I figure you would need like 6 or 8 Baller 3's to make that kind of beam spread. I took photo's from the underwater LED test thread and photo shopped them together to make a 180 and that's what I came up with. Cammera setting have lots to do with what your seeing. I tryed some setting's that made the lights look way brighter than they were. These pick's are very close to what your eye see's. As far as the length that the beam spread its right on.

Awesome project Grant! That bar came out great!

I'm with Robert on the lights! Holy crap those things are way brighter than I thought hey would be!

I think I smell a new project for our surf boat

Now all we need are some "subjects" in the water for the lights to shine upon

Wow Grant... I'm pretty sure you've gotten your boat featured on the Shadow-Caster web page ;-)

Freakin awesome!

Hey Grant - we are surfing tonight, we could use my boat to take photos if you like.

Give me a ring.

T

TABARNAK.

you rock.

Dang son. The red and blue look awesome. Great work and vision.

Insane Grant!!

"G" You are the "King of Bling"
Love it!!
Looks like it's time to work on the Tige'.

I saw this first hand last night, one word; Amazing.

Lite up at least 40 feet all around.

Nice work.

T

How clear is that water?

Im back in the Game. I have a New Computer.

That looks kinda eerie like Jaws is gonna come up from the bottom of the lake. Especially the one with the plants on bottom of lake but it is SUPER SICK. Good job.

you're so getting laid.
A+

Hi my name is G and I have a problem with LED lights..........LOL

That looks insane!

that looks bad A... i would love to do the same thing.... but I am NEVER on the water at night... I always head in at dusk.

The visability at the lake depends on where you are at. In some place's I can see down like 25-to 30 feet. In places where the lake is shallow the light seems to shine real far. We took to boat to a part of the lake that real clear and you can see down pretty far. It was so awesome. Huge rocks under 20 feet down all lit up. The water was so cold at that location (the inlet)there was no way anyone would jump in to take a pick.
H20: I think lights bring another dimention to your boat. When you can light up the water and have some mood lighting around you it make's you wanna go out. A blacked out boat with no lights is a pretty boring ride @ night. I wouldn't wanna go out either. Im pretty suprised at how much I like them.

Thats sick Grant!! Awesome work!

So "G"... Your slowly talking me into it... lol...

Would I be out of line asking the price tag on this bad boy?

I guess you guys are all fans of celebrating mediocrity! JK, thats as bad ass as it gets on a wake boat.

H2O, I have three transom lights and lots of LED's throughout but I only use mine 5 to 10 times per year max. Kinda sad. I do have to leave mine in if I do so that plays a role. If I lived on the lake I'd use them a few times a week.

H20: Its not cheep. I got the light's for the current group buy price. I paid like $180 for the 20 foot long section of aluminum. I paid my buddy like $250 to fab up the light bar and I have like $100 into the Aqua-signal underwater quick disconect and the other hardwear.

You don't need to get into it as deep as I did.I wanted the type of results you see in the pick's. I think after doing it 2 light's on angle would give you some what of the same result's. And 1 light would work perfict for most people. All 3 light's on at the same time pull like 6 amp's. So for people with 1 or 2 battery's 1 light will work perfict at a 2 amp draw. Im pretty sure the 2 light's pointd to the sides do nothing to add to the light going straight back. So with one light you would be able to see as far back as you see in the pick first pick of my last post and light up the water just as much as my boat just not as far to the sides.

Everything looks 1st class... How good of a buddy is the guy who fabed it up? I thought buddies do things for free.... to help out... I guess I need to start chargin!