Best $20 LED Mod Ever

Last week i spent 20 bucks on 4 hood pin switches and 5 LED lights. These are the LEDs.




I then installed a hood pin switch on the back hatch of my engine compartment (it is one piece) and also installed on on the seat back of my observer seat. When they are opened the lights come on!

Basically the way it works is when the pin is pushed down it disrupts the ground to the lights. When it is let go it enables the ground and the lights come on.

In the engine compartment there are three of the LED bricks which makes it quite bright in there. Under the obserever seat there is one light and when that switch is activated it also turns on a light above the drivers kickpanel. This should make finding stuff alot easier when the sun goes down!

Nice! I like it simple and effective. It would be great to see a post on tips for under $50

I love it!

Looks great!!

Great idea!!!

I'm curious if the back side of the light board is sealed? I wouldn't mind giving this a try, but wonder how well it will keep moisture out of the electrics?

Originally Posted by FastR3DN3K

I'm curious if the back side of the light board is sealed? I wouldn't mind giving this a try, but wonder how well it will keep moisture out of the electrics?

Dont be such a worry wart! lol its twenty doll hairs, you spend more on sunscreen every two weekends!

^lol^

Wow, great idea! Might just have to try this. Where did you buy the lights?

The lights are from ebay. I just searched for LED dome lights.

They came with 3m double sided tape on the back of them so you could stick them about anywhere. I positioned them in places that would keep them out of harms way when it comes to water/other objects.

can you provide info on the hood pin switch?

How about a link to the parts you purchased?

Thanks,
Greg

Originally Posted by bass10after

Dont be such a worry wart! lol its twenty doll hairs, you spend more on sunscreen every two weekends!

I know it don't seem like much, but when you've got 4 different projects going on like I do with a full delete setup on a Cummins build, a hypermile project TDI, a custom bike build, and the boat upgrades, $20 matters in the off season.

Also, how are they powered? Did you hook them up to their own batteries? Or tie it into the boat battery?

Nice... my boat came with lights in the lockers, behind the observer seat, and engine compartment. They turn on with my courtesy lights. Good idea though!

Ok a little more details. They are wired into my fuse block that i installed before my ballast install. But could be directly wired to any constant 12v power.



What you basically do is run a positive and negative from the power source to the switch. The (-) wire from the power source goes to one of the contact points on the switch. (Labeled with arrows below). You then take the (+) wire from the light and connect it to the (+) wire from the power source. The (-) wire from the light goes to the unused contact point on the switch.

When the switch is pushed down the contact points cant make a connection. When it is released the metal connects and completes the circuit and voila - light.


My compartments also have courtesy lights but they are red and require the ignition of the boat to be on and me to push a button. This is much easier and downright cool!

Nice project. A quick E-bay search and I found the hood pin switches.


http://www.ebay.com/bhp/hood-pin-switch

Ya i got all the stuff from ebay

So can you leave your hatches open say overnight while the boat drys, and it not kill a battery?

I would imagine it woudnt pull much battery but my plan for leaving hatches open is to just unplug the bottom wire of the switch. It literally takes 2 seconds to locate and unplug, that was oneof my first concerns!

You could always put it on a switched connection.....

That would work too, doesnt bother me for my application but would work fine for somebody else

I've been searching for the LED's. Can't seem to find them. Anyone have a link?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/5x-12V-Car-4...b7ea2c&vxp=mtr


There you go, thats what i used but you can put whatever lights you want

Thanks - ordered them!

Nice mod. I have also done a 12v 12" cold cathode neon in place of LEDs as well triggered to hood pins. I did that on an actual car and had it triggered by the hood pin so I would have a neon under hood light to work in the engine bay. This thread reminded me of it. It's another cool option, and those normally have a sensor in them that you can make them light up with the bass as well.

in my searching for hood pins I came across this. I am not positive it will work, but it seems right.
Experts - please let me know if this is right. ???
http://www.parts-express.com/nickel-...ProductDetails

That will work, in the way that you will have the lights groubded and have this serve as an interrupt for the power, or vice versa. It's basically a break in the line that gets connected when it's open.

i think "pin switch" would yield better search results

We love it when people get inventive with LED's. NICE WORK MAN

http://lifeformled.com/

I just searched eBay for LED Dome Lights as suggested and bought a 10 pack for $11.60 and free shipping. Thanks for the post.

Here's a unique one for LED's. We have invented an LED dock bumper to protect your dock and boat while providing light to come in. Check it out. LEt us know what you think. One time only low prices to help fund the project!!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...ne-dock-bumper

^^^Zach might want to pay for advertising! ^^^

Nice work. These are the threads on WW that I enjoy looking at and we have gotten away from. Instead we just have pi$$ing matches about who's boat is better.

Zach those dock lights are sick! Definitely have a little bit of trouble coming into the docks at night even with our LED tower lights on. Shoot me an e-mail, adamholdsworth224 (at) gmail .... interested to hear what kind of marketing strategy y'all are aiming at right now and the full product lineup and plans for the future.

Originally Posted by downfortheride

^^^Zach might want to pay for advertising! ^^^

Josh- We plan on advertising here but we would like to have an open discussion about the product> it is brand new, and we believe this demographic would benefit/enjoy it greatly. Any questions, comments, suggestions??? We would love to hear about it.

Originally Posted by holdsworth

Zach those dock lights are sick! Definitely have a little bit of trouble coming into the docks at night even with our LED tower lights on. Shoot me an e-mail, adamholdsworth224 (at) gmail .... interested to hear what kind of marketing strategy y'all are aiming at right now and the full product lineup and plans for the future.

Thanks Adam! We will definitely be contacting you tomorrow. Love the enthusiasm.

We plan on advertising here but we would like to have an open discussion about the product

So you come on to a guys website that is his entire life and income and ask for money?

Josh, nothing wrong with a little marketing for a new product/startup. If they were blasting prices around on their products and being more of an infomercial, that's the time to throw the red flag up. Less asking for money and more just asking for support, Dave, hopefully, won't mind something like that especially since they plan on advertising here eventually. Gotta have advertising dollars in the form of startup capital to advertise That's the beauty of Kickstarter.