LED boat lighting - thoughts/suggestions

In my opinion, LED lighting is one of the coolest things to come out for small boats. They are very efficient, use very low wattage and make minimal heat. (at least the good ones do) So you can have lots of light and not worry about running your battery down and getting stranded.


I rig boats as part of my job. (I have my own shop, but I also do rigging work for local marinas) So I see lots of lights. I personally am not the most creative person, and I generally design things for function. But some customers come in with amazing light plans that are just cool-looking. Stuff I would have never thought of. Layered light of multiple colors, that are very impressive at night. Of course, I learn a lot from these customers.

But if you night fish, there are a couple of things to consider. I always recommend is having"work" lights and "show" lights.

"Show Lights"
Blue, purple, green, and high-freq white LED lights are high-frequency colors, and make very cool accent lights, but are tiring to your eyes after awhile, and they destroy your night vision. So those are mainly for looks.

Red is a low frequency light, but looks very good when contrasted with the above colors. But it's not easy to see by for many, so it's not a great work light. (but some like red light, as it's best for protecting your night vision) So it can be both a show light and a working light.

"Work Lights"
Amber is a lower frequency color, protects your night vision, and doesn't tire your eyes. Amber is a very good work light color for night fishing. It's kind of a blah color, so not used for show much. Again, some choose red light in this application, but I've never had one single person come back and say they didn't like the amber, once installed. To the contrary, many thank me, although they had reservations at first.

And of course, Soft White (2700-3500K) is the best task light color. (Avoid the bluish 6500k lights, as they are very piercing at night.) SOMETIMES, offset white light is the best floor lighting color, especially if you have black or very dark carpet. This would apply in many crappie boats.

Here is a picture showing two different amber lights in a saltwater boat. The one to the left is yellow, the one to the right is a true amber. Both work, but the amber is a little easier on the eyes:
Attachment 309137


Placement
Light placement is JUST as important as light color if not MORE important.
In my opinion, all lighting should be offset, or shielded, with a few exceptions. So mounting your lights under lips and ledges is an important part of planning. If they must be mounted on a vertical or horizontal surface, a shroud or cover to direct the light is very helpful to make it look it's best. Not many people like looking directly at the diodes!

One exception is when the light has a lens to direct the light. The round or oval cockpit lights you often see can be modified for LED use, and they work pretty good with amber lighting. Here is how they turn out:
Attachment 309138


General Lighting Plan Example
The light plan that I often install is all about function. It's a 2-4 switch system.

Switch 1 is for offset floor lighting, as shown in the pics above. Mounted under the gunnels and hidden in other spots, usually facing down, these light up the floor and step up areas of the boat. These are the ones that you will likely leave on the most. Easy on the eyes, and bright enough to see everything, so you aren't tripping all over the place.

- Switch 2-4 are for white "task lights" that are used briefly for tying knots or other times where you need to see something clearly. Some are pretty powerful lights, but I usually mount a low power one under the console. Turn it on to tie your knot or read something, and turn it off. Some boats have only the one, some boats have several.

And then you move on to the show lights. These can be placed anywhere that looks good! It's pretty cool to launch the boat all lit up at the dock. People will say "Wow," if done correctly. Then once you are ready, you turn these lights off, and disappear into the night. Pretty cool.

One last thought... most appreciate having a 18w LED floodlight mounted on a 1.25" PVC pole that plugs into your cigarette lighter socket and fits in a rod holder for those times you want to light up the water or the inside of the boat. I personally have two of these that I use at night for crabbing or drawing in bait and they work great! Then we use them while cleaning the fish at the dock.

Again, this is all my personal opinion, but I hope it is helpful to someone.

Feel free to comment or add your thoughts.

-Tony

Good write up, and I agree with the vast majority of it, but I do not agree with you regarding green light harming your night vision. I have a green LED light that I use for night killing coyotes on our farm and it has never bothered my night vision.

Good call!

In my experience, some green lights are "smooth" and don't hurt your eyes. The ones used for hunting are a good example of this. But most of the marine LED's that we have gotten are a "harsh" piercing green, especially if it catches your eyes directly.

So I have to agree with you, depending on the actual light itself. So green lights might be good for floor lighting, too. Not many have requested green for floor lighting, so I'll have to rig a couple in my boat to see how I like them. I just got in a batch of red/green strips used for navigation lights that I can test out

And before anyone comments on that, you CAN use strip LED's for nav lights, as long as they have a 1-2 nm brightness, and as long as you mount them so they can be seen from 0-112.5 degrees. It's fairly easy to do on V-bottoms, but not so easy on flat/square bows. Better to buy a combo light or side-mount red/green Nav. LED's for those.

I have the red /green nav lights on the bow of my Lund. When I added the trolling motor the factory nav light was slightly blocked. So the led strips had 3M sticky backing, it wasn't the greatest. I used door body molding tape and it has held 2 seasons. I did clean and let dry the surface . Now I have white blue lights for the inside. What is good for the sticky back lights to keep them in place?

What we do is first sand the area with 400 grit wet/dry. Then we spray a coat of 3M 90 adhesive to the surface, and let it dry before applying the light. After that, we seal around the ends with E6000 clear sealer/adhesive. Then we tell the customer to remember to press the lights down several times over the first couple of weeks, and when they think of it. IF a spot gets loose, use the E6000 to re attach.

Since going to this method, no lights have been lost. Only over a period of 2-3 years though...

IMO, the problem with most of the green led boat lights are that they have too many Lumens. My hunting light is "only" 175 lumens. That's still bright, but the light isn't being refelected off the boat floor.

I used green LED's on my boat as floor and deck lighting, placing the lights under the gunwale. If I can remember to do so, I'll post a picture of them.

You are probably right about that.

Most of the lights we use for deck lighting are only 50-100 lumens each. Multiple smaller intensity bulbs spread out for a pleasing lighting effect.

I turned on one of the green LED's, and it was not good on the eyes. But that is a high-intensity light, not what we would typically use.

-TH