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I just got through, putting led waterproof blacklights inside the rub rail on my boat. did it myself, and they look and work great. besides being great for night fishing, they are a cool feature that gives your boat a facelift. it cost about 7 or 8 hundred dollars, to have them installed at a dealership. I did 3 strips 38" long on each side. for 170.00 by doing it myself. it's easy to do, so if you have been thinking of getting them, do them yourself and save 600.00:):)
Sounds good got any pictures of it?
I don't have any pictures, but I did make a video of doing mine. and put it on youtube. if you want to see mine, or are thinking of putting blacklights in the rub rail on your boat. go to youtube and watch the video { how to install blacklights in rub rail } it might help when you do yours. if you do yours. it really is simple to do. and works great.:):)Quote:
Originally Posted by CUZZIN
can you post where you got your led blacklights? i have been wanting some and did not know where to purchase them? thanks phillip
very interested as most of my fishing is at night. will they draw the bugs to in the boat down that low or will the black lights make a difference. also to where to purchase and did you hook to your battery or put them, on a switch as well?
Very interesting video thanks for sharing, I see I'm not to far from you so you wouldn't wanna make a little extra on the side and install some for me would ya?;)Quote:
Originally Posted by waterdog101
got mine from { superbrightleds.com } when the page comes up, click on { light bars & strips } then look for the waterproof bars . here are the ones I bought { WFLB96 series 96-led waterproof flexible light bar } and I got the uv blacklight and they were 10 dollars per strip higher than the colored ones. I hope this helps.:)Quote:
Originally Posted by bigfish5
their will always be night bugs where their is a light, but the black lights are different. you will see a few bugs, but very few. and a bat now and then will dart at your fishing line. but they won't bother you. I installed a toggle switch up on the front of my boat, it just needs a hot and ground wire to work. I ran my wires from the fuse box, to the toggle switch. powered with a 3 amp fuse. you can go straight from the battery to the toggle switch, but make sure you place a fuse holder somewhere between the battery and toggle switch. on the hot wire. and as close to the battery as possible. black lights are the only way to enjoy night fishing. I hope this helps.:)Quote:
Originally Posted by Crappiegirl1
sorry, but I don't have the time. really, it's something anyone can do. thats why I made the video, to try and help someone do it by them self. I looked on youtube for a video, before I did mine. but couldn't find one, so I thought one would be of some help to anyone that was doing it them self.:)Quote:
Originally Posted by CUZZIN
Thanks for posting that video Waterdog, makes me wish I had a fiberglass boat with a rub rail instead of my aluminum boat!
thanks, for the kind words. and I have fished for years, from an aluminum boat. and as for catching fish, the aluminum may very well be the best for fishing. I could always put it closer to the rocks and brush. now I have to worry about chips and scratches.:)Quote:
Originally Posted by OkieDon
If your boat is white, every mayfly on the lake will be stuck on the dew in your boat. The last time I was night fishing, the next morning the boat looked like I had it 4wheeling in the mud. Had to stop at the car wash on the way home.
you must not have had a black light, because I've fished for years using a plug in moon glow black light, and very few bugs will be around. now if you try to night fish with a white light, like using a lantern the bugs will be in your eyes and nose so bad you can't stand it. around here the best fishing is at night, while the pleasure boaters, and waverunner riders are asleep. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by brushnjigs
pretty cool install...thanks....here's the link for everybody....
YouTube - how to install blacklights in rub rail
Thanks, Thats Good Stuff,,,
I live in kentucky, and while i was prepping my boat for the spring bite, i thought i'd add a few lights to my boat as well. I ordered the total boat package from bluewaterled and then some. Outfitted my boat led's in all compartments, on decks front and rear, under console, and even on my trailer. Since I own a 17' 2004 Nitro, the boat only had 1 courtesy light unstalled in the side of the single console, this was insuffecient. So I added all the led's. My rig is blue and so are the front and rear deck lights, I installed these led's on a dimmer just incase the leds were too bright for night fishing. Only thing I need now is a black light. Been looking towards the moonlite or the nucle eye led type uv lights. As far as research goes the nucle eye is far superior than all other uv black lights on the market, except for the night fishion rub rail lights, but due to the fact that the night fishion lights price tag, I was looking for something a little less expensive. I' sure the quality of these product are there but with a new mouth to feed in a house of 3 already, you have to have a budget. I installed the bluewaters myself. Was just want to ask you about your diy rub rail lights and their functionality. If you dont live too far from ashland, ky I would like to chek the lights out myself. I have looked at your video and I also have in the past looked at all the pics of the bluewater leds on all websites that people have installed the lights on their rigs. Cameras are different and so the pics dont do the lights justice. Was wondering how the lights have been holding up for you? Do you put a cover on your boat when traveling? Does your cover interfere with the lights, does the cover rub on the lights? Have you bumped your rail against the docks and it not hurt your lights? How many times have you used your lights on a good nights fishing? Have any of the individual bulbs burned out since your initial install? Do the bulbs protrude through the holes you drilled into your rub rail or are they flush with the edge of your rail. I pm'd you to try and get your number and have a lot more questions to ask you about your install. I can vouch for the bluewater leds and they truly are worth the money I invested and worth their weight in gold. How do the strips you installed compare the the old fashioned flourescent fixtures. How far can you see your line, are the strips you bought more powerful than the flourescents? How far off the bank are your led still effective. Wish you would give me a call. Wanting to install the rubrail lights just as you have just a little hesitant. So far you are the guinnea pig for this diy project and hope they are holding up for ya, I too would like to save myself a few hundred bux if i can do this myself. thanx c.
So many questions, I'm so confused.....Quote:
Originally Posted by ripoffwhitey
sounds like you have your boat well lit. these lights that I installed on my boat, do a good job. I've been off work all spring, and have been fishing 2 and 3 nights a week. and fish all night when I go. so far the lights are holding up good. and they come through the rub rail and are flush with the outside. the cost for the strips I installed were, 27.00 per strip. each strip was 38" long and had 96 lights in them. the lights were about 1/4 inch in diameter. and they light your line up good fishing about 30 feet from the bank. I am well pleased with my lights. I live about 3 hours from ashland, and you are welcome to come and see mine. we can go fishing if you would like. and you can check them out. ps. I'm supposed to return to work sometime in the next 2 weeks, so if you want to see the lights on the water, it would work best in the next few days. I almost forgot your question about the cover and bumping the dock. I fish alone most of the time, and while I'm parking my truck. my boat bumps the dock alot. but I never cover it with a cover. I do have the cover that came with it when it was bought new. it's stored in a storage container. I have the full cover for the boat, the motor cover, and the spare tire cover. all just like new. used them about 4 times and put them in the storage container. I know a lot of fishermen will read this, so I posted the boat cover on here. someone my be looking for a cover like this. it's red and white. I hope this helps you. waterdog.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crappie Reaper
Appreciate your response. After reading your posts on several fishing forums I figured you were on to something. Was wondering if you had any problems at all with your installation. I am an electrician by trade, and I know for a fact that I can mimic the contenders system, matching it exactly with the materials you have listed in your posts. Thought it was kinda strange that when you introduced your version on other forums you didnt get much feedback, I think thats because you have elliminated the middle man in your case. I'll go ahead and order the lights that you have suggested and then some, I usually tend to over do it myself. thinking about doing what you have and adding a blue strip in the center on each side for trolling down the bank. sounds like that the light dispersion of your strips is about the equilivent of that of the leading competition like moonlite, nucle eye, and night fishion. I think that what you did was not only ingenious, but extremely practical and economical. Appreciate you getting back with me, also appreciate you inviting me to let me tag along with you one nite. As a fellow angler and human, I applaud your ingenuity and resourcefulness, dont know why you dont get much feed back on your idea, think its mainly because everyone is trying to get the competition more business. I have followed you through about half a dozen fishing forums and most people dont seem interrested. I think that you did a great job. Hope I can do just as good as you. Was hoping that the strips have stood up to normal use. Was kinda sketchy about the manufacturer, never ordered from them before, was looking to see what people had to say about their products. If you had to do it all over again would you install these on a new boat if you got one? was it worth it? since you fish with these strip lights do you still have the old stand bys working as well or do you solely rely on your rub rail lights for fishing at night. Just wanting you to talk me into doing this system for myself. Want to make sure that it will be worth it. CONVINCE me.
first let me say, I don't want to talk anyone into installing rub rail lights. you have to decide were or not to install them for your self. but to answer your question, yes if I bought a new boat, I would install the same lights on it. I would install two, on and off switches, instead of one. so as to use one side at a time or both at the same time. that would be the only changes I would make. like I said before, I'm well pleased with my lights. they look and work great. I didn't want to spend 800.00 for a job, I could do myself for less than 200.00 so I made a video when I did mine, and posted it on youtube. so if any one wanted the lights in their rub rail, and didn't want to invest 800.00 or couldn't afford that much. they could watch my video and do it themself for much less. the only reason for the youtube video, was to help someone get the lights and save themself some money. for anyone reading this, and don't know about the video. go to youtube and type in, { how to install blacklights in rubrail on boat } this is very easy to do yourself. hope this helps.Quote:
Originally Posted by ripoffwhitey
plan on ordering strips for my boat after the holiday weekend. I think I'll put half a blue strip on each side of the boat about the middle to have visible light for throwing to structure. I can hook the blue lights alone into the same dimmer I have all my deck lights attached to. The dimmer works great for those who might think all that light would affect their night vision. Killed that bird dead in the head. Cant figure out why these set ups havent made it to cabelas or bass pro by now. I know for a fact that the led's on my boat right now kicks the **** out of any and I mean any factory installed lighting on any boat made, there is no comparison. Like I said all my compartments, livewells, storage, bilge area, and even my trailer are screaming with led's. And they by far out shine, out last and out perform anything any boat manufacutrer out there puts on their rigs. Where did you get the idea from? Sounds like you make a few trips to florida each year. Heard that the led's are taking off pretty good down there as well, lake okeechobee. Been there myself a few times, great fishing. 30' to me sounds like equal distance for any flourescent fixture out there. For those who are reading--dont care who you are or what you use, you cant beat the leds, my rig is smokin' you should hear all the comments that I get from my set up at the lake, it kinda makes em take 2 steps back before they ask me who did my lights.
Waterdog, my hats off to ya buddy, again thanx for all your information and you made a great video, dont think anyone wanting to do this for themselves will have any trouble with the install, rub rail has plenty of room inside for everything to go neat and clean. Hope you catch plenty of fish with your lights. thanx again....c.
went ahead and ordered 6 uv strips and 2 blue for lighting up the bank, couldnt stand it had to order them. c.
Nice job.
Waterdog, thank you very much for a very interesting post and video. I fish from an aluminum boat, Tracker Pro Crappie 175, and just went to the garage to check the bump rail. It doesn't go all the way around the bow, but does run down each side. I'll look to see if these light will fit in there.
havent received the rub lights yet. and will test to determine if they truly are worthy of installation and desecration of my beloved rub rail, new one is like 100bux. I do however have my doubts to the intensity of the silicone encased lights. From my experience with leds you get a more intense light if the lense is clear. In the case of the superbright strips the lenses are clouded due to the fact that they are encased in silicone or some other waterproof material. Removing the encapsulation from just the portion of the lense that is positioned flush with your rail would be too much of a pain on 800 individual bulbs. Lets just hope that the intensity is enough to authorize rub rail deformation. Point is that since all my current lights are "integrated" as part of the boat I would like to continue this trend with the rub rail lights. Non integral components are just something else to baby sit. I prefer integral vs non integral components thats why my wallet and car keys are on a chain. When the strips get here I plan on simulating rub rail performance by setting up the strips covering all but what would normally be exposed when installed in the rail so as to not get confused by having enough light from the strips before installation, and not having enough when installed, due to the fact that just the head of the lens is the only thing exposed when actually installed. Leds are very bright, but disperse fairly close. Visible light from leds are noticably more intense and true to color more than incandescent lights, but most of the time the incandescent lighting will travel farther than the leds. But since we are focusing on lighting up pretty much just your fishing line because the human eye really cant process uv light very well, hopefully the effectiveness of the uv stips that waterdog has mentioned on numerous forums will actually perform and be effective up to 30'. This distance will be more than enough for my night time adventures, for that matter I'm lucky to be fishing further than 30' off the bank during the day time. Im not trying to disprove w'dogs ingenuity, I am also into saving myself a little extra cash with a little elbow grease. Most people wouldn't even attept a project such as this mostly due to little to no electrical experience, but most of the time as long as you're using your head, you can amaze yourself with what you can accomplish. After spending the cash on the rail lighting system I'm going to make darn sure that this is going to do the job or am I going to have to spend just a tad more and get the nucli-eye led light? Maybe if the light strips dont impress me, i'll just can the whole idea or put it off til I can go with a couple of peeps that night fish to justify my spending. Who knows, but I can assure you that after I test the strips for myself that I'll let you all know about it. :D
WOW I hope it works out for you
Hows come none of you other guys on here have attempted this project? Is it because you dont fish at night? Already have uv lights that you've been using in the past? Hmmm, or maybe is it because of the leds being relatively new technology that puts you in doubt of maybe your old stand by is out dated but gets the job done? Just wondering....c.
received lights today, very well packaged. leads on both ends are nice due to the fact that I'll be cutting the 2 blue strips in half. The blue strips are hella bright, no doubt that these babies will be bright enough. The uv lights are dull, but then again, I lit them up during the daytime in the garage, also uv is kinda hard to detect any way. Just have to wait til its dark outside this evening before work to test and see if the uv's will be strong enough to make my line glow sufficiently up to 30' like w'dog said. Altogether I bought 8 strips--6-uv and 2-blue. The blue will act as the moon glow lights just like the competition. Now to determine if I actually want to switch each side separately or not, or to tie the moon glows into my deck lighting package because those lights can be dimmed. So many choices man. Guess I can go ahead and run all the wires and decide when I get all the leads back at the console where the switches will be installed anyway. The strips look very well constructed due to the silicone encapsulation. The leading competition strips look very much the same as the superbright models. I believe each led is the 5mm type led. At 1000mcd for the blue per led, that is kinda below the intensity of the individual leds I have purchased in the past from besthongkong.com, think they were something like 5000mcd per led, but since the leds from superbright are encapsulated this basically frosts the lens, so your light would be dispersed if you had made the strip yourself, you would have had the same problem. I thought also that lights might not be sufficient enough when installed into the rub rail. When I fired the strips up individually, I was pleasantly surprised to see that there is almost no glow from the sides or the rear of the strip. So if you might have been thinking of using these strips on something else you cannot redirect the light emmitting from the sides or rear of the leds in the strip, meaning you cant salvage any light emitting from some place other than the front of the strip because there is none to salvage. Cant wait to get started, like I said before I really need to test the uv a little more before I decide to start drilling my beloved railing. All in all I'm really impressed in the blue, we'll see about the uv. I did however check the specs out on the uv led's from best hong kong and it seems to me that the uv leds in the superbright strips are about the same as the ones from best hong kong. They dont have an mcd rating on the uv bulbs only the wavelength 400+nM is all that I gather from either site. Dont wish to pursue wavelengths on visible light, just want to see if the uv will be strong enough. For some reason I think that even if 1 strip isnt enough I think that 6 strips should be fine, more strips=more light. Holla bak
would like to discuss the led lighting with you are u still on the forums?
Sorry havent found much net material on lights, had to just go for it. Glad I did, installed the uv and threw in some pretty blue ones as well. To let U all know if they work....first time I had boat out to test them which has been a while ago, my spot light went out on me half way back to the ramp, sure glad I put the blue lights in there, didnt have to worry about running into anything. Funny thing was that I only installed 200 blue lights, if I would have put 100 more lights on my rig, I would be comfortable letting my 6yr old swim outside around the boat at 2am, prolly gonna install the 100 extra lights this winter.
R u using them for nite fishing?
I sure am. I work shift work at a local steel mill, and usually go fishing on a whim. Spent too many times getting run off the lake by not being able to see my gear,tackle, and where I was fishing. They work great.
Thnks going to email as u suggested
Waterdog,
The Youtube video is no longer there. Did you take it down?
x2!!Quote:
Originally Posted by cricket chunker