I am about to have roughly 20 different led pods and strips in my boat. I am curious what would be the easiest way to wire it.I have a acc. switch on my dash that is not being used so i going to get power from that. So should i run one wire from that around the whole boat and then just tie into in the different spots the led's are, and do the same for a ground wire. Next option run each led and its positive and negative wires all up to the front of the boat under the dash and tie all in there. Can anyone give me some idea's on an easy way to do this or how you did it.Thanks in advance

one set of wires around the whole boat. I can even imagine the mess from all of those wires runing up under your dash. scares me just thinking about it

One wire around with all tied in was how i did it, works ok so far. I did put an inline fuse in just in case between the switch and the power source.

I just cut the wires off of the stock interior lights and wired in the LED's so I didn't have to run a new switch and then just spliced in lengths of wire to get me to the other locations ie cup holders and to my 2-2" color changing LED bars under the side gunnels. The lights are tied in with the Navi lights.

ahh reminds me of christmas time. I wouldn't want to troubleshoot a single circuit but then again the wire mess of one pair for each light either.

Dave - you can do that? Thats what I wanted to do, but it just seemed too easy. Did you have to get certain gauge wire for the branchs to your cup holders? Certain sized LEDS for the interior light locations? Did you follow the existing wire path with a different gauge wire for the LEDS or did you just splice in the LED at the interior light location?

20awg wire will be plenty, leds only consume 20-30mA, id wire in parallel to prevent one led taking out the whole system

One LED going out won't take out the whole system, at least it didn't on mine when a pod failed and mine are all on one power/ground string.

Exactly it wont since that setup is in parallel, series setup would have...

One burnt out light won't take everything out. <BR> <BR>Ted- yes you can do that and it is easy. I just spliced in to the interior wiring. I literally left a few inches so I could always splice back at a later date if I wanted to and spliced right in the OEM wiring.

I did the same with other lights and just used good quality male/female connectors so i could re-connect the factory wiring at any time.

What type LED light did you replace your interiors with?

I am sure most of us have a Anchor/Nav light receptacle at the back of the boat that is unused since we have a tower light.. Couldn't you tap into that wiring so it is already on the nav lighting switch? <BR>Just a thought> Also, since my switch is a 2 way switch (1 is both nav light on front and anchor light and other is just anchor light..) you could turn on interior lights with only the anchor light....

My switch is for All Navi and interior lights together. The stern light is just a plug that lights regardless of what's on or not.

Thanks for all the help guys.Ended up running 18 gauge wire. Positive from my acc switch to a inline fuse and then all around the whole boat along with the ground.Only made it up the one side as i waiting for more led's to arrive

where did you buy your led's from?

<a href="http://superbrightleds.com/index.htm" target="_blank">http://superbrightleds.com/index.htm</a> for the waterproof strips that i used and about to order the rest from <a href="http://www.led-concepts.com" target="_blank">www.led-concepts.com</a>

Weren't people having problems with <a href="http://www.led-concepts.com?" target="_blank">www.led-concepts.com?</a>

someone please respond to the post above me cause i about to order several tomorrow <BR> <BR>(Message edited by sscott0203 on October 04, 2007)

Seth i got the exact same stuff from Plasmaleds as led-concepts has for a lot less. If i remember right i got four of the 5 light pods for $28 and he shipped fast. Here's the link; <a href="http://www.plasmaled.com/ledpods.htm" target="_blank">http://www.plasmaled.com/ledpods.htm</a>

ya wow that is very cheap compared to led-concepts are you happy with the led's you got from them?

They are all the same from what i can see. They've been working all year just fine so far.

I am working on getting these guys up to speed on a few boat offerrings, cupholders, speaker rings, underplatform kits, etc. <BR> <BR><a href="http://www.oznium.com" target="_blank">www.oznium.com</a> <BR> <BR>They are in California local to me. I have a few of their products, so far I have been quite happy.