LED swim platform lights

I know this topic is kind of beating a dead horse...but does anyone have a link for some reasonably priced WATERPROOF LEDs similar to what "G" did on his Nautique?

Thanks

superbrightleds.com

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n70/cgtigerlilly/boat005_2.jpg

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n70/cgtigerlilly/photos4110.jpg

(Message edited by my_malibu on January 12, 2009)

Craig,
Did you power the lights like Grant did, by energizing the platform brackets? I think I have the same lights you have pictured. How did you attach them to the platform? Thanks, and sorry for the hijack.

No worries. Good question. I wasn't sure whether to drill through the hull or energize the platform

I got the LED pucks from Mike. He got them from China I don't remember what he paid for them.

I think with the Bullet Lines rear facing or Transom mounted under water LED lights your gonna get much better results. I didnt know about them when I did my'n. I was parked next to Paul at the BUMP event. He has a X-star with the rear facing underwater lights. When he turned his on they did a way better job at lighting the water than my'n
No comparison IMO. You might be able to get the individual LED's for cheeper than the Bullet Lines under water LED but your gonna save time installing the Bullet Line's one and its gonna work way better. Save your time and money and get the rear facing one just my 2c

i've been wondering if you put the pucks facing backwards if they would have a better result and shine further. any thoughts?

power comes off the swim step mounting bracket
grant is right these led create a glowing effect around the swim step and about 3-4 of the wake when moving if you what more of the wake lighted go with the transom mounted
my swim step $100 all materials
bakes transom leds $300 a set

Eric,

Send me an email or give me a call, and I'll hook you up with a great deal.

BTW.. We tested both the swim deck and transom LEDs when in the R&D phase, and we found the same results as "G"



Thanks,

Ken Land
Bullet Lines
kland@bulletlines.com
www.bulletlines.com

I have the same set up as Craig Class above with 18 pucks of led's. I get about 14" glow all around my swim platform, more when moving as they are out of the water. It looks great don't get me wrong but I'm sure the rear facing transom lights glow out a lot further. I would do transom lights if I re did mine for sure.

Either way it looks rad as hell!

From what I've seen the Bullet Lines transom lights are basically The $h|t I saw a boat with just one on there and it's just as bright as the 18 LED pods under my platform

OK Ken,
Would a second group buy be in order? I didn't take part in the first one, and I know it turned into a fiasco with certain latecomers. Thanks.

Does anyone have any pictures of their boats with the Bullet Lines lights. I spoke to Bullet Lines, and they don't have any sample pics. I would like to see what I am concidering, before I buy.

check out the installation video...

http://www.yachtlights.com/item--Ocean-LED-Amphibian--amphibian

I started getting intrested in the rear facing LED mod. I started looking around and found quite alot of diffrent styles of these high powerd LED light's. Mike and I have decide to do a "Test" Mike used to be a Lighting contractor and has lots of exp with light's. He has been helping me sort threw all the information. All the information on the lights, all it's done is make choosing alight more confusing???? IMO you simply cant pick a light off the numbers that they give you. Its all subjectyieve how are they coming up with these numbers? You have to see it first hand right next to other lights to decide what's brightest or best for your boat.
We are gonna get a few diffrent lights and mount them in a box and place the box in the water about 2-3 feet underwater at (tulloch) I would say the water visibilty is @ this time of the year 5-10 no problem. Then one by one we can turn the lights on and take a overhead photo and see if we can overlap the photos to see what's the BOMB! You Decide.
Right now we have a set of "White" Bullet lines
We have a "Blue" Ocean LED. It would be nice if we could get a "Blue" Bullet lines LED. Im in the process of getting a few more underwater LED's to test. If you have a underwater LED to test Please get ahold of me so we can include it. Ill post all the results including Power draw and amp's. We are testing "Blue" so if you have one let us know. The winner of the Light showdown will end up on the back of my boat (the Bling Bling)! LOL Any help with getting lights to test would be awesome. Thank you

Grant,
You never cease too amaze me!

PM sent Grant.

Hey Mike: That company you e-mail'd me doesnt work.
Does anyone have a Blue Abyss or Bullet that they will lend us for the test?

The web site address didn't work, or the light is not what you wanted?

web sight

Sorry, try this: http://shadow-caster.com/

Cool that worked. Hey here is a good example of what Im talking about.
Check out this picture.
http://shadow-caster.com/images/sc_pics/sc_bbgirls2.jpg
The light is a glowing light it shines back a few feet further than the swim deck. In other pictures it show the light shining way back there, Is this a brighter light? Is this a cammera trick? Is the water more clear in one picture than the other. Look at this picture
http://www.wakemagic.com/images/WakeMagic-Top-Cat.jpg
the light is going back alost 20 feet. This is why I wanna do a test. If I had the lights I could test them head to head under the same conditions

Tigemike, you have any idea of the cost on those shadow casters?

John, PM sent.

MSRP is $599

Grant, Your test may have flaws if all the lights have a different # of LEDS. As your buddy Mike the lighting contractor must know, it's all about the lumens. The more LEDS in a light the more lumens it will put out. So if you want a light to cast a longer beam under water it has to have more LEDS. Some of the companys posted above only offer one light fixture.
Just sayin'

I think the end result is going to give us a winning light setup with the best brightness / buck. I doubt many people will buy a pair of $600 lights for their boat, no matter how many LEDs they have. But I imagine lots of guys will install a pair of $125 lights if they have good color & intensity.

Thanks G for finally putting some of these things head to head. Don't forget to compare the stock Malibu lights too.

any one know if you place the waterproof pucks, like what craig glass used, facing out if they would shine out farther

never tried it
I get warned every time the lights are on
In washington blue lights are illegal
now they tell me

The right kind,

You are completely incorrect. Each LED is rated for a certain number of lumens. So some 6 light setups can be much brighter than an entire platform of LED's. As discussed above.

As we all know, someone pulls a number out of their rear end and puts that number of lumens on the product. It would not surprise me the least if the brightest light we see in Grant's test is not the one with the highest lumen rating.

G - I am eagerly awaiting your head to head comparison. Hopefully you can get it done soon.

It really comes down to two factors, the amount of light emitting from the source and width of the beam from the light emitter. It would be extremely easy if the manufacturers provided these two factors, better yet I could easily model the test results if they provided the IES (Illuminating Engineering Society) test file.

Lumens, lux or Candela are the preferred units of light power, beam spread is typically expressed in degrees.

Units like footcandle or luminance are the perceived light levels on a surface. These units are somewhat irrelevent in our case since there is no standard for water reflectivity.

I have heard statements like "this light will shoot 50' of light". Sure, it might in perfectly clear water, but I doubt it would shoot 5' in the muddy delta (I have been underwater with my scuba light and it's nearly ineffective in the delta). This leads to another issue, do you want light on the water or light under the water? You should not try to get both. As you light the surface of the water with underplatform LEDs you are likely to diminish the effect of the underwater transom LEDs. Come this summer I will have both once I get my underwater transom LEDs installed. I intend to have them on seperate switches. When I go to the lake in clear waters I will probably use the underwater transom lights, when I go to the delta I will probably use my underplatform lights.

Like other tests we have done, I don't expect to get crazy with controls. There will likely be those that may not like the results. We will do our best to be subjective and fair.

This test is a pretty easy one. Set the camera on the tripod in manual mode with fixed parameters, screw the light to a board, hook the light to a constant source voltage, stick it at a standard depth, take the picture, compare the pictures. I guess if we want to get fancy we may do something underwater like stretching a slalom rope along the beam path so you can see how far the light goes?

Ever wonder why all of the advertisements you see for these underwater lights are shown in clear shallow saltwater like the Florda keys???

Another thing:
Some lights have a reflector behind the light and some lights have a
Lens in front of the light. I have heard the lights that have either of the 2 are called "lights with optic's" these optic's can focus and or help spread the light beam.

Most of the cheeper light's don't seem to have a reflector or lens. Im guessing that there will be 2 types of light's when the test is done. The under $200 lights and the Over $200 lights.
These high powerd lights are what Im real intrested in. Im guessing the under $200 lights are gonna light up and around the swim deck and mabey back a few feet. Im guessing the high powerd lights with optics are the ones that are gonna light up the water. It will be interesting to test the diffrent light's that claim to be 600 to 800 Lumes. There are a few on my radar that are all real close in lumes but miles apart in price and build.
Why is one light $500 and another $160. If the Light that is $160 and is as bright as the $500 then we have a winner.

Does anyone know if the abyss led lights r any good r they worth the money im looking at close to $1,000 to have 2 installed

$1,000 wtf ? Dude go with the Bullet Lines lights and save yourself a $h|t ton of money

Robert: That's what our test is supposed to find out. I have seen the Abyss lights for like $200 each and the Bullet Lines lights for $170 each. The 2 lights seem to be close in construction. It will be intresting to see the diff between the 2 in the test.

G,

The only light I know of in the same class as ours is the Abyss 600. LEDs with optics like the Abyss 800 dramatically increase in price $400.00.. We will be producing an LED w/optics within 60 days. Bullet Lines price will be $299.99 each.

Robert,

Do the installation yourself, and you will save $$. I can install 2 lights in less than 2 hrs..


Ken Land
Bullet Lines
www.bulletlines.com

Ken: the Abyss 600 is what your Bullet lines light is supposed to go up againt's

The Abyss 800 has the Optic in front of the LED's
your light will have the same?

Here is a pic of our new High Power LED with optics and propreitary heat dispersion technology. Ours will of course step it up by producing over 600 Lumens at 18w and 12.5v compared to the Abyss 450 Lumens at 18w and I assume 12.5v: You can clearly see the optics in this picture.



Thanks,

Ken Land
Bullet Lines
www.bulletlines.com

(Message edited by bulletlines on January 19, 2009)

Ken!!! Those look great!!! And the price is right too! What colors will be out with this product?

Looks good!

Ken,

Can you run these dry, or do they need to be underwater for cooling?

will there be a group buy on these

Ken that looks nice. The way the light look's to me is it has reflectors behind the LED's (kind of like a car head light) is this what you are calling the "optic's" or does it have the reflectors AND and lens in front of the LED's. This light below has a (german) Borosilicate glass lens as it's optic. This light is said to shoot back some 30 odd feet and have 900 Lumens.
The LED color can be changed from inside the boat and it can be run outside of water.

G,

Yes, we use reflecting similar to a car headlight. Sorry, I did not know you would get that detailed on me.. When I said "optics", I meant it as a general term for intensifying light.. Light can be intensified by reflecting or glass optics: both create the same effect, but glass optics will do it better: however, there is a price tag for glass optics.. The light you have there looks to be very pricey, and it is not the product we intend to compete against.

Our new light will need water to cool, and it will not work outside of water for more than a few minutes. We will have them in Blue, Red, or White. Sorry, no group buy..

Ken Land
Bullet Lines
www.bulletlines.com

Ken,

They look great! What safety device is install in them for not working outside of water to turn off? Correct me if I am wrong, but for the water to get to them while at higher speeds they need to be mounted more towards the outside of the transom than closer to the center? Lastly, how do these compare to your other LED's?

It's like $400. Made in USA. Navel bronze. I understand a light that cost's $170 is not supposed to compete with a light that cost's $400. The Idea of the test was to see what's what! I would like to test out the New and the orignal bullet light's. The ones that caught my intrest were the real bight ones you see on the back of the Mega Yacht's that turn the water into a swimming pool. Im guessing a guy is not gonna drill a hole in is 40-Million dollar to mount a cheep light and Im sure for every dollar amount there is a customer. Your stuff looks real nice would you be intrested in getting us a new light for our test.

Some interesting details off the bucrew site about the stock bu LEDs thanks to the guys at Bakes.

Each LED on Malibu's lights are 120 lumens each.

6 Light 720 lumens

9 Light 1080 lumens

Any progress?

This is/was my winter project... as far as wiring them the best way I can think to do it is:

Run positive and negitive from the battery (one going to a switch then) to the bolts that hold the swim platform brackets on.... positive to one, negitive to the other.... then from there go to the + and - of the LED... will that work or does it being underwater with power to it cause some sort of short/failure.

if the words were confusing this may help

Why am I wanting to spend 1200 dollars on LED lights from shadow casters... please, someone, slap me...


god i want to illuminate the water!!!!!!!!! Someone get me some results! QUICK. hahah

i agree there sure arent very many examples. I really want to see G's test go down. I think it would help out a lot. Ive done some searches and ive found different kinds of lights such as spots too that will shoot back like 70 feet. What if someone put two spots on the outside and two regular lights in the middle? Could we not get the wake to light up at night? Why does everyone only put 2 on their boats.

The test hasn't gone down yett. We still need a few more lights.
I have a Bullets lines light and a Ocean LED light. Im looking for s few more LED's to include in the test to make it worth while.
Ken you feel like getting us some lights for our test! Ill buy what ever works best. When is you NEW light comming out?

Nick,
I'm electronic retarded..
Why did you run the wires to the platform bolts?

The flow of electrons, the charge needed to power the light must go from inside the boat to outside the boat.... which leaves only a few choices
1. run wires up and over the back of the v-drive compartments (will look terrible and tear off I would guess)
2. drill holes (don't really want to do this)
3. use an existing hole/metal(conducting material) to bring the charge to the outside... I don't plan on drilling to the back of the boat, I would just drill to the swim platform or add a little extension down from the teak to mout it to shoot straight out the back...

mine wouldn't need a huge beam of light, just a little to make swimming at night a little more nice.

unless someone has another idea for me that is the best I could come up with

Hehe, maybe it'll make swimming at night nice for you guys. Around here they attract so many fish that no one will jump in the water!

the biggest fish in our lake is like 16"... not too worried

Those lights look sick Ken!

I'm not talking about attracting one or two 16" fish. I'm talking my lights have attracted 12 or 15 or maybe more 1" or 2" fish. Swim in that school of fish all you like. But none of the women who have been on our boats wanted to swim when they saw the little school of fish under the boat.

That said, I like the lights. They definitely add to the atmosphere. But their not good for the swimming or to get your women into the water!

does this really attract fish? oh ••••••••••••••••••••••

they'll swim, i'm stronger than they are.

Grant,

I'll have our new lights in mid next month, and I'll supply you one to test then.. This past weekend I tested the new lights for the first time, and frankly it was completely stupid at how bright they were.. I was in a lake with 5' - 7' visibility on average, and the lights shined out at least 50'.


Thanks,

Ken Land
Bullet Lines
www.bulletlines.com

Ken: Yea mike and I would love to get what ever light from you that we could include in the test. Ill give u a call later 2 day and see whats up.

DOUBLE CSX BOATS WITH LIGHTS