battery powered bow and stern light question

bob welsh

bob welsh

Well-known member
Just finished the Kara build, now to fit it out. Looking for the clamp on type AA battery bow and stern light. I know this has been discussed before but cant find it in the search. Anyway, is there a preferred manf. or type that has been field tested by you guys. Thanks, b ob
 
I've used the Atwood brand with no problems. As for the bow light, I take a 8" long piece of 3/4" pvc pipe and cut a slot as wide as the bow cleat. Its cut 3/4 of the length of the pipe. I then attach the pipe to the bottom of the light with the existing screws. With this the bow light slips over the front of the bow cleat and I can remove it when ready to hunt.
 
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I used the battery operated LED bow/stern lights sold by Cabelas. The light housings are camo and they come with some clamp on mounting hardware, which was junk. The lights themselves though are great!

I basically made my own mounting hardware for the lights using the standard 1/4-20 threads. The thread with photos of my lights can be seen here:

http://duckboats.net/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=136453;search_string=duckboat;#136453
 
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looked at your post, kinda what im looking for . There are some on ebay that have a flange mount. screw the flange to the deck then pop em on and off. bob
 
I never had good luck with the clamp on lights. I installed permanent lights on my boat and led everything to the back of the boat. I then terminated the wires with a two prong plug. I have a dry box with a tractor battery, it also has a 12v outlet for my spotlight. I made a lead out of it with a two prong plug. When I'm running, I just plug it in. When I want to charge the battery, I just yank it out of the boat. It's pretty low tech.
 
I have had terrible results with the old "flashlight on a stick" lights.

The new LED ones are a different story. They cost a little more but are better built, more weather resistent and brighter.
 
i thought this pic from friday night was both relevant and funny. $100K boat, $10K of electronics, 400 gals of fuel, first offshore trip at night, no running lights. That is a red LED headlight duct taped to one side and a swordfishing glow stick duck taped to the other. You might be a redneck if ....... Red and green glowsticks in bulk on order View attachment running lights.JPG
 
That's funny as hell.....and resourceful. I would have never thought of the glow stick! I'm going to get some for the boat box.
 
I never had good luck with the clamp on lights. I installed permanent lights on my boat and led everything to the back of the boat. I then terminated the wires with a two prong plug. I have a dry box with a tractor battery, it also has a 12v outlet for my spotlight. I made a lead out of it with a two prong plug. When I'm running, I just plug it in. When I want to charge the battery, I just yank it out of the boat. It's pretty low tech.
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I did swomething very simialr after having multiple issues with the clamp on lights. ONly thing I did differently is that I ran interior LED lights as well and I used an 8ah dry cell battery. Loving life now.

Mark W
 
The clamp for the light is a pain. I mounted rubber pole clips on the boat. I got a piece of pvc pipe that fit snugly in the pole clips. I took the clamp off the bow light replaced it with a piece of the pvc pipe and put caps on both ends. This make for an easy on/off and I can store it inside out of the weather.

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Some good ideas in those posts boys. I like the PVC over the cleat trick, as well as the spring clamp idea. Thanks, Bob.
 
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