Well we got two 5m strips of green led lighting the other day for our boat. We installed it and put about 15' on each side up under our boat rail. We didn't get around to hard wiring it to a switch until today but when we just hooked to a bat we had laying around the other day it worked great. Today we got it all hard wired in to a switch on our console that is powered from our batt in the back of the boat that the motor leads and bildge and everything else on console is tapped into. When we flipped the switch only one side worked and the other side of the boat the led's were just barely on. So we re hooked them to our spare batt again to make sure they worked wich they did. Well after a bunch of head scratching and testing with the voltage tester here is what we found. The light strip is sending 12v to the hull of our boat when on. So since there hooked into same batt as motor is, and the motor is grounded to hull, it sends 12v into the motors ground system and out the ground lead to the batt creating a short. Has anyone else had a problem with there led light strips doing this? We can hook it to a different batt and they work fine but still puts power to the boat hull. We're thinking about putting new thicker 3m tape on them and trying again as we think there is a bad spot in the existing backing tape letting the copper looking contacts on the light strip make contact with boat hull.
Led interior lighting problems
Big buff
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Well we got two 5m strips of green led lighting the other day for our boat. We installed it and put about 15' on each side up under our boat rail. We didn't get around to hard wiring it to a switch until today but when we just hooked to a bat we had laying around the other day it worked great. Today we got it all hard wired in to a switch on our console that is powered from our batt in the back of the boat that the motor leads and bildge and everything else on console is tapped into. When we flipped the switch only one side worked and the other side of the boat the led's were just barely on. So we re hooked them to our spare batt again to make sure they worked wich they did. Well after a bunch of head scratching and testing with the voltage tester here is what we found. The light strip is sending 12v to the hull of our boat when on. So since there hooked into same batt as motor is, and the motor is grounded to hull, it sends 12v into the motors ground system and out the ground lead to the batt creating a short. Has anyone else had a problem with there led light strips doing this? We can hook it to a different batt and they work fine but still puts power to the boat hull. We're thinking about putting new thicker 3m tape on them and trying again as we think there is a bad spot in the existing backing tape letting the copper looking contacts on the light strip make contact with boat hull.
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[HR][/HR]Never had that problem but just put LED nav lites on our new boat and in pkg you push the button to test and lites worked. Hooked them up and left side worked and right side didn't. Checked had voltage 12 volts to lite and took back to Autozone and got another one, hooked it up again and nothing again. After much :cf: found out these strip lites were + and - sensitive or specific. Switched the wires and worked fine..not sure if helps but had this with mine recent.
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I have been thinking about the same project you did with the 2 5m strips of light under the rail. When you test them are you hooking each light directly to a battery.... 12v and possibly wiring them to the switch in a manner that is causing a voltage drop to 6v due to them being in parallel? Not sure if that is even possible but you got me thinking....
Rob
Rob
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We have the black and reds of both strips wired together then go to switch with one red one black. Works great when hooked to a spare batt. But when u hook it to the switch or directly to the batt that the switch is powered from wich is same batt that motor is powered by that's when we have problems. If we hook it to the spare batt, when there on they put 12v to the hull. So when hooked to batt that motor is hooked to it shorts out since motor is connected to hull and ground lead is conected to motor.
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When we would hook to the battery by itself it would work fine. As soon as we connect the main ground for the engine to that same battery is when we have problems. With the lights hooked to the battery as we hooked up the engine ground we could see and hear small sparks as we put terminal over the battery post. This got our heads spinning because nothing was hooked to the battery except the lights and and engine ground. We took a voltage tester and put black wire of tester on ground of battery and took red wire and scratched spot in our hull and bam the needle jumps over. The lights are defiantly sending juice through the hull of our boat when hooked up. If we unhook the lights everything tests out fine. We got lights with self adhesive backing and the adhesive is real thin and transparent. When you peel the backing off you can see + and - contacts every three LEDs where you would cut the strip. Only thing we can figure is one or a few of these contacts are touching the hull somewhere. I think if we put the thicker automotive 3m backing on our led strip it will solve our problem.
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Ebay
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Well we finally got our interior lights working last week! We put some of the grey 3m tape between the boat hull and the led strip and it fixed all of our pblms with em sending voltage through the hull. Lights work great now and defiantly one of my favorite upgrades as I can now see the deck where I'm walking and can see to get fish off. But went out Saturday night and the voltage went up to 16.7 some times so think we fried the voltage regulator when we was putting 12v through the engines ground system!:headbang:
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I just ordered my lights $15 through ebay. Thinking I wish I had seen this thread earlier. Anything that you would do differently on your install to try to prevent creating a short? The manufacturer makes it seem pretty straightforward on cutting the lights but obviously there must be more to it in order to not create a shorting situation.
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Just be carful not to rip or cut through the thin double sided tape on the back of it and maybe cover the end whear you cut it with something so the contacts caint touch the boat. We couldn't see any rip in the tape on ours and even pulled the cut ends off the boat and still had pblms. I would unhook your motor leads from the battery and check for 12v on the hull so maybe you don't burn something up like we did if you have the same pblm we did. Hopefully u have better look than us but if not ebay sells the good 3m tape on a roll and its a sure fix if not.
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I have the same ones and when I first hooked them up I had them on a lighted switch. For some reason if my 27watt LEDs were switched on it would have the led strips barely on. After I disconnected the ground that made the switch light up, it all worked fine. A faulty ground somewhere in ur system will do all kinda of crazy things
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Thanks for the info!
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prob the ground some where for shur
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Here you can see the contacts on the bottom side of the light strip that I am talking about. The adhesive backing that came on the strip was very thin and must have been ripped or missing some place allowing one of these contacts to touch the hull of the boat.
![Image]()
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