Are you trying to light up the front or back of the boat, or both? Boat size?

 

Just the front for now. Would like to cover sprint and both sides.

 

I've got 50 watt seelites and you can have a pretty good gap between them, like 2 ft with no dark spots. The rest depends on water clarity, & if your gunna run a generator. I'm totally battery powered.

 

I'll look up these "seelites". Haven't heard of them. Are they Halogens?

It'd be nice to be totally battery powered.

 

HPS put out a good bit more light...but LED are plug and play...and don't use as much power...Iv got 4-250w hps and 3-400w hps on my boat...

 

The "HPS only" crowd says that HPS are much brighter than LEDs and penetrate murky water better. The LED guys say their lights shine farther than they can shoot. Most say that if you're new to lights, you'll be very happy with LEDs since you won't be downgrading from HPS. I plan to start with LEDs and I know I'll be VERY happy since I'll be upgrading from Q-beams :laugh:

 

What LED's are you going with? I'm on the fence about what to get, but just can't break the bank right now.

 

Hps are much brighter and shine further. I went from halogens to leds to hps with digital ballest and so far hps hands down. I still have some leds on so I can run silent if I choose.

 

What size boat are you lookin to put them on and what are your expectations...You want to light up the moon? Do you want to run silent? Also, what size generator do you have?

 

with leds think you have to consider total watts plus floods for background bars for punch .

 

They are LEDs. Se elite is a site sponsor.

 

Seelite

 

Seelite. Website sponsor. Really good lights. Their leds, that come in 3 colors. I work on a dredge boat that has a c15 cat motor in front,& a c11 behind the cab, so I get all the noise I need at work. I can hear the crickets chirping at 100 yards when I'm bowfishn.

 

I'll check these out.

Also, I have a 2070. So plenty of room for lights and a deck.

 

What lights are y'all using from Seelite? I see they have LED light bars, and then the square lights.
With a 2070, just lighting up the front, how may do y'all think I need? I can see starting with 1 on each side of the front, and then 2 more on each side. Later I can add lights to the rear of the boat.

 

It's the true warm line. 50 watt and 80 watt.

 

This is the set-up Im considering.Light rail system with 5 lights on each rail. Troller in middle.the front two lights are 150 HPS and the remaing lights are 300 watt halogens.I have two Honda 2000 generators .One for each rail system.My question is what is the best way to wire lights and light rails to each generator.I don't want them daisy chained and would would prefer a switch up front.Also any ideas on a converter for troller ?

 

Check out the stickies at the top of this section. They don't answer all of my questions but for someone with any understanding of wiring, the stickies may have all you need to know.

 

The confusion is the debate of LED's or HPS's.
I talked to my neighbor, who is a commercial electrician, and he suggested LED's instead of HPS's. He said the HPS's are old technology, and the LED's may be better for the long term.

 

400hps hands down best lighting money can buy....BUT you may not need all that light.If you fish clear water,like the idea of running silent or plan on fishing around a bunch of houses...led maybe better for you.I would suggest riding along with someone that has led and someone with hps.I would not consider halos.Our boat has six 400hps lights powered by two 2000eu honda inverters.It makes an insane amount of light.

 

I got 16 27w on 24v hooked to bigfoot switch. Love it and simple. Plenty of light. I fish mainly ohio river and tailwaters at ky lake. No complaints. My buddy has 10 50w seelites, but for the money mine work just as good for 1/2 the price.

Just my $.02

 

Warm LEDs is my vote. Yes, HPS give off more light, but who needs to see farther than they can shoot or wants to listen to a loud @ss genny all night.
My 48w warm lights weigh 2lbs. Big 50s weigh about 8lbs.

 

Warm LEDs is my vote. Yes, HPS give off more light, but who needs to see farther than they can shoot or wants to listen to a loud @ss genny all night.
My 48w warm lights weigh 2lbs. Big 50s weigh about 8lbs.

The right genny isnt loud at all. You'd be surprised how much farther you can shoot when you got the light to see out there. I shoot into the dark beyond my 400 HPS's all the time. HPS is the only way to go IMO. But I dont know what real clear water looks like. I spend a lot of my time shooting in a big ol yoo hoo down here in SC and theres no competition for HPS in muddy water. But even if you couldnt shoot that far its still nice to be able to see that cat that you can turn around and go to that you would have never seen with LEDs. Just my .02

 

If ya shooting bigheads LEDs is a no brainer.

If ya need any help shoot me a email. I studied and studied before I made my choice. I'm glad I chose LEDs.

 

Have you ever heard anybody say "I wish I had less light"?

 

Wow... Still about 50/50.
I'm going to look at some 400w HPS lights shortly. If the price is right, I'll have to get a generator to support them. Maybe try some cheaper LeD's when I'm going to be running for a few hours that I can pop on the boat when I'm planning to do more fishing, or on clear water.

 

I've ran 8+ hrs with my LEDs on 24v. I got 12v troller. It gives up way before lights.

 

hps and be done with it

 

OK, here's my take on this.

I just converted from (8) 500W halogens to (10) 100W cool white (6000-6500 color temp) LEDs. Biggest consideration in my switch was getting a quieter genny and being able to run silent if I want to. Went from pulling 4000W to 1000W. I couldn't be happier with the switch at this point but haven't had the lights in dirty water yet. I have had them in clear and what I would consider stained water so far.

Things to take into consideration on this debate:

Lumens are important, but color of lights is equally important depending on clarity of water you shoot.
Size generator (Watts) you are going to need as well as generator noise (db)
Do you want to have the capability to run silent ?? (Batteries, no generator)

Here are some charts I found that may help you in your decision:
Small chart is LED Cool White Lumens, larger chart is LED Warm White Lumens.

 

Oh yeah, we built our own 100W LEDs, nothing like what is currently out there for sale ...

 

Very few have ever seen a quality LED. Anyone thinking buying cheap (any LED sold here) LEDs will compare to OLD tech HID lighting is nuts.
Ill have to disagree with the charts on LED info, Cool white will always put out more lumens than warm white if specs are same, its just the physics of the elements used in the diode.
I use a neutral white LED I built(100w) and depending on how hard I drive it with my adjustable drivers, it will output around 12,000 lumens , if I drive it hard, close to 14000 lumens, when properly sinked which is WAY WAY overlooked in the market we see here, this is the difference in high end vs ebay LED "chips", the other big factor that no one considers is HPS light lose a lot of output after use, they simply degrade faster than LED by a long shot and require new bulbs often to come even close to max output. People like throwing manufacturer numbers around, but they are fooling themselves, there is a great article in the lets talk lights sticky.