- Joined
- Sep 30, 2014
- Messages
- 848
Hello friends, this may not be the most appropriate place to ask but.... Do any of you guys know of a decent sub 50$ lighting system for a 14 foot Jon boat for river catfishing? The worst I can do is ask right?!
A good Jon boat light?
- Thread starter Minnesota Man
- Start date
Which are the requirements for this system? I know nothing about river catfishing and just a little more than that about boats. But I do know about leisure batterie installation, consumables, etc. in van campers and such. And I bet it works in the same way.
My understanding is that if you plan on having the lights on with the motor off, you absolutely need to instal a dual battery system. One will be solely meant for starting and the other one (called leisure battery) will be used for powering all the consumables. Both are connected via a relay which insures that both batteries get loaded while the motor is on (thus producing electricity). Once the engine stops, the relay separates both batteries so you can run your lights as long as the leisure battery allows without draining the starting battery.
You can get dumb relays (need to excite the coil circuit from a certain pin of the alternator which only gets 12v once the motor is runing), these are cheap. There are also smart relays which sense the voltage (arround 14v from the alternator with motor running) that will open the circuit once the voltage drops (motor off). These smart relays get expensive, they are easily above your $50 budget.
ONce you have the juice issue solved, you need to install a multi slot fuse box to make sure you don't burn your boat to the ashes, should a shortcircuit happen. And then it is up to your needs of light how many lights of how many wats do you want to install. I would use LED lights all over the place with several switches in order to switch on/off in sections.
Seriously, I don't think that with $50 you are getting anywhere... unless we are talking about buying a semi-decent LED headlamp.
I hope this helps,
Mikel
My understanding is that if you plan on having the lights on with the motor off, you absolutely need to instal a dual battery system. One will be solely meant for starting and the other one (called leisure battery) will be used for powering all the consumables. Both are connected via a relay which insures that both batteries get loaded while the motor is on (thus producing electricity). Once the engine stops, the relay separates both batteries so you can run your lights as long as the leisure battery allows without draining the starting battery.
You can get dumb relays (need to excite the coil circuit from a certain pin of the alternator which only gets 12v once the motor is runing), these are cheap. There are also smart relays which sense the voltage (arround 14v from the alternator with motor running) that will open the circuit once the voltage drops (motor off). These smart relays get expensive, they are easily above your $50 budget.
ONce you have the juice issue solved, you need to install a multi slot fuse box to make sure you don't burn your boat to the ashes, should a shortcircuit happen. And then it is up to your needs of light how many lights of how many wats do you want to install. I would use LED lights all over the place with several switches in order to switch on/off in sections.
Seriously, I don't think that with $50 you are getting anywhere... unless we are talking about buying a semi-decent LED headlamp.
I hope this helps,
Mikel
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2008
- Messages
- 2,012
Dude get those led plastic coil strips for accent lighting and run around d boat perimeter