IP68 Off Road Lights for UNderwater lights?

[Gregors]

Hello all, new to the forum. Sold a larger boat last year and decided to buy a tritoon which we love and spend every weekend on. I added under deck LED lights to the sides which look great and I would also like to add underwater lights in the rear. In looking at what is available, the lights specifically designed for underwater applications are outrageously expensive. Many are rated IP68 waterproof. So I had an idea... Does anyone use an IP68 rated off road light as an underwater light? They are like 1/10th the cost and IP68 waterproof is waterproof. Thoughts?

[jafo9]

interesting thought. i've been using the "cheap" off road LEDs on my cars for years. some of my favorites are $24 cubes off amazon that i mounted on the back of our cars as work/reverse lights. i liked them so much i put a set on the front of my pontoon. if you go into it willing to waste the money on the cheap lights, it would be a fun experiment. you could always reuse the wiring/relay/switch for the next pair if they fail. you would need to waterproof the wiring, which isn't that hard. i make custom harnesses for my lights and solder/heat shrink every connection i can. the ones i can't solder, i use heat shrink butt connectors and then regular heat shrink on top of them. hella sells a nice water proof relay.

good luck and let us know how it turns out.

[Jake_Daddy]

If your not familiar with IP or ingress protection the first number is dust protection and the second number is liquid protection a brief explanation is here.

http://www.dsmt.com/resources/ip-rating-chart/

An IP68 light should have some sort of pressure or depth rating associated with it but apples to apples one for a car or one for a boat should provide the same protection. You are not going to go deep enough to have any issues with static, sitting still, pressure the only thing that may make a difference is if you had any dynamic, running, pressures that would be higher due to the movement of water around the boat but I dont imagine at the stern you would see anything too crazy. You may get high pressure running off the bottom of the toons but you will need to experiment that for yourself! The only thing I would be concerned with are the materials used especially if you run in any saltwater. I have a set of cubes on the front of my boats that work fine but they are painted carbon steel frames (starting to rust) and if they were under water they would be ate up in short time as I run primarily in salt water.

On another note I just picked up a set of cheap underwater LEDs I am going to put on a swim platform that goes in and out of the water they are TH Marine brand and were about $20 each on amazon. I havent installed them yet but they looked nice and bright when I hooked them to a 12V power source. If I install soon I will shoot you some pics.

[wyldwolf460]

I installed these under my front deck between the pontoons. They put off a good amout of light, I have no problem seeing at night. They came with a harness and all. I have had them on for about 6 months with no problems.

http://www.roughcountry.com/2-inch-led- ... 70903.html