Help- Bowfishing Lights Wiring

[Patton]

In the process of getting my boat rigged up.

Plenty of pictures of it on this thread: http://discussions.texasbowhunter.co...d.php?t=380249

Now I need help wiring the lights.

I have these lights mounted on the boat:http://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-1000-...bm8pZ12kzZ12ky

And I have this battery:
EverStart 27DC-6 Marine Battery

http://www.walmart.com/ip/EverStart-27DC-6-Marine-Battery/16795212

I would like to wire the the lights to the battery and have the battery sit under the front platform.

From what I understand I need some sort of power converter because of the amount of amps/watts/volts its drawing. (Not very good at my electrical lingo)

The lights all have individual on/off buttons, but when the lights are hooked up to the power converter and turned off, I want to be sure I am not wasting battery power cruising to different spots.
Thanks

[bwssr]

1200 watt inverter is needed...minimum....12vdc to 120vac.....

[Patton]

1200 watt inverter is needed...minimum....12vdc to 120vac.....

Looking on google, I see what this is but can you elaborate please. And all the ones I see are $100 or more...

Being the outdoorsman and sel-sufficient person I am, pretty embarrassing my lack of knowledge about wiring and electrical stuff.

[denowt]

An inverter changes the 12VDC from the battery to 120VAC just like in your house. With that many lights you'll need a big inverter and yes, they get expensive.
Unless you've already purchased the lights, I've seen a boat with 12VDC lights running off of the battery. They then had an alternator on the air motor that would keep the battery charged while in use.

[Patton]

An inverter changes the 12VDC from the battery to 120VAC just like in your house. With that many lights you'll need a big inverter and yes, they get expensive.
Unless you've already purchased the lights, I've seen a boat with 12VDC lights running off of the battery. They then had an alternator on the air motor that would keep the battery charged while in use.

I have a 5HP outboard motor so the alternator idea wouldn't work I believe. So if I am trying to run a total of 2000watts between 4 lights (500w each), what size inverter do I need? Is it even the watts that matter or is it the voltage? Sorry for the probably dumb questions

[TxSuperDad]

Personally in my opinion if you are gonna run halo lights I would do it with a gennie. Your not gonna get much run time out of the battery life with those lights.


I hooked up just some simple 12 Volt DC lights to a John boat years ago. Those lights only lasted about a hour before they were dead. The halos are gonna draw more and quicker.


IF you are dead set on not using a gennie to power the lights and want to keep with the battery. I would take the halos back to home depot and get you some LED Lights.

A 27 watt LED is close to the same lumen's as 250 watt halo. But they pull less amps which draw less power and you get much longer life out of the battery each trip. Plus LED lights last way longer. Like 50,000 hours. With halo bulbs your gonna do good on the water to get 1,000 hours out of em. Just a reference. I have had some last that long and some last 300 hours. At $5 a bulb on halos it adds up quick.


You can get these LED lights for $36.00 and this is what I am thinking of doing on my new project.

http://www.seeliteleds.com/products/27-watt-square-led

It would be a little more money for the lights but if you add up the cost of bulbs and the inverter and etc. Your coming out better with these. Its just a better choice over halos if you dont want to run a gennie

[Patton]

Personally in my opinion if you are gonna run halo lights I would do it with a gennie. Your not gonna get much run time out of the battery life with those lights.


I hooked up just some simple 12 Volt DC lights to a John boat years ago. Those lights only lasted about a hour before they were dead. The halos are gonna draw more and quicker.


IF you are dead set on not using a gennie to power the lights and want to keep with the battery. I would take the halos back to home depot and get you some LED Lights.

A 27 watt LED is close to the same lumen's as 250 watt halo. But they pull less amps which draw less power and you get much longer life out of the battery each trip. Plus LED lights last way longer. Like 50,000 hours. With halo bulbs your gonna do good on the water to get 1,000 hours out of em. Just a reference. I have had some last that long and some last 300 hours. At $5 a bulb on halos it adds up quick.


You can get these LED lights for $36.00 and this is what I am thinking of doing on my new project.

http://www.seeliteleds.com/products/27-watt-square-led

It would be a little more money for the lights but if you add up the cost of bulbs and the inverter and etc. Your coming out better with these. Its just a better choice over halos if you dont want to run a gennie

Thanks! Thats a lot of good info. Now I have to talk with my buddy if we want to do the switch.

I would love to have a generator, but want an electric one and don't have near that kind of cash.

I have read online a few times that you can run those halo lights on a bettery for 4 hours, is that not true? Am I misremembering and they were talking about LED lights

Thanks again

[TxSuperDad]

Prob LED.. That is about right for 4 of those 27 watt LED lights on a good strong charged battery.

I have never personally ran Halos on a battery. But like I said the DC lights I ran only lasted a hour on full charge. I would think with halos and the inverter and having to use the conversion that they would not last long. But I could be wrong cause I sure am not a Electrician either.


NOW if you want a gennie. You can get a very small light weight 900 watt gennie at harbor freight. It will run 800 watts of power. So if you ran those 4 halos with 200 watt bulbs you would be golden. The gennie is only like $120 but you would never have to worry about batteries going dead as long as you have enough gas on board.

Here is a link to it. I have had one before for camping and it works great.

http://www.harborfreight.com/63cc-900-watts-max800-watts-rated-portable-generator-60338.html

I am assuming you are gonna use a troller too. If you decided to set up with a genie. YOu can get a Iota converter that will run between the gennie and the battery for your trolling motor. It will keep the battery charged on your troller so you can run all night and never have to worry about it.

You would have to go with a bigger gennie though to support the amps coming from your troller as well as your lights. The size would depend on what size troller you are going to use.

Just some more to think on

[Patton]

Prob LED.. That is about right for 4 of those 27 watt LED lights on a good strong charged battery.

I have never personally ran Halos on a battery. But like I said the DC lights I ran only lasted a hour on full charge. I would think with halos and the inverter and having to use the conversion that they would not last long. But I could be wrong cause I sure am not a Electrician either.


NOW if you want a gennie. You can get a very small light weight 900 watt gennie at harbor freight. It will run 800 watts of power. So if you ran those 4 halos with 200 watt bulbs you would be golden. The gennie is only like $120 but you would never have to worry about batteries going dead as long as you have enough gas on board.

Here is a link to it. I have had one before for camping and it works great.

http://www.harborfreight.com/63cc-900-watts-max800-watts-rated-portable-generator-60338.html

I am assuming you are gonna use a troller too. If you decided to set up with a genie. YOu can get a Iota converter that will run between the gennie and the battery for your trolling motor. It will keep the battery charged on your troller so you can run all night and never have to worry about it.

You would have to go with a bigger gennie though to support the amps coming from your troller as well as your lights. The size would depend on what size troller you are going to use.

Just some more to think on

How is that generator on the ears? Sadly I already got bad hearing from shooting without protection and I hate having to yell all night. Plus I've heard stories about people getting ticked when a generator is running on their lakefront property at 1am.

I do have a trolling motor already, I believe it is a minn kota, 40lb thrust Im assuming.

[TxSuperDad]

Its not real loud. Its a 2 cycle. Basically like a weed eater engine.

I have never heard of anyone getting a ticket for the gennie noise while fishing. I cant see how that would be anymore disturbing then cranking up a boat engine and flying off or flying by.

While the the gennie on most boats are loud to everyone in the boat. From a distance its really not. Which is why alot of guys in camp place it as far away as they can.

I will agree that I would prefer total silence on the water better. Its better for fishing and its just much nicer to hear the sounds of the lake at night instead of the gennie.

But one has to decide which out weighs the other. Perfect fishing or unlimited fishing. When you are guiding you dont have much of a choice cause you have to keep the boat moving and the lights on for 4 to 6 hours with out missing a beat.

Unless you have enough batteries on board to change em out for that long a gennie set up is best for that situation.

But like I said. I am more then likely going with LED set ups this round

[TxSuperDad]

Plus the other bright side to have a gennie on board with a battery charger is if the the battery on your big motor ever goes dead. Just hooked up the charger and crank on the gennie and jump start it. You never get stranded. Unless your out of gas.

Which is huge when you bowfish at night. It sucks bad enough getting stranded on the water during the day and having to get someone to come pull you or jump you. But there is nothing worse then being on the water at 3 am and no one is around to help.

[denowt]

I have a 5HP outboard motor so the alternator idea wouldn't work I believe. So if I am trying to run a total of 2000watts between 4 lights (500w each), what size inverter do I need? Is it even the watts that matter or is it the voltage? Sorry for the probably dumb questions

The boat I saw had a seperate fan blade motor(air prop). They ran an alternator off a pulley and belt on the side of the motor.
I think your questions have already been answered, but 2000watts of lights would require a 2000watt inverter minimum. Watts are watts.

[Patton]

I really appreciate all of your input, thanks a ton.

I have a lot of info to think on now.

If I switch to the gennie, would it be necessary to still switch to the LED lights or can I use the 500w halos that I currently have.

If the genny can run 800w, I'm assuming I would have to downgrade my current lights to something that draws less power.

Would I want to simply buy 200w bulbs and put them in the current light cans I have now?

What would be the best set up to have that stays fairly cheap on $$ but is still plenty bright?

[denowt]

Correct, you would need to match the generator to the wattage of your lights plus a little more.
If you had 2000watts of lights, I would get at least a 2200watt generator, preferably more because eventually you're going to add something.

[TxSuperDad]

Correct, you would need to match the generator to the wattage of your lights plus a little more.
If you had 2000watts of lights, I would get at least a 2200watt generator, preferably more because eventually you're going to add something.

He cant run that much light because he already said he didnt want to spend that kind of money on a gennie..

The one that I suggested you will have to down size the output. Simply pull out the 500 watt bulbs and put 200 in.