Underwater Light Colors

[BrentP]

Hey,

Thinking about lights this winter.. Question - How useful is color changing underwater lights? I can get the pure white LF9 for cheap right now, vs picking between LiquidLumen, Shadowcaster, and Lumishore RGB lights which will be 3x the price (200 bucks a light for LF9, which Freeheel Recommends, sounds like a killer deal). Are you all usually picking a color and sticking with it or do you use color change?

Thinking about maybe augmenting with a color changing topside light to match in-boats and speaker colors..

Thanks for the info!

-BP

[chpthril]

Useful? RGB or even single color have no use, unless you want to attract bait fish, in order to attract larger fish to catch. But damn, are they cool if you spend time out at night.

When is comes to price, id caution comparing any single color to RGB. A quality RGB HAS to cost more then a comparable quality single color.

RGB has now spread into 3 categories based on control;

1) TTP controller; Timed toggle protocol. Most fall into this group like the lumitc and I thik the lumishore. These are limited in color and modes because their simple processor is within the light body.

2) Able to be controlled by a universal external full-spectrum RGB controller; small group only containing a few. Shadow Caster is one, Marine Sport Lighting is another. Offers a great deal of flexibility, especially of you have existing interior LEDs.

3) Requires their own manufacture's controller. Liquid Lumens is one, and they can also drive your standard 4 wire RGB interior LEDs off the same controller. Abyss is another, but I do not rec them. Bad product and worse customer service. Least expandable, with LL being the exception, for powering other LEDs, as the controllers are typically designed to only power the underwater lights. So you cant sync your interior lights with the underwater.

Bottom line, its all about the amount bling and mode lighting when considering between single and RGB. Do we want music sense? Water clarity will drive the price based on output. Higher priced light = higher output, among other features like power roll back and general build and material quality.

[bsreid]

One thing that I’ve been told from a handful of people who I’ve taken out is that white has a much better depth perception on the wave vs the blue when surfing.

[freeheel4life]

I'm no expert but I have hear the argument that RGBs are going to put out less lumens that single color because there are diodes not lit in the light ie, when displaying purple blue and reds are lit but greens are not. Green is lit then red and blue diodes are not.

Can't confirm, this is just the argument I've heard that makes sense in my mind.

I'm sure Mike can shed some light on that thought

[chpthril]

Yes, there is a light "temperature" scale. White is definitely hotter then blue, then I thinks its followed by green then red. Just note this can only be used to compare the intensity between the same brand and series. Not an apples to apples to compare one brand's white to another brand's blue and so forth. To compare brands, we still need to use the light's DC amperage draw. Its not perfect, but its all we got without buying your own light meter and testing all the lights yourself.

And to freeheel's point. Say you take a shadow catser single color blue scr16 and compare it to their scr16RGB set to blue. The single color blue is going to be brighter then the RGB on blue. This is usually due to using LED chips that are made up of the 3 colors, red, green blue. Each individual color source is smaller, as its 3 in one, then each single color blue chip in the single color light. Other lights will use the same size individual signle color chips, but now the total number is divided by the 3 primary colors. Example. Say the single color has 9 individual single color LED chips. No say they make a 9 LED RGB. So now you have 3 red, 3 green and 3 blue. So again, the solid single color LED will be brighter then an RGB set to that same single color.

[BrentP]

So, people are using the color changing features then on the light, it's not a feature that sits unsused? (any more then the lights themselves. Hehe)

[BrentB]

I recently installed two blue LF9s. Decided not to go with RGB as I wasn’t sure if there was a way to sync the colors with my boat’s interior LEDs. The LF9s were on sale - price was very good considering the quality - they seem to be very well made and they’re amazingly bright.

[bsreid]

I had LF9’s on my old boat and they were much brighter than the factory ones on any of the other boats I have been on. One thing I would recommend is to mount them as low as possible.

[freeheel4life]

I had LF9’s on my old boat and they were much brighter than the factory ones on any of the other boats I have been on. One thing I would recommend is to mount them as low as possible.

You've surfed more at night than me Im sure. What do you think about distance between lights. I usually try to mount them as far apart and outside corner as I can based on transom real estate so there's not a bunch of beam overlap and more light out of the water while underway. Any thoughts on inside vs outside mounting and distance apart??

[bsreid]

You've surfed more at night than me Im sure. What do you think about distance between lights. I usually try to mount them as far apart and outside corner as I can based on transom real estate so there's not a bunch of beam overlap and more light out of the water while underway. Any thoughts on inside vs outside mounting and distance apart??

That’s a hard one. Mount them far apart you get a much wider beam angle at rest but when surfing you tend to only have one light projecting into the surf wave. Also depends on where surf tabs are positioned.

If you’re focused on just surfing they’ve started making these 12v suction cup lights which work great at lighting up the wave and being able to position them in the right places.

https://suckgatewakesurf.com/collections/spot-light
Also that’s in Canadian dollars so knock 40 bucks off that price.

[JoshR77]

Hey,

Thinking about lights this winter.. Question - How useful is color changing underwater lights? I can get the pure white LF9 for cheap right now, vs picking between LiquidLumen, Shadowcaster, and Lumishore RGB lights which will be 3x the price (200 bucks a light for LF9, which Freeheel Recommends, sounds like a killer deal). Are you all usually picking a color and sticking with it or do you use color change?

Thinking about maybe augmenting with a color changing topside light to match in-boats and speaker colors..

Thanks for the info!

-BP

Besides the fact that the blue light lokks cool, there is no difference between white and blue. They do the same thing, haven`t noticed if anything changed

[chpthril]

In most cases, white will be brighter then blue. With that said, you have to be comparing the same light brand and same series of lights. May not be accurate to compare brand B white to brand B blue.

[SONIC]

I thought they were dumb until I had all the interior RGBs and then I wanted the underwaters to match.
I installed RGB's this winter, I think it's cooler if they match whatever color you have your inside lights set.
We do use our interior RGBs on different colors.

It's all just for fun, we turn all of ours on when anchored at night if nothing else to make sure the drunk bassboats doing 70 across the lake at night can see us.

[BrentP]

"..drunk bassboats doing 70 across the lake at night can see us."

gotta get to the weigh in bro!

[SONIC]

"..drunk bassboats doing 70 across the lake at night can see us."

gotta get to the weigh in bro!

We're on a lake that has primarily been used for fishing for the last 30 years, just starting to see more recreation traffic so the bass guys hate us, and they drive and act like total nut jobs. Had one last year drive straight into my surf wave at 50+, I thought he was dead for sure but they landed it. 4-5ft in the air and then SLAM down. Had a beer in his hand and wasn't even looking where he was going just had the throttle pinned.