Hello fellow slab seekers,

With crappie season in full swing and also the holidays coming up, I wanted to make my father-in-law something that I know he has been wanting for a while. I had looked around at different options for green underwater led lights and they wanted some pretty high prices for what I was wanting. Since this is Texas, you go big or go home! This is a 600 diode, green led that is 24in long. I bought the tubing and led from Amazon. The rest was all bought at Home Depot. Totall cost for all this was right around $40. Now I already had some of the supplies, but even still it is considerably more affordable to what is out there.

Can't wait to try it out, you may have to get here before Christmas
It looks nice, Thank you !!!

what are all the materials used? Glue? Fittings? etc

24in polycarbonate tubing in 2in diameter, 16ft of waterproof led strip in green, 2in pvc cap, 3/4 pvc cut to 23in length, 50ft of 16 gauge landscape electrical cord, 30 amp battery clamps, some super glue to make the led stick to the pvc pipe, and liquid nails clear silicone adhesive to glue it all together and to seal it.

So, how did you add weight so it would sink?

I thought about adding a piece of rebar down the middle of the 3/4 pvc that the led is wrapped around but it wouldn't be heavy enough. What I am going to do is get two more 2in pvc caps then get about 5in of 2in pvc and make a capsule out of that and then screw and glue it to the bottom. The capsule can be full of lead weights, rocks, sand, concrete, etc....whatever I can find to weigh it down.

could they be hooked up to a low voltage transformer?

Are you referring to having them hooked up to a wall outlet vs directly to a 12v battery?

I know that it is possible. As long as the power going into the strip is at 12volts, it should power the strip. Now in regards to the amount of amps that the strip can handle, that I am not sure of.

I have seen instructional videos of people taking old phone chargers or other device chargers that will convert 120v from an outlet down to 12v and just soldering the wires together to be able to just plug in the strip.

If you do not have an old charger that can convert 120 down to 12 then you can find them online for usually $6-$10 or you could visit your local thrift shop and search around for some.

Sorry If this all sounds very spotty. I am no electrician, but I am always up for trying something myself and learning as much as I can.

If it's 12v DC it will work

Thumbs up

The whole 16' strip will fit on the 23" 3/4 PVC?

Fish just jump in the boat

The reason I cut it to 23in was so that there would be room for the extra wire to fit inside the tube with out crimping or from keeping the caps from closing all the way. If you loop the strip tightly together it will cover about 21in of the pvc. If you have a little space between the loops for each time you wrap it around the pvc, then it will cover all 23in of the pipe....but I would not want to worry about spacing it just right, cause you could have it be to long and then run out of pvc. Also, even though you have 24in of clear tube, the caps will cover a little over an inch on each end. So I lift the 3/4in pvc bare a little on each end so that all of the led strip would be visible and not obstructed.

That's an awesome example of another way to use the led strip lighting, clean install by the way!

Well done. I will attempt this sometime.

Thank you, it all went together in a short time. I highly recommend this to anyone wanting some underwater lights to attract fish. It was just so much more cost effective.

I will posting up pics of how am going to weight it soon. I just need time to do it...and then I will have pics of what it looks like in action after Christmas

Just bring it on over and I'll let everyone know how it works

I used an 8-ounce bank sinker tied to one end of a similar light. It caused the tube to be vertical in the water, the top supported by the electrical cord. Depth was controlled by how much cord was lowered over the boat side.

Hahaha I will bring the light over soon:p and I had thought about hanging a weight, but I wanted something more permanent.

Well I have added my weight. I used two end caps for 1 3/4" pvc pipe and cut about 8in of pvc pipe. I had a metal pipe laying around that fit perfectly inside the pvc so I cut that to length and then packed the remaining space with dirt. It feels heavy enough to successfully sink the light, but we shall see. I also sealed up the cord hole with silicone.

Looking GOOD, can't wait to try it out. Also Marvin and Johnny are scratching their heads about this

UPDATE !!! I got my gift early I did a test on it, I have a small 12 volt battery that I used to run it for 11+ hours, now I know we can use it on the dock as well. Thanks to the best son in law I now have a GREAT fishing light, we will be putting it to work on the Christmas holidays.

Nice! Can't wait to get in the water and bring in some tanks!

Fingers crossed that we will be testing this puppy out at Lake Winnsboro for over Christmas weekend. Temps are looking good, but precipitation is in the forecast

Also, just an update on those wanting to build this. I found the same 30amp battery clamps at academy for like $1.56. It was cheaper than the $3 I paid at HomeDepot. It was funny how I found them, I was just looking down the soft plastic isle and got to the end and they had this little section of other random fishing gear.

Tested this light out on 12/25 from 8:00pm to about 10:00pm The light was bright and lasted just fine at a depth of around 10ft off the dock. There was still a visible green glow to be seen. The fish were still out deep, so there were no bites. The temps for Sunday night at Fork were awesome! For this time of year, we would need to go out to deeper structure to get the light pulling them in. Come Spring time, this is gonna be a killer light!

Side Note: For the material that I put in the bottom of the light, it was actually not heavy enough to sink it, but made a little hole where the cord ran into the top of the pvc end cap and let the tube fill with water, it sank just fine. The hole operation is water proof, so no shorts. For better operation, maybe drill a small hole in the clear plastic tubing near the top. Would still add some weight at the bottom of the light so that it will stand up right and not be moved to much by current.

You didn't mention that before that we were probably the only ones on the lake when we tested the new prop out