# New guy here....Green LED fishing light...Long Post...



## NorCal2500HD (Sep 28, 2008)

EDIT: After finally finishing this post, its probably the longest I have ever posted on a forum. If any of you fall asleep during my reading, Sorry!! :twothumbs

First of all I want to say this place :rock:. Ive spent the last 2 hours reading and reading. I live in California and do lots of fishing. About a month ago we were night fishing for cats off one of the local docks and were talking to a guy about green fishing lights. He said they are great for catching bait (minnows) and for bringing in some fish as well. I started doing some research and found a few companies that make them. After seeing how much these things cost, I figured I would try and see if I could make one cheaper. They want to charge like $175 for a 24" inch light and about $250 for a 48" light....theres even a guy selling plans for $30 that tells you where to buy everything...If I were to build a 24" light, it would cost about $113,a 48" about $137. Also add in the cost of a deep cycle battery as well....they arent cheap and heavy to lug fishing. Heres what they are.....a green flor bulb, some sched 40 pvc and a 12v dc converter......not much to them.






So Im sitting here on the web trying to find some more info on these and go to take some notes and the pen lights up Green......hmm, wonder if i can use some LEDs...longer life, possibly brighter, might be able to use a small battery...Im starting to like this idea more and more. Ill also let it be known Im not well educated in electrical and circutry so bear with me here.

I think the first light Im going to build is going to be about 24" long. Im going to be using 3" clear sched 40 for the housing ( impact resistant) and white sched 40 for endcaps. This should give me plenty of room on the inside to make some sort of light bar. Heres where the fun begins 

1. Ive been looking at different sites and have found lots of info on Green leds. Im debating on what size and style. I think I have narrowed it down to these...
http://buy-leds-online.com/599.html
The 100° 5mm flat top in pure green OR
http://buy-leds-online.com/Piranha40.html
40° Pure green.
Can anyone recommend any other bulb options I might want to look into? What about drivers? They needed with this many LED's?

3. Ive seen some of these LEDs are diffused. I would like the light to travel as far out from the housing as possible, but at the same time I want the light to be even. Should I Leave everything crystal clear or should I scotch brite the inside of the pvc? Heres what the green 12v flor tube looks like submerged. Will it be anything like this??





I was browsing another post on here and found a light saber by hyperdynelabs. This looks exactly what I would like to accomplish.





Powering this thing:
One of my buddies used to own a battery company. Well I ended up with about 200 Laptop and drill batteries when everything shut down. I have everything from 18v cordless drill batteries to 9v laptop batteries..Li-Ion and Ni-MH.....

Whats the easiest way to wire all of these together. Series/Parallel with resistors? Found this on a forum. 
http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz 
How accurate is it? It would only let me use a max of 32 LEDs?

So lets say I made a light with 32 of the 100° 5mm flat top LEDs. Voltage is from 3.5 to 4v and FWD current is 20mA. To light this thing up, Lets say I would be using 2 18v drill batteries wired in parallel with a total of 6000mah. The calculator says it draws current of 160ma from the source..how do I find out how long the 2 batteries will power the light for?

Now say I wanted to power this with 2 11 volt laptop batteries? Is it still going to be as bright? Or do I have to stick with the 2 18 volt drill batteries. I can go down in power w/o messing anything up, just cant go up in power to say 22v batteries???

3. With 24" of clear schedule 40 Im probably going to Use 11 of these per column @ 2" spacing. 5 columns for a total of 55 LEDs. Is this overdoing it? How much heat is going to be possibly generated? Sched 40 is good up to 140°, but this is going to be submergered in cool water so some of the heat should be dissapated.....hopefully. How do I even attach these too the center light bar in the housing itself.....

Im all ears at this point. thanks guys

Brian


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## TigerhawkT3 (Sep 28, 2008)

First, :welcome:

Now, some questions. First, how are these tubes used - do they float around by themselves, are they attached to a line, are they supposed to sink to a certian depth, or what? Is the 12VDC converter you mentioned attached to the light, does it connect with a cord, is it just a 12V battery of some sort, or what? Are the fish attracted to the light source itself, or just the glow in the water?

I think that if you wanted to drive 55 green LEDs in that sort of application, the easiest method would be two alks in series, no resistor, with every emitter in parallel. This would be underdriving them, meaning less worry about current hogging and thermal runaway. If you wanted to squeeze more energy out of the battery, you could use three alks plus a resistor of around 50-100Ω. It should run for a few hours on AAs, and several (10-20) hours on Ds. They could store in the "handle" area.

If it doesn't have to be a tube, and can be a point source, you might want to consider high-power green LEDs, like this one (or this, when/if they're back in stock). You could mount one to a little piece of aluminum, epoxy a clear dome over it, and put the batteries and resistor on top. Put holes in the aluminum (inside the dome) for the wires, and seal the whole thing (openable/resealable, to swap batteries). A five-gallon bucket might be a good container for something like that.

I hope some of this helps.


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## nein166 (Sep 28, 2008)

Hi Brian Welcome to Candlepowerforums
:welcome:

So it looks like your going to run these direct drive off a battery source.
That will work and with a single 3amp hour battery it will run for about 20hr.
The thing is at the initial fully charged voltage the current draw will be higher and the leds brighter but overdriven the current thru each individual led could be around 80ma, that will produce excess heat and theres no good way to get rid of it. That is the problem with direct drive. As the voltage dips below 18v the leds will dim. 

So for proper rated output an led needs a constant current source. Small variations in voltage supplied directly to an LED will cause large shifts in current, thereby changing the light output. A constant current source will draw varying voltage from the battery but supply an unchangeing amount to the LEDs.

To combat this rise and fall we use drivers that create a constant level of current. They can be made with simple solder equipment to work with your application. A buck (reducing voltage) configuration is most efficient and since you have an abundant supply of large batteries it won't matter which you plug into the driver as long as the voltage is within the right range say 12-30vdc. 



NorCal2500HD said:


> So lets say I made a light with 32 of the 100° 5mm flat top LEDs. Voltage is from 3.5 to 4v and FWD current is 20mA. To light this thing up, Lets say I would be using 2 18v drill batteries wired in parallel with a total of 6000mah. The calculator says it draws current of 160ma from the source..how do I find out how long the 2 batteries will power the light for?



Runtime well some where over 40 hours but thats going to dim over time and overdrive the leds, reducing their lifespan and possible to burn out.



NorCal2500HD said:


> Now say I wanted to power this with 2 11 volt laptop batteries? Is it still going to be as bright? Or do I have to stick with the 2 18 volt drill batteries. I can go down in power w/o messing anything up, just cant go up in power to say 22v batteries???



How many amp hours do the 11v battery packs have. Total amp hours divided by current of all the leds will give you an idea on runtime.


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## NorCal2500HD (Sep 28, 2008)

Thanks! Theres a few ways people use them...Some people attach them to the side of the boat horizontal. Some float them vertical in the water about 2' under the surface. The surface acts like a mirror and bounces the light back down. The light tube has a ballast in it. 
http://store.solar-electric.com/iohipo12vodc.html 
Power cord comes out the top, is anywhere from 15-30 ft long, and attaches to a car battery via 50A alligator clamps or a cigarette lighter.





http://fishinglights.com/fishing-lights_pr04.htm How it works long version, talks about the color spectrum and light absorbtion in water.
Green and Blue light travel farther in the water then any of the other colors in the spectrum. Green light attracts the small organisms, which attracts the bait fish which in turn attract the bigger came fish. This bulb is actually floating off the bottom in salt water, but same principle applies in fresh water floating 2ft under.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypK_5SRCQjk

What are alks? 

Im liking the fact I can have the battery stored in the top of the light so the only thing I need to run is a rope so it doesnt get lost.


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## NorCal2500HD (Sep 28, 2008)

nein166 said:


> To combat this rise and fall we use drivers that create a constant level of current. They can be made with simple solder equipment to work with your application. A buck (reducing voltage) configuration is most efficient and since you have an abundant supply of large batteries it won't matter which you plug into the driver as long as the voltage is within the right range say 12-30vdc.


 
I like this idea. That way I can plug any of my batteries ranging from 9v to 18v into the light, dont really have to worry about over powering/heating the LEDs and the brightness stays the same. 

Any vendors here carry the equipment I need, as far as drivers? What about schematics for the buck configuration.

I really need to get the basics of small electronics down so I understand this more. 

thanks for the help, its time to go do some reading....


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## nein166 (Sep 28, 2008)

I haven't made a low current 5mm led setup or researched it to any extent.
Most of what I'm using is high power emitters. 
If no one else here contributes the know how try Instructables
They have good DIY how-to's


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## TigerhawkT3 (Sep 28, 2008)

I had a couple paragraphs, but "teh Internets" ate them. 

Sounds like a tube is the way to go.

Put two wires next to each other (I recommend 2-conductor speaker wire, since it already has two wires  ), make a spring-like shape with it (not twisting the wires), and solder the LEDs along the outside. Slide it into the tube and solder the ends of the two wires (at one end of the tube only) to the proper terminals of the battery, add an appropriate resistor and a switch, and you're good.

If you want to use a driver for constant power, you could use an LM317 (RadioShack) connected to the car battery. You could turn it on and off remotely, but it would be pretty inefficient and you'd need a power cable instead of just a rope. I'd recommend going with the simple batteries+resistor.


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## Oznog (Sep 28, 2008)

Due to the problems in paralleling LEDs, and your need to avoid high voltage strings, it's best to work with a few high powered green emitters rather than a lot of low power emitters.

I suspect diffuse light will be better. I have no idea how fish would respond to a blinding point source but if they _do_ react differently I think it'd be reacting negatively over the diffuse source. Unfortunately, the low number of powerful emitters does tend towards the blinding point sources.


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## TigerhawkT3 (Sep 29, 2008)

I believe that parallel 5mm LEDs would work fine for this application, as they're underdriven (hopefully) from a CV source. If they were driven hard with a single CC source, that would definitely cause problems. We also don't need to heatsink 5mm LEDs, mostly because we can't.


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## nein166 (Sep 29, 2008)

Check into this for a premade string of leds that could be put in a clear pvc pipe. 2 strips in a U-shape could give 4 sided output. Green Led Strip


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## Oznog (Sep 29, 2008)

If you give CV to parallel LEDs, they probably won't all even turn on while others are running hot, due to differing Vf. And on the whole you have no idea how much power you'll get out of the array making it a fairly crummy design. It IS prone to runaway. If your LEDs are Vf=3.2v to 3.6v, and you give it 3.4v, that may or may not be enough to overcurrent the 3.2v pieces. There's no way of knowing.

And you can't fix that by adding an array ballast resistor, since then you're right back to creating a constant current too high for a single LED that will cause runaway and array destruction.


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## NorCal2500HD (Sep 29, 2008)

nein166 said:


> Check into this for a premade string of leds that could be put in a clear pvc pipe. 2 strips in a U-shape could give 4 sided output. Green Led Strip



Ive looked into that, just would need to add a resistor to each strip if I wanted to run a 14v or 18v battery correct?

So Ive done a little more searching and might have a change of plans. I found the Luxein III Star Led in green. 64lm @700ma. From what Ive read, they put out a nice 180° flood. Im thinking I might be able to get away with making my light a tad more brighter and tad bit smaller with this setup.

Have a total of 9 Leds....8 bulbs, 2 facing 12, [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected] in a + pattern. Lambertian radiation pattern on the sides and a Luxeon star Side emitting on the bottom facing down. 

As far as wiring Im gonna guess that they would be wired in series/parallel?
Also would be using a BuckPuck? 

Thank for all the info, its greatly appreciated.


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## snarfer (Sep 29, 2008)

If this was my project I would use these instead of the individual LEDs.


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## NorCal2500HD (Sep 29, 2008)

snarfer said:


> If this was my project I would use these instead of the individual LEDs.



Cool idea. But 8 @ $12 is going over budget.....maybe later on


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## nein166 (Sep 29, 2008)

NorCal2500HD said:


> Ive looked into that, just would need to add a resistor to each strip if I wanted to run a 14v or 18v battery correct?
> 
> So Ive done a little more searching and might have a change of plans. I found the Luxein III Star Led in green. 64lm @700ma....



Correct add a resistor.

Now if you want to use Luxeon IIIs you have to heatsink them. This means getting the heat out of the pvc pipe into the water using a good conductor of heat. The pvc won't let the heat out fast enough and the LEDs will fry.


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## tkflash1 (Sep 30, 2008)

Hi, nice to see someone else looking into one of these. I made myself one last year out of 24 rebel 80lumen green led's and ran into several problems. I am underdriving them and they still create a lot of heat which causes the pressure to build up in the tube until it blows out and leaks around glue. Major pain getting the water back out. I should have used much heavier heatsink even though both ends are in the water. Also i saw you are looking into 3 inch tubing. Don't expect to get this to go under water much without adding a lot of weight. I used 1.5 inch tubing at 2 feet long and had to put a lot of weight on it to make it sink. I have a little over $100 into it and it is brighter than a low end bought light when running on 12V. If you use 5mm leds you won't have as much of a problem with heat but you will get a lot less light output. I got my driver circuit from the instructables site. I made it drive a lot more than they listed and it ended up not running at full current power per led at 12v input but with my heat issue it works ok. It is downright blinding at night. Ooh, one other thing, watch what kind of clear tubing you get, some of it is different size than regular pipe so the end caps don't fit right. Good luck with yours. Tom


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## letbelight (Feb 3, 2010)

Not to derail the LED idea, but I'd like to make these with just the fluorescent bulbs... can someone give advice/instructions on how to go about building one, thinking 24" long +/-... I'm not an electrician not even in the amateur sense, but I learn quick


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## Harrell (Aug 14, 2015)

The LED underwater fishing work by attracting tiny animals called zooplankton, which attract baitfish such as shad, herring and minnows, which in turn attract predator fish such as bass, crappie and walleyes.this kind of led fishing lights(can get from toponechoice) has special design for heat sink,Brightest LED’s available and driver Inside of light, built in driver with battery clip. Sport fish gather near or in the circle of light to feed. The angler drops in a bait or lure to catch them.



360°beam angle
Special design for heat sink
Brightest LED’s available anywhere
Driver Inside of light, built in driver with battery clip - See more at: http://www.toponechoice.com/fishing...ttery-clip-built-in.html#sthash.4RHFJmVC.dpuf


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