Underwater LED Placement On Cats
 

I'm redoing the transom of the DCB and finishing it up with some Lifeform 9's. I'm waffling on the placement of the 2 I bought. I originally thought about placing them directly behind the drives, but that's much deeper that the recommended depth of 6" to 12" and the drive and prop would shadow a lot of the light. I've already got holes just outboard of the boxes where the through hull fittings for the hydraulic lines go through the hull. The problem here is that not much light will go to the inside and depth would be more like 4 inches. What's everyone think? I tried to look for pictures on cats and most of them are right behind the drives....

From my experiences, you want them as deep as you can go. (to a point) but on the average 15-40 something foot boat thats less than 3 feet anyway and so the deeper the better. I have mine mouted 10.5 inches under the water line, and boat in dirty water. still could have gone deeper, but the hull would not really allow it.

this is a bad picture, My boat has the yellow. But its good so you can see the difference, the middle boat has 2 blues, and are mounted 7.5 inches deep. the far left boat has 4 all mounted close to 4-6 inches deep. You can see the deeper you go the better the GLOW.you get. The higher you go the more direct BEAM of light, aslo you start seeing each LED its self at 8 inches and higher, and I am not a fan of that. the general consistences has been the glow looks better as it lights up the whole area around the back not just like head lights looking back.. I would go as deep as you can untill you start talking 18 inches or more. and thats in DIRTY muddy Tennessee river. also another thought, the deeper you go the closer tot he water they will be when on plane. thus making more of our spray glow, and less blinding to others.
http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...89275208_n.jpg

this is a strait down view, standing on the swim platform. the lights are back under the platform on the transom, again at 10.5 inches.
http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphoto...93088766_n.jpg

Can you post some specs on the light? will they fit in the notch next to the water pickups? if you are only going to install two I would put them outside the drives and as low as possible, Ideally you would add a third on the vertical portion of the centerpod, or two small ones on either side of the center pod drain plug to light up the middle. kind of hard to tell from those pics what your options are.

this was a halogen I had on my 28 Daytona, but they make LED and Xenon models in a similar size
http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/j...ps28ea15eb.jpg

Thanks for the replies. The lifeforms are 4 inches round as seen in the picture and you can get multiple colors of bezels. I went with blue since it seemed to be the best all around for different waters. My center pod is very small pretty much non existent. I really think now I may just go for the two. I also am going to put some down facing led's on the transom pointing at the tab. I think it will look good and light up the tab which is a great swim platform.
One of the pictures is on the side of the extension box. One centered on the box, the other one just outboard of the box.
Yes the picture of the centerpod is upside down and I am computer challenged

i vote for picture "...form2" assuming that is outside of the drive and down low, you could also mount one down facing on the pod area behind the notch to light under the tab area also.

Pm me if you need more lifeform. I am sponsored by them and can offer some great prices.
MD

I got them installed and wired. The whole project has take a lot of hours. I replace the whole transom and all cables, throttle, shift, trim and tab indicators. The drive indicator cables were originally routed inboard and had to run in between the tunnel tab and the transom. This required tight bends and was tough to keep the cables from being chaffed by movements of the tab. So, I had to fill in original holes where these ran through the transom and where the hydraulic steering through hull fittings were. I put a DCB logo over the hydraulic holes and an LED light that will illuminate the tab area of the transom on each side. It takes a long time to do something like this right. I understand why custom boats are expensive. I'll get some photos of the lights on tonight. The lifeforms seem to be contructed very well. Nice craftmanship.

Finally got to see the lights at night. I'm happy with it. As was pointed out before, it would look good to have a third light in the center, but I don't have room for the same type of light there. I think the beam just outboard to the drive worked nicely.

Looks good man, and they match the engine lights perfect.