Alright, been a while since i posted back here. Awesome responses so far!
I now have all the gear i need for the install.
My boat is 20ft long, so i purchased the following to cover the install. If all is well, this weekend i get the boat out and perform the work.
Here is my parts list.
3 16.4 ft 5050 waterproof led strips
http://www.amazon.co...=tao led lights
1 Amplifier
http://www.amazon.co...0?ie=UTF8&psc=1
1 50ft roll of cat 5e network cabling
various size zip ties
1 package of 150 stainless steel screws, small #6 1/2 inch long
40 ft worth of led rope light track (only one i could find, the led tape light i have fits in really tight, so it should work)
http://www.menards.c...0339-c-6349.htm
about 50 little cable holders. these go around a cable and use one screw to fasten to deck
What i have done to prepare.
The cat 5 cable will be the cable i will run from the amp to the lights. This cable seemed sturdy enough, plus i happen to have the 50ft laying around. Only used 4 wires inside the cable, taped off the rest. The amp came with 2 spare connectors. I cut the 50ft cat5 in half and attached the led connector to the end of each cable. The other end i just stripped the cables and connected to amp. the amp has screws to run the wires to.
I know that many have said that you may not really need an amp. This is almost true. I was able to power all 3 strips end to end off of one controller. However, the color from one strand to the other did have a slight color change and was not as bright. The amp solved this issue and were much brighter.
My setup now is, 12v from boat to led controller (i actually opened up the controller and soldered wire to the back of the input plug then ran it out of the housing. This way i can just connect to the power source. You could have also cut the power supply cable and used that.
The controller goes directly to the amp. The amp also has 2 wires going to the power source. Then both light strips go directly to the amp in parallel. This setup gave me really bright output, so it will work.
Since my boat is 20ft, im not sure 16.4 will cover the rounded parts of the pontoons. What i have noticed on various pictures on the web is that the lights dont go the full length of the toons. Hence why i have the 3rd set of led lights that i plan to cut and extend each side if needed.
Here is what i have. After this weekend, i will have a lot more pictures!
What i have left to do
Mount the plastic rope light channel to the bottom of the deck above the pontoons. I am not sure how this will work and not sure what it looks like under there. I saw someone put on an angle bracket, put I'm not quite ready for that. I hope i can just screw the channels to the decking with the stainless screws and pull the adhesive strip on the led light and shove it in the channel. If the adhesive is strong enough and i can mount directly to the underside, i will do that then use the screws with little plastic holders (kinda like the ones used for cable wire at home) to place every few feet or so to keep it from falling out.
then run the wires to the helm and figure out what to do with the IR sensor when i get there.
In theory this sounds like it will work, but we will find out. More to come and thanks for all the replies!
Here is my boat (pic taken last year), as you can see the logs taper off in the front, not sure if i should run the l.e.d.s all the way to the front.
Here you can see running 2 lights in series off of just the controller. Notice strip on the left (the second strip in series) is a slightly different color.
Here is just a random picture on how i connected wires to the controller
Alex...
h34r:
