Replacing Underwater Lights

[sunedog]

My 2017 23RSB has RGB (multi-color) underwater transom lights. The LED's are failing and I want to replace them. They are out of warranty. Called the dealer and they can supply "Bennington" replacement lights for over $500 each or Atwood aftermarket lights for $267 each. That's more than I want to spend.

I checked Amazon and can get some RGB lights for a little over $100 per pair. (HUSUKU RS10 6000LM Underwater Marine Light for Boat) But they would have their own controller. I want to power them with the existing wiring, multi-color controller and switch. I don't think these would be plug and play.

I don't really need the RGB function. I would be happy with just single color blue. (HUSUKU SOOP3 PRO 6.7" 2000LM 60LED Waterproof 316 Stainless Steel Trim Ring Boat High-Intensity LED Underwater Light) Do you think I can buy a pair of single color lights and power them from the existing wiring (presumably 4 wire for the RGB function)? I'm pretty sure the red wire is 12v hot and the green, orange and blue wires control the range of colors. So how would I wire these single color lights? Could I just get power from the red wire and get ground from a new wire to a screw into the transom bracket?

 

[LD50]

Use a multimeter and check your wires. Typically you'll have a common ground and one hot wire for each of the 3 colors. You should be able to make it work. Whatever your current controller is, you'd need to leave it set to whichever hot wire you tie in to the new lights. You might also be able to tie all 3 hot wires together at the light so that's not an issue. The last concern I'd have would be what is the amperage draw of the new lights compared to the old and are the old wires sufficient to power the new lights. I'd possibly have similar concerns with load that your current RGB controller is designed to handle.

 

[sunedog]

Well, this turned out to be simpler than expected. I bought the single color blue lights from Amazon that I linked above and they came in yesterday. When I removed the old lights today, I was pleasantly surprised to see they were also single color lights with just a red and black wire.

Since the switch is grouped with the RGB controller knob, outside and the interior light switches, I always thought the transom underwater lights changed in unison with the others. I was evidently wrong.

The new lights look great and are very bright. They were only $60 for the pair compared to $534 for Atwood's or over $1000 for "Bennington" OEM.