LED Cup Holders

[Robert Sands]

Hello everyone.

Just wondering if anyone has any experience doing more tricky electrical mods to their boats? I'm running a 195 HO Impulse, and I'm wondering about installing those LED cup holders? How easy would it be to tap into the wiring from the cup holders, would some be easier than others? Thanks.

Rob

 

[H2OBoy]

I recently did mine and it was very easy. I did tap into my courtesy light switch. I also changed out the bulb on the courtesy light to a blue LED to match the cup holders. I am very pleased with the results. They are not so bright that they distract you at night.

 

[Robert Sands]

Love it! How did you find running the wires? Do they all go to the closest courtesy light wire?

 

[H2OBoy]

I only have one courtesy light so I tapped into the wires between the light switch and the light, running two trunk wires in each direction. I then connected the wires from the cup holders into these trunk wires. I used T-tap connectors for this which made the process quite easy.

 

[Robert Sands]

Great, thanks a lot. I'm putting this on my projects list.

 

[Joseph Baxter]

Dang you!!! Now I have to have them!!! Do you have a link for the ones you got?

 

[txav8r]

I think @H2OBoy did his cupholders like I did mine. Not too many do theirs like this, but I didn't want to raise the cupholders up to put a ring under them, and I wanted to keep the light indirect. So I drilled a small hole in the bottom of the cupholder side, and placed the RGB strip lighting, cut to fit, inside the bottom lip of each cupholder. I added a secondary bus and switch for these and other stuff, but you could easily add them to the courtesy lights...if you have room on the circuit breaker. You want to be at 80% of the circuit breakers capacity and not a bunch less or any more. Some of us did that by removing the incadecent bulbs in the courtesy lights and replacing with LED, so that gave a great amount of room for our other LED lights. Here are a few pics of how I did my cupholders...

 

[txav8r]

You will have to buy bulk LED strip that is waterproof, cut and waterproof the cuts, as well as solder the connections to do this. Otherwise, if you buy ready made, you will be buying rings that mount under the holders, or smaller, less dynamic rings that go in the cupholders. The 3 LED rings are not very illuminating.

 

[H2OBoy]

I originally bought these. But the light ring at the bottom was too small for my larger cups to fit, I was also concerned that they would be too bright as they have three LEDs in the ring.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/23135970809...l?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=231359708097&_rdc=1

I then removed the rings, drilled a hole in the side of the cup holders near the bottom, and inserted these LED lights. I drilled the hole just large enough to fit the light through and hot glued the back side to secure. This worked quite well and provides a nice accent light without being too bright.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/35005795169...l?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=350057951690&_rdc=1

 

[DonWon]

@H2OBoy Did you just use one light bulb for each cup holder?

 

[H2OBoy]

@H2OBoy Did you just use one light bulb for each cup holder?

I did. I positioned each cup holder with the light shining outward so you do not actually see the bulb while in the boat.

 

[David D]

I think @H2OBoy did his cupholders like I did mine. Not too many do theirs like this, but I didn't want to raise the cupholders up to put a ring under them, and I wanted to keep the light indirect. So I drilled a small hole in the bottom of the cupholder side, and placed the RGB strip lighting, cut to fit, inside the bottom lip of each cupholder. I added a secondary bus and switch for these and other stuff, but you could easily add them to the courtesy lights...if you have room on the circuit breaker. You want to be at 80% of the circuit breakers capacity and not a bunch less or any more. Some of us did that by removing the incadecent bulbs in the courtesy lights and replacing with LED, so that gave a great amount of room for our other LED lights. Here are a few pics of how I did my cupholders...

My original plan was to create acrylic rings to place under the lip of the cup holder with the LEDs behind the ring. But that proved to not only be a PITA, but I didn't like the look. I ended up drilling a hole in the bottom of each cup holder and installing the LEDs like this post. Great results. And running the wire was super easy - just used a fish tape to make it easy.

 

[DJMattyT]

I am going to do the same thing on my 195 HOI. How does the blue LEDs look compared to the blue LED accent lights in the boat? Pretty similar in color or no?

 

[txav8r]

If your going to go to the trouble of doing this mod @DJMattyT , I would encourage you to use RGB strip lighting. I ended up doing my install twice. First in red LED strip lighting, and then after two seasons, we got tired of red. So to keep the changes to a minimum, we went with the RGB (red, green, blue) strip lighting. It will come with a controller and remote control. That will give you the capability of selecting any one of about 8 to 16 colors with an ordinary remote control that comes with these kits. That way, you can have anything from a nice teal blue swimming pool color to hot pink and everything between. The remote will have settings to allow you to let colors just fade from one to another throughout the pallet, or flash, or you can select your color and dim to suit your mood. Be sure to make this a very waterproof setup, and use plenty of strain relief as we have plenty of vibration in a boat. Blue is a nice color to answer your question, but there are about 50 shades of blue too! Here are the three base colors in the cupholders as I built them. We always liked blue with a tad of green in it. These shots a twilight to keep the LED's from blinding the camera.
We always liked blue with a tad of green in it. These shots a twilight to keep the LED's from blinding the camera.



Here is only the LED's showing any light totally dark outside. This is the reason I don't recommend putting LED's behind speaker rings in the boat...they are blinding! Even down in the cupholder, plenty of direct light escapes from reflection, but it is much more subdued and not near as blinding or direct. Keep in mind, you don't want to see the LED itself, only the light coming from it indirectly.

And here is a typical controller and remote that you have to wire into the system.

If you boat at night, this is one of the best mods I ever did. The ambiance is incredible, and when it is time to go, just shift them to white and get cleaned up in lots of light to see what your doing! You will be tempted to keep them on while running. Resist the temptation, at the dimmest setting, your night vision will suffer greatly. We have to travel about 5 miles across a black lake in the dark, with fishermen here and there, that don't think they need to show lights at all. Keeping a keen eye out is imperative. I even lay a towel across the dash lights and turn the GPS down to barely visible, so that I can see a hundred yards or so. When anchored, eating, chatting, whatever, these lights really add another level to your boat. Here is the first link on Ebay I came to with the waterproof SMD 5050 strip lighting...
5M 5050 RGB SMD LED Waterproof Flexible Strip 300 LEDs + 44 Key IR Remote
This will do 16' of lighting without cutting into smaller sections. Good luck on the install!

 

[DJMattyT]

I already kind of committed to not having RGB on the boat because all my LEDs are already blue. I have the LEDs in my speakers and they're all blue as well as the blue accent lights in the boat. It would be a huge pain in the ass to start doing RGB to be honest

 

[DJMattyT]

Also does anyone know where I can get cup holder replacements for the Scarab? 2 of mine are shot

 

[David D]

@DJMattyT, I did straight-up blue as well on mine. Although I like the idea of the RGB strips, I went with Blue because in our hot tub, we always switch to the blue and avoided the other colors. I figured it would be the same in the boat. I also like the single color LED strips because it was easier for me when soldering just two wires instead of four.

I put mine just in the bottom of the cup holders -- with a central LED dimmer. Actually there are two dimmers - one for the bow and one for everything else. So far I've just got them in the cup holders and behind the swim deck seat backs where they let out a little indirect light on the swim platform. This year I will add an indirect blue strip in the bow and some white strips in the storage areas. I also plan on doing the "runway" on the trailer for night loading - and just for fun.

 

[txav8r]

I like all of y'all's ambitious installs. It truly makes the boat more enjoyable, useful, and it sure is fun to show it off! One night, Chester, our boxer, my wife, and I, we're just chilling g and listening to music, I had the LEDs flashing with the music. And she said she just wanted to enjoy some softer music. I put on something for her, and she said lets explore the colors. This is what she decided was a nice color....so be glad you just have blue.