Custom Underwater Lights.

[Midnightsun]

After a season of successful testing in the water, I MAY make a small batch exclusively for Carver owners on this site.

[waybomb]

And I may be interested Hans.

[tomschauer]

Sign me up.

[Midnightsun]

After 3 seasons there are issues. Corrosion of the aluminum due to them acting as anodes and the resin has cracked most likely from different expansion rates of materials. On to plan 2.

[km1125]

How were the LED modules fixed/mounted inside? Was it possible for them to use the aluminum as a heat sink?

A voltage regulator is probably a good idea. Even if the lights could tolerate the higher voltage, that also means more heat. More heat leads to a lot of other bad things happening.

[Midnightsun]

They were mounted with special white heat transfer paste/glue directly to the aluminum housing and then resin poured to seal everything. I know the cooling worked well as I once forgot them on for about 20hrs with no damage.

[Viper]

QR_BBPOST.... Corrosion of the aluminum due to them acting as anodes....

Ya it's inevitable. Even expensive units have the same problem. There was a thread a few years ago about aluminum underwater lights to which I suggested it wasn't a good idea for that reason but the OP was convinced they'd be fine. I know the boat and know that the lights on there now aren't the ones mentioned in the thread that he first installed. I suspect the corrosion got out of hand so he replaced them with something else. Don't get me wrong, there are aluminum alloys that do pretty good but you can't get away from aluminum being more active than the metals of inboard running gear. If you're going with aluminum, you better have some magnesium close by. If you know the composition of the aluminum, you may also be able to get away with aluminum anodes. Having said that, it's just safer to stay away from aluminum underwater lights IMO, I haven't seen one yet that doesn't eventually corrode to a point where it needs replacing.