rope lighting help!!!

[ndthwacker]

Is there any way i can take rope lights that are made to plug into a 120v wall outlet and wire it to a battery?? i doubt just cutting off the end and hooking it up would work, do i need some sort of power converter or something? am electicly dumb please help me help myself. thanks

 

[NYBo]

Re: rope lighting help!!!

The cheapest and easiest solution is to buy 12V rope lights.

 

[LippCJ7]

Re: rope lighting help!!!

I doubt your rope lights are 120VAC LED's Chances are the the voltage is stepped down before it gets to the lights but you would need to check and see, normally there is a power supply/step transformer on the power wire between the AC plug and the LED's if there is it should have the input/output voltage on it. Do you see one of those?

 

[ndthwacker]

Re: rope lighting help!!!

no i dont see that i got them at menards they are sunbeam i belive the box says 120 i know and i think they where 20 bucks for 12 feet they look really good plugged in so i would like to be able to wire them into my boat. ill try to figure out what the input /output voltage is. if possible i would just get an inverter beacuse i want a single flood light to ont he front for running home in the dark after leaving my treestand at night and i have about 15 miles to drive on a skinny river

 

[ndthwacker]

Re: rope lighting help!!!

ya they are sunbeam led rope lights they say it saves 85% on electic costs and says 120v on the box. no idea about if it steps down your probley right i just know they are made for a 120 v outlet and was hopeing a inverter would work if i need a 300 or 400 watt inverter that would work to if i would be able to plug in a 500 watt or 250 watt light into it???? is that possible??? sorry for my lack of knowledge.

 

[ndthwacker]

Re: rope lighting help!!!

also if it helps they say .4 amps per foot so about 1 amp ever 2 feet and i have 24 feet of the blue ones, as i have read that the color matters.

 

[LippCJ7]

Re: rope lighting help!!!

Ok the problem is this, I figure your going to need about a 900 watt invertor for the numbers you gave me which by the way I think are incorrect information from the manufacturer. The other side is that your doing this in a way that is probably the most unefficient way possible. Your boat is 12VDC and you can purchase 12 VDC LED's for about the same price. On top of this your going to purchase an invertor to change 12VDC to 110VAC and then the rope lights are probably going to change the voltage back to XVDC(we don't know) Add all this up and its just not wise. I would do as many here have done including myself and purchase 12VDC LED's and wire them directly to the boat through a fuse and be done with it. You can purchase LED's at Superbrightleds.com or ledglow.com, pick what you want and then we can go about installing them, this is much more efficient use of the power you have available without dealing with an invertor which can be expensive.

 

[ndthwacker]

Re: rope lighting help!!!

alight tom all double check the number to make sure what i gave you was correct and a have looked at the super bright leds and cant even fand any 12 v rope lights on that site but ill look again and wee what i can find. Do you have and suggestions on hooking up a flood light to a battery??

 

[ndthwacker]

Re: rope lighting help!!!

could not tind any rope lights on either of those sites and everything was pretty spendy for the small strips i found.

 

[Joshua Nichols]

Re: rope lighting help!!!

How about 150' for 100 bucks... http://www.birddogdistributing.com/2wire-steady-burn-12volt-c-31_81_101.html

 

[Moody Blue]

Re: rope lighting help!!!

alight tom all double check the number to make sure what i gave you was correct and a have looked at the super bright leds and cant even fand any 12 v rope lights on that site but ill look again and wee what i can find. Do you have and suggestions on hooking up a flood light to a battery??

Do a google search for "12v rope light". There are many sources. Check ebay, again, many sources. What you were proposing with the inverter to run the flood light and rope light is not practicle and is dangerous. 120vac doesn't belong on a small boat.

There are many types of 12vdc spotlights. Some are handheld and others are deck mounted. Some can even be remote controlled like this one I have. There are rechargeable types and others that plug into a standard cigarette lighter outlet. All depends on how much you want to spend and how you want to use it.

http://www.golight.com/products/golight.html