Whats the best way to run my light?

[Lil John16]

I have a 16ft carolina skiff that i just got. I have a manual start engine and would like to put a light in the front and back. Whats the best way for me to get power;just put a 12 volt battery in the boat and run the wires? Would the battery last long? What kind of battery is best for just running lights? And i dont want to put any portable battery operated lights on since i havent seen any that look reliable.

[marshmat]

Look in the manual for your engine to find a wiring diagram. Most rope-start outboards have a set of terminals somewhere in there for a nav light. They're usually hidden back under the cowl but some put the port on front. You can run the lights directly from this, or you can buy a rectifier to connect the motor's lighting coil to a battery and run the lights from that. If there exists an electric-start model of your motor, you will almost certainly have the coil already installed in your rope-start unit. A 12-volt utility or hobby battery is more than sufficient.

If you don't want to wire the motor into the works, you can put a lawn-tractor or snowmobile battery in a battery box and hook the lights up to that. You'd simply take the battery box inside and put it on a charger now and then. Nav lights don't draw much power, typically about 5 watts each. (The stern light on my boat is a portable D-cell unit; I just put the lamp head on a nicer mast than it came with, xenon bulb and it uses two D-cells per season.)

A 16-foot powerboat requires a 360-degree white stern light and standard red/green bow light, 1-mile visibility in clear weather. The stern light must be on at all times in poor visibility; the bow light only when underway- hence, the stern light needs a battery of some sort as it must work without the engine.

[Tim B]

I'd use a 12 volt lead-acid battery ( about 10AH ) amidships and connect up the lights to that via a switch. Connect a small solar panel (1.8W job) to the battery, and fix the panel to the deck. A simple system which will maintain charge. Dependant on how regularly you use the lights you may want to put in two or more panels wired in parallel. These bits are all available from good electronics suppliers.

Tim B.