Malibu Transom LEDs.. possible mod? Thoughts?

[Stuey11]

So I'm out on the water last night, wakeboarding at twilight geting one last run in before its pitch black out. I have two Malibu 9led transom lights on my Bu and the lightup wash is awesome when behind the boat. However, I do somewhat miss the old red glow on my old boat that I had a couple of the round style leds installed.

I love the Malibu transom lights.. .they are crazy bright, and look much better than the round style out of the water. Only downfall, they only come in white. So I got to thinking... what if I used tinted clear paint and tinted the malibu casing in red? I've done it many times for taillights and it turns out great. Anyone ever tried this?

If it works it would have been cool to do on my existing transom leds, maybe spraying them 1/2 red and leaving 1/2 clear. But i wouldn't really want to take them completely out and then have to reinstall them. Maybe just add one more in the middle and do it completely red?

Thoughts guys?

On a side note.. anyone tried this either? http://www.oznium.com/marine-led-spotlight. I've seen it brought up before.. they are cheap so I wouldn't expect much of them, and they might look super cheesy also.

[Bake's Marine]

What about a lens over the light? we had a hot tub that had a light at the bottom that you could interchange colored lenses that snapped over the light. You could utilize the two screw holes and put a piece of red lexan or something similar over the light to change the color? Worth a try, wouldn't be too hard to do?

-Paul

[onamission]

I have some blue headlight tinting film that I tried on ours. Looked good on the trailer but haven't tried it on the water to see how well it changed the color.

[Bobby Light]

Just remember one thing. The white light is going to be the highest output and tinting them will lose nearly half the light output. If you look at the specs at the various other underwater LED lighting in different colors you'll notice that white is the brightest and a blue light with the same specs is about 30-40% less output.

I think it would be cool and would love to see the end result though.

[ADDICTED2WAKE]

I have the 9LED's too and I have blue sheets of thin lexan film that I will place between the cover and the light lens. I'm not sure how many I need in order to achieve the "blueness" that I'm looking for but I have 3 sheets for each...I just don't want the white to have that greenish tone.

Unfortunately these won't be installed until next spring most likely, but once they are done I intend on taking some photos...

I thought about painting the lens' too but I was afraid it'd be uneven and worse yet, hard to get off it didn't turn out right...that's why I'm going with the lexan...

[Stuey11]

Paul: good idea.. but then the chrome surround wouldnt sit quite flush on the transom if the lexan is too thick. Even 1/8" would be too thick to make it look bad installed.

Addicted: where did you get the thin film? It has to be something that is thin enough that the outside surround will still fit flush but be strong enough to withstand the water. Once these things are installed, they are on for good IMO... I don't want to be taking screws in and out of my transom and re-sealing all the time. Which is why I thought of the taillight tint paint. I don't think it would be hard to get it evenly on there, but there's no going back once painted either. I would think the tint paint would stand up to the water if properly applied.

06vlx - I do take that into consideration.. which is why I went with the malibu white in the first place. I want a lot of light output.. which they do. I just think the colors give a way cooler glow. I really want to achieve the look that another member did with malibu lights and bullet lines lights combo. He has blue and white... obsessed or something is his username I think? Do a search for transom leds and you can find the original post/pics

I'm trying to think of the best way.. I was originally going to add only one more malibu 9led in the center, right above where the wedge bracket is, but I think that is going to be a little too high out of th water. As it stands they are about inline with the middle of my swim grid brackets, and with no people/weight in the rear the lights slightly come out of the water (which is actually cool, as it starts lighting up the shoreline as it moves in the water).

Paul.. I got my last two lights from you .. want to give me a really smoking deal on more and I'll take lots of photos and post it up??

[onamission]

I pick up a small sheet of E-Bay from Metro Sellers.

I have pictures in my gallery of blue Bullets and white Malibu lights.

[ADDICTED2WAKE]

I got the film from a co-worker of mine. I'm not sure what the thickness is but I can measure it this week if I can find it.

When I looked at the chrome bezel and the light/lens, it didn't seem like its a very tight seal between the two (tight but not water tight) so I'm not overly concerned about the thickness...