Working on the boat

Oops! I screwed up again, but this time the results were funny

By March 11, 2018 No Comments
Working on the LED light strip

A while back I did a Facebook Live video where I walked around the boat and talked about some of the different projects I had worked on that week. One of them was installing a new LED light strip.

It sounds simple enough, but I had to redo the switch, wiring, and connections so it took a few hours. One of the last things I did was use electrical tape to hold the connection from the control box to the lights together. There was another short cord there as well that I thought was for a different type of connection. I did not want it just dangling there so I taped it with the other.

Everything was great until I turned it on and my remote that controls the whole thing would do nothing. All the lights did was blink from red to green to blue and back. I could not figure out what was wrong. I wrote to the manufacture and the seller on Amazon asking them what they thought. Both said it was the little controller box and they would send a new one to fix the problem.

In the mean time I had to use some regular Christmas Lights during two different charters to light up the cockpit. I did not like doing this since the Christmas lights were not LED and burned up 6 amps an hour (on a boat you count each amp since you have to provide your own electricity). On a side note we did use the LED strip one time when the three girls on the second charter wanted to dance the night away and the blinking light worked perfect for that.

Turns out the Amazon seller was the manufacture, but I ended up getting to two control boxes with remotes sent to me…..score!!!!! I un taped, switched out the control box, and retaped everything and then tried it out. The stupid thing did the exact same thing!!! ARGGGGGG!!! I was pissed now.

I went and untaped the connection box again and that is when I noticed a diagram on the back side of it. Turns out that “other connector” I was typing out of the way was really the inferred sensor. With it taped up it could not see the signal from the remote and change to the requested color. Opps!!!!

Now that I have it “working” it is great! Even on full brightness of white light it only burns a smidge over an amp. When I use a different color it can go down to a quarter of an amp depending on the color.

The moral of this story is sometimes it helps to read everything that is sent…including the writing on the parts. This is why a second opinion is always good. It gives you a different view that you might have not thought about. I hope my misadventure has put a smile on your face. 🙂 Now go out there and take on the world.

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