light fixtures on hood?
- Thread starter roggy23
- Start date
gregvabch
Active Member
what are you trying to mount? i mounted my vho's to my manufactured hood, i took the end-caps, and the spacers, and screwed them right into the wood of the canopy. i assembled everything first to make sure it fit and to see where exactly i needed to mount them, then i screwed everything in. i also added spacers to the canopy itself to raise the lights off the water a little.
gregvabch
Active Member
well if you've already got the lights, the case you have should also have a ballast in it to power the lights. so if you take it apart, a little imagination should be all you would need to mount them to a canopy. the housing also has a reflector in it right? basically you'd just be transferring it from the housing to your canopy. you'd probably just need some screws. what kind of lights are they? power compacts right? what brand are they?
gregvabch
Active Member
have you tried taking it apart yet? is there something in it right now that holds the light in place? the bulbs themselves are not going to mount to the top of your canopy, you'll need something that you can mount to the canopy that will hold the bulbs in place. lamp clips would work; you could screw them right into the canopy, and you could also use a mountable endcap, which you would replace your old endcaps with. all you would have to do is cut the wires and splice them into the new endcaps. both the clips and the endcaps are very inexpensive. will the reflector come out of your hood so that you can use that with your canopy?
gregvabch
Active Member
please don't hold me responsible if something goes terribly wrong 
ok, i really can't say whether you'd be able to use the clips in your current housing without seeing them. if they're mounted to the housing by a screw or a rivot, then you probably can use them. if they're welded or adhered to the housing in some way then you'd probably be better off just buying some. they really are only a buck or two apiece.
IMO, the sturdiest way to do it would be to replace the endcaps with some that you can actually screw down onto the wood. if your housing is anything like my old one, the endcaps are loose inside the housing. if you use just the clips, then the whole bulb and endcaps will be dependent upon just the clips to stay in place. the clips are open ended so one slam of your canopy could result in most or all of your bulbs popping out of the clips. whether they break or not, either way, they're right above your water. this would be grounds for disaster.
look at it this way, you're already saving yourself money since you're using the ballast and bulbs you've got right now. this is the most expensive part of your lighting. so what's 20 bucks on new end-caps that you can screw down and some new clips as well?
if you purchase the mountable end-caps, you'll have those and the clips to hold your lights in place. much safer IMO.
also, although a drill would make things easier, a screw driver and some elbow grease works just as good. HTH
ok, i really can't say whether you'd be able to use the clips in your current housing without seeing them. if they're mounted to the housing by a screw or a rivot, then you probably can use them. if they're welded or adhered to the housing in some way then you'd probably be better off just buying some. they really are only a buck or two apiece.
IMO, the sturdiest way to do it would be to replace the endcaps with some that you can actually screw down onto the wood. if your housing is anything like my old one, the endcaps are loose inside the housing. if you use just the clips, then the whole bulb and endcaps will be dependent upon just the clips to stay in place. the clips are open ended so one slam of your canopy could result in most or all of your bulbs popping out of the clips. whether they break or not, either way, they're right above your water. this would be grounds for disaster.
look at it this way, you're already saving yourself money since you're using the ballast and bulbs you've got right now. this is the most expensive part of your lighting. so what's 20 bucks on new end-caps that you can screw down and some new clips as well?
if you purchase the mountable end-caps, you'll have those and the clips to hold your lights in place. much safer IMO.
also, although a drill would make things easier, a screw driver and some elbow grease works just as good. HTH