# Light Setup



## kevinclark93 (Dec 30, 2010)

I have bowfishing for a couple of years now with spotlights. I am ready to step up my game. From what I have read HPS lights have the best performance.

What is the best setup for HPS lights.

Watts?
Quantity?
Generator?
What light to buy and where to get it?


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## texas two guns (Jan 23, 2006)

Not sure on the particulars you ask about but so that you know, HPS is very yellow, which is great for stained water. The fish actually contrast better, some say they glow.
175W are entry level and go up from there, most guys use 400W
Quantity depends on your light arrangement. Minimum would be three (front and both sides). Most guys have two on each side and 2 up front, but on a small boat could be overkill.
Generator, the smaller and quieter the better. Depending on number of lights you could get by with a Honda 2000i, most guys run 3000i or dual 2000i. Honda is not the only manufacturer though. Stay away from the little generac's.
You can get all your light needs at any contractor's electric supply house.


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## bowfishrp (Apr 5, 2007)

Well it all depends on your budget because you needs lights and a generator to run them. Cheapest solution in lights is 500 watt halogen lights. They are about $10 each and bulbs are cheap and you can buy them almost anywhere. The hard part is that you need a bigger generator to run them because they draw more power. Some guys can still find the 350 watt ultra halogen bulbs which are almost as bright but they are getting rare. 300 watt halogen lights are a waste of time IMO. 

HPS (high pressure sodium) and MH (metal halide) are from the same familiy called HID lights so they both about the same price and will draw less power and are brighter than halogen. The drawback is they take about 1 minute to come up to full brightness and cost about 10 times what a halogen costs....oh and each light weighs about 10 lbs or more. MH is a pretty white light and the HPS are a deeper yellow light than halogen....yes, halogen are a little yellow but nothing like HPS. We just went with MH bulbs and used HPS ballasts so that we can use either bulbs if we want. You cannot use HPS bulbs in MH ballasts though. You can buy the fully assembled light with ballast, bulb, and reflector in one housing or you can buy a ballast kit if you want to build a custom housing.

LED is also an option but they are very expensive mainly because they are a VERY new technology and not enough people run them yet.


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## bowfishrp (Apr 5, 2007)

As for generators....go with what you are comfortable with or what you can afford. IMO Honda makes the best generators out there but they know it and charge more. I have never had any problem with anything generac makes and know a guy that runs the little 2000 watt generac without issue. If you can go with the inverter type generators because they produce clean power which works better with HPS and MH....if you are running halogen they dont care about clean power so you can get away with a cheap harbor freight generator...yeah I have one!

Just make sure that your light draw does not go over 80% of the rated RUNNING watts of the generator....otherwise you will have a shorter generator light.


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## texas two guns (Jan 23, 2006)

I think the issue with generac was running two of them parallel.


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