Fix Boat Light

This is a light off a rowing boat.  The lights are required because it is dark when we set out in the early morning.

Water has gotten into this light.  You can see droplets on the batteryy and inside the cover section in the lower half of the picture.

It is interesting to note that water has gotten in despite the light being fitted with an O-Ring seal and it has had some silastic added.

I dried it out with paper towel and then Megan's hair dryer.  Then I changed the batteries.  The old batteries were Powertech NiMH.  I used Aldi NiMH.  $16 (I think) much cheaper than Jaycar.

Note below the PCB is quite corroded. Unlike another light I fixed recently (#5), #5 had been conformally coated and although there was much more gunk inside light #5 because a battery had leaked, the PCB was pretty much undamaged.

aaaa

The underside of the light.

The Velcro is used to hold the light onto the boat.

The two pins at the bottom are used to recharge the batteries.

When I reassembled the light, I ditched the "O" Ring for a couple of reasons.  It's a square cross section and the rubber was very hard and I suspect it did little to seal the unit.

Use Silastic to reseal the unit.  There is no guarantee that this will work because someone had used some silastic before me and yet water had still gotten in.

I also put Silastic inside the unit around where the DC power pins come in.

In the picture below, you can see the bead of silastic squeezed out as the lid was screwed on.