Shadow-Caster SCM-DL WBR Tri-Color Flush Mount LED Deck Light

Shadow-Caster built the SCM-DL series for boaters who want one small fixture that pulls triple duty. This is the WBR version, which packs white, blue, and red LEDs into a single 2-inch flush-mount housing. White for a courtesy light in the cockpit or cabin, blue for accent and mood lighting after dark, and red to keep your night vision intact while you move around the helm. One hole in the deck, one fixture, three jobs.

It's a compact light. The body is 2 inches across and drops into a 1-1/4 inch mounting hole, so it tucks into tight headliner spaces and narrow cockpit coamings without a big backing plate. We've seen these go into 22 to 28 foot center consoles where there just isn't room for anything larger. The housing is black anodized aluminum with a clear glass lens, and the whole thing carries an IP67 waterproof rating, so it shrugs off spray and the occasional green water over the bow.

Power is flexible. It runs on anything from 10 to 30 volts DC, so the same light works on a 12-volt console or a 24-volt house bank with no changes. Current draw is tiny: 250 milliamps at 12 volts, 125 milliamps at 24 volts. You can run a whole row of these off a modest circuit and barely move the needle on a 100 amp-hour battery. Each fixture puts out 300 lumens through a wide 120-degree beam, which spreads a soft, even wash rather than a tight spot. That's exactly what you want from a courtesy or accent light.

Here's the honest part on the colors. White, blue, and red are three separate LED circuits inside the housing. To switch between them you wire each color to its own switch, or run a multi-position rocker at the panel. There's no single-wire color control on this fixture, so plan your switching before you start pulling wire. Most folks put white and red on a two-way switch at the helm and leave blue on its own for evenings at anchor.

A couple of install notes from experience. Drill the 1-1/4 inch hole clean and to size. An oversize hole is the number one cause of leaks on a cored deck, and no amount of sealant fixes a sloppy cutout. If you're mounting near stainless hardware, isolate the aluminum housing so you don't set up galvanic corrosion between the two metals. The included flush-mounting bracket and three screws make the actual mounting straightforward once the hole is cut and bedded.

Where does it fit? Just about anywhere you'd want a discreet light on the water. Step lights along a cockpit, entry lights at a companionway, accent lighting under a gunwale, courtesy lighting in a cabin or head. Sailors use them in the cabin for red-mode night watches. Center console owners drop them into the hardtop and coaming for after-dark walking around. Because the fixture is flush and only 2 inches across, it reads as part of the boat instead of a bolt-on accessory.

Know what this light is and isn't. At 300 lumens it's a courtesy and accent light, not a floodlight. The white mode is perfect for lighting a step, a cockpit sole, or a cabin entry. The red mode is a genuine night-vision saver for moving around after dark, though it's too dim to work a chart by. If you need to light up the whole cockpit to clean fish, this isn't that light. But as a clean, low-draw, three-color fixture that disappears into the deck when it's off, it's hard to beat.

One thing worth knowing on open boats: the clear glass lens holds up well, but any fixture that lives in full sun takes UV abuse over the years. Give it an occasional rinse with fresh water to clear salt off the lens and it'll keep throwing a clean beam. The IP67 seal is built to stay watertight through hard use, and boaters running these report the seal holding up season after season. Wire the switching to match how you actually use the boat and this one earns its spot for a long time.