Share Your Innovations

[jorluivil]

So I've seen these glow sticks at Home Depot for a few months now and finally decided to buy some and see if I could modify them for hooping.

First reason to buy these is because they come with free battery replacements for life, just pay shipping and handling....I know, I know that's not exactly free but it only cost $15 to replace the batteries on 6 glow sticks. Lifegear also sends you a prepaid envelope to return the old batteries for proper disposal. Not sure how many of you know this but it is illegal to throw batteries in the trash. The last time I bought batteries for my Promar sticks I bought them at Walmart, they sell a similar set of batteries for $5.00+tax, $6 X 6 packs= $36........50% savings by going with the Lifegear brand.

Second reason to buy these is because they come with three way lighting. Orange solid, orange flashing, and a flashlight at the tip, this part of the light can be reversed and used as a solid white white on the glow stick.

First thing I did was cut off the whistle that sits at the bottom of the glow stick, you can leave it on but it just makes the glow stick that much longer and gets in the way. Once you cutoff the whistle you can attach it to your PFD, hopefully you'll never need it but it's good to have one.

Next thing was to Goop three areas of the glow stick, you want to Goop the part that has the flashlight, the on/off button and the area where the two pieces come together. Because Goop is slightly flexible once it dries it still allows you to use the on/off button after the Goop dries.

About the only downfall to these is that they have a one hour timer on them, I looked at the circuit board to see if I could bypass the time but I couldn't figure out which part of it was the timer. I figured this out the hard way, three of the glow sticks turned off minutes apart from each other while I was hopping. The way to avoid this is to simply turn them off and on each time you pull your net(s). However, because they do have a timer you'll never have to worry about them turning on after you put them away, this happens to my Promar sticks a lot, the copper contact touches the battery and.......you know the rest.

Promar makes a god product but if you can get something for less and make it work by making slight modifications why not? You can get three of these for just under $8, that's under $3 each compared to a price of $6 for each for the Promars.

[bus kid]

while I was out fishing on black Friday I locked my cart up to the lifeguard tower and at the end of the day when I got out some asshole came along and busted off one wheel.So i went to HF and got new wheels. Here's what I did.

old wheel removed from cartold wheel1.jpg

old axle removed from old wheelold axel.jpg

old axle in new wheel new wheel + axel.jpg

fits perfectcompelete new wheel.jpg

repeat for the other side all done.jpg

While at Hf I picked up a box of snap clips 12 pcs for $5
http://www.harborfreight.com/12-piec...set-67563.html
used the snap clips to leash everything down and the box became a tackle box
box1.jpg
fits perfect in the side pocketbox in yak.jpg

I also drilled a hole in a rib inside the hatch and tied the hatch to the inside of the yak added a loop and a snap clip to keep my dry bag close inside.hatch.jpg

very productive day for me.