ABOUT SHADOW-CASTER
LIGHTING CONTROL INTEGRATION
Shadow-Caster, Inc. has formed relationships with major marine electronic manufacturers to provide integrated solutions utilizing their lighting control technology. These partners include Garmin, Navico, Raymarine and Furuno. Through these partnerships, Shadow-Caster can provide plug and play systems that allow total boat lighting control through the screens without requiring external switches. These systems are easy to install, but more importantly provide seamless and easy to use interfaces for all customers.
PRODUCT INNOVATION
The Shadow-Caster engineering and design team did not rest on their early success of creating the industry leading SCM-10 underwater light. Customers were happy with the single-color underwater lights but demanded a light that would deliver multiple colors from the same unit. This posed an interesting challenge. This challenge was not in making the light change colors, but how to communicate with the light. Certainly, “toggling the power”, or using an inexpensive RF remote, was the easy answer, but these types of solutions, would never be able to pave the way for control integration, which was and is still the trend in the marine manufacturing industry. The obvious answer was the CAN (Control Area Network) bus. The CAN bus is the core of communications in the marine electronics industry, and widely adopted by all marine manufacturers. Thus, the first CAN bus controlled LED light was created for the marine industry.
This innovation and design choice led Shadow-Caster down the path of being more than just a lighting company, but a “marine lighting and controls” company. The process has continued with the development of standalone lighting controls and development of Shadow-Caster’s own standard for CAN bus lighting controls, appropriately labeled “Shadow-NET”. Through Shadow-NET, total integration of all of the lighting in a vessel was made possible. The Shadow-NET® protocol along with lighting controllers that support it have gained an industry following and have been implemented by numerous manufacturers for lighting control in their boats.
As Shadow-NET continued to gain industry wide adoption the need became apparent for a lighting protocol as a standard that all other lighting manufacturers could follow. In 2016 Shadow-Caster’s president was asked by the NMEA (National Marine Electronics association) to lead the charge of creating and implementing this industry wide standard for lighting control commands for the NMEA 2000. In September of 2020 the final release of the standardized lighting control functions for the marine industry were released. Along with SHADOW-CASTER releasing the first NMEA 2000 lighting controller based on this standard they have also developed supporting hardware that will work with it.
HISTORY
Shadow-Caster, Inc. was started in 2007 by two long-time friends, Brian Rogers and Jeff Pound. At the time, Jeff went shopping for underwater lights for his boat, only to find that none of the underwater LED lights on the market satisfied him. Some of the problems he saw, beyond poor design, were the use of incorrect materials for the highly corrosive saltwater environment, installation that required a large hole in the boat, the requirement for external drive electronics, and a lack of “intense” lighting.
Jeff knew, from his years of developing rugged military hardware, that he could design a better underwater light. Jeff solicited the help of a long-time friend, Brian Rogers. Brian, who had spent his years developing high performance optical and electrical systems, gladly accepted the challenge. Brian and Jeff spent over a year and countless hours of research and development to produce the first prototype of the SCM-10. They knew that this prototype was a product that accomplished their goals of a low profile surface mount underwater light, which would withstand the harsh marine environment. Shadow-Caster was born!
Shadow-Caster engineers and manufactures our entire range of marine lighting products at our facility in Clearwater, Florida USA. We pride ourselves on providing not only high quality lighting and control products but the highest levels of customer service.
All SHADOW-CASTER® products are proudly designed and manufactured in Clearwater, Florida, USA
All SHADOW-CASTER® products are proudly designed and manufactured in Clearwater, Florida, USA