Trailer lights

[jdmidwest]

Neutral would still require using the brakes, maybe more so since the engine/transmission is not braking with the gears.

Led lights are cool running and do not blow  when hitting water.  Local farm store sells them for the best price, I think they are Blazer.  I have swapped out all of my trailer lights with Led's.  Best investment. 

Run a dedicated ground wire to the trailer lights, don't rely on the hitch to ground the trailer.  That causes more problems.  Most wiring harnesses have a dedicated white wire for it.

I even go to the extra trouble of soldering the splices.  I hate faulty lights.  Nothing worse that getting hitched up for a ride near dark or early AM and not having lights on a trailer.

[Stump bumper]

10 hours ago, jdmidwest said:

Neutral would still require using the brakes, maybe more so since the engine/transmission is not braking with the gears.

Led lights are cool running and do not blow  when hitting water.  Local farm store sells them for the best price, I think they are Blazer.  I have swapped out all of my trailer lights with Led's.  Best investment. 

Run a dedicated ground wire to the trailer lights, don't rely on the hitch to ground the trailer.  That causes more problems.  Most wiring harnesses have a dedicated white wire for it.

I even go to the extra trouble of soldering the splices.  I hate faulty lights.  Nothing worse that getting hitched up for a ride near dark or early AM and not having lights on a trailer.

I hope you are right, I hate not having brake lights or turn signals even in the middle of the day. I have a lot of traffic to to go through to get home.

I also Soldered the connections and used shrink wrap, I am hoping the LEDS are tougher and cooler than the old bulbs. Anyway there seem to be a lot more LED bulbs in there so maybe that will play to my advantage.

I don't understand why a poor ground would blow a bulb, but grounded through the white wire anyway, lights were set up to ground to the trailer. I understand the bulb won't work without a ground, but how come it would blow?

[Seth]

I don't know why they bother with incandescent lights on boat trailers anymore. One of the first things I did on my boat when I got it new two years ago was replace the rear lights with LED's and extend the ground from back so that it attached to the solid part of the frame and not the swing away tongue. I've had zero problems with them since doing that. Soldering is best, but I've had good luck using silicone filled wire nuts too. My connections were soldered on my current boat, but I used the wire nuts on my last boat for years and never had any issues. It beats those little blue press on clips that they use from the factory.

This is what I replaced the original tail lights with.  http://optronicsinc.com/PRODUCTS/LEDLighting/LEDStopTurnTail/Products.aspx?SeriesID=570

[Champ188]

My Ranger Trail came with all LED's. It's 4 years old and I haven't had a single bulb flicker or burn out.

[David Unnerstall]

15 hours ago, jdmidwest said:

Neutral would still require using the brakes, maybe more so since the engine/transmission is not braking with the gears.

Led lights are cool running and do not blow  when hitting water.  Local farm store sells them for the best price, I think they are Blazer.  I have swapped out all of my trailer lights with Led's.  Best investment. 

Run a dedicated ground wire to the trailer lights, don't rely on the hitch to ground the trailer.  That causes more problems.  Most wiring harnesses have a dedicated white wire for it.

I even go to the extra trouble of soldering the splices.  I hate faulty lights.  Nothing worse that getting hitched up for a ride near dark or early AM and not having lights on a trailer.

I agree on the dedicated ground wire and on soldering all connections.

[jdmidwest]

I don't know that a bad ground will blow a bulb, but it may be hard on filament bulbs. 

It will cause blinking and shorts if there is any corrosion on the ball or the ball is loose if the trailer is not grounded.  Most wiring harnesses have a dedicated white ground wire and I run it to all of the lights.  Some just ground it from the plug to the trailer tongue and then run the ground from each light to the trailer.  Some just rely on the ground of the the truck to make connection thru the ball.

Trailer lights suck.  LED trailer lights suck less.  Other problems are bad connectors, those tend to corrode or go bad on me every few years.  Then there is the 7 to 4 pin converter to corrode and short.  Too many places for the connections to break.

[Robert Haynes]

18 minutes ago, jdmidwest said:

I don't know that a bad ground will blow a bulb, but it may be hard on filament bulbs. 

It will cause blinking and shorts if there is any corrosion on the ball or the ball is loose if the trailer is not grounded.  Most wiring harnesses have a dedicated white ground wire and I run it to all of the lights.  Some just ground it from the plug to the trailer tongue and then run the ground from each light to the trailer.  Some just rely on the ground of the the truck to make connection thru the ball.

Trailer lights suck.  LED trailer lights suck less.  Other problems are bad connectors, those tend to corrode or go bad on me every few years.  Then there is the 7 to 4 pin converter to corrode and short.  Too many places for the connections to break.

Agreed, I have 12 trailers. It is constant maintenance on 1 or the other of them, you are right, LED sucks less!

[chi0082]

On 7/12/2016 at 7:00 AM, Stump bumper said:

I hope you are right, I hate not having brake lights or turn signals even in the middle of the day. I have a lot of traffic to to go through to get home.

I also Soldered the connections and used shrink wrap, I am hoping the LEDS are tougher and cooler than the old bulbs. Anyway there seem to be a lot more LED bulbs in there so maybe that will play to my advantage.

I don't understand why a poor ground would blow a bulb, but grounded through the white wire anyway, lights were set up to ground to the trailer. I understand the bulb won't work without a ground, but how come it would blow?

A bulb can blow for a number of reasons, but my theory is that water is a natural conductor of electricity, and so any connection or wire that is not completely sealed/wrapped/protected will create a short between it and the chassis of the trailer, hence blowing the bulb. And as fishinwrench already mentioned, the sudden temperature changes going from hot to cold creates condensation and pressure differentials that can also kill a bulb. LED's do not heat up anywhere near a normal bulb, and they are in a lot smaller "capsule" (for a lack of a better term) and therefore does not suffer the same stresses that would kill a normal bulb. LED's also require much less current which also translates to less heat. They can still suffer from a short or bad ground or poor connections, but aren't as likely to fail otherwise.

[zarraspook]

On 7/11/2016 at 2:26 PM, Stump bumper said:

Maybe better made lights 18 years ago? I could have just replaced the two big bulbs, but with evidence of corrosion and the fact I just replaced them a couple months ago I decided on trying a different light all together. I am not launching in the dark and it takes me at least ten minutes to get ready also. I am hoping the LED hold up better than the last set, guess I am alone in blowing so many bulbs.

Mine are a "throw-a-way" single sealed unit.. nothing gets inside, until you back into something and crack the case...

[jdmidwest]

5 hours ago, zarraspook said:

Mine are a "throw-a-way" single sealed unit.. nothing gets inside, until you back into something and crack the case...

Or the plug corrodes on the back.  I replaced a pair of those on the last trailer, water or road salt had eaten up the plug on one.  I replaced with LEDS.