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RE: Permanent Residents
Up where I live we only do this from about April - October and call it 'Seasonal Camping'. It's more of our home away from home on the weekends during the spring, summer and fall months.
Seems to work out well for our family and we really enjoy it.
Especially with gas prices going haywire, it's nice not pulling the camper around the country at 6-8 mpg!
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Lucky13MN
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10/07/08 03:12pm |
Travel Trailers
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RE: running lights on travel trailer
post a scematic of what ya did, this sounds like a great emergency tool!
I'll try and draw one up, it's been a while but basically:
I bought the vehicle side of the harness (the end you would typically plug the trailer into) and used that for the control box so to speak.
Since power is already routed to the trailer end of the plug I simply used that for my source (so it can run off battery power).
I ran one side of the switch directly to the parking light terminal (constant on). The second one I ran to a standard GM flasher, and from there to the parking light terminal.
Mounted the whole works inside an adapter made for trailers and voila!$30 later I had a fancy shmancy little control box to control my parking lights at will.
All I do is unplug my trailer from the vehicle and plug it into this box, at the flick of a switch it's ready to go.
Edit:
Found my old 'schematic' I drew up to go by when I made it... hope it helps clear up my wording above.
http://www.thezook.net/upload/auxlight.jpg
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Lucky13MN
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10/07/08 11:10am |
Travel Trailers
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RE: running lights on travel trailer
I always wanted to know how it was done and this year finally figured it out and went a little overboard with my project.
I made a box that plugs into my trailer harness with a 3 way switch. Left is on (solid), center is off, right is flashing.
We love it and only planned on using the flasher function if we had to unhitch on the highway.
The lights are not bright, I have no idea how they could annoy anyone to be very truthful. I'm easily annoyed to a fault and by no means would this ever come close to ruffling my feathers while camping.
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Lucky13MN
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10/07/08 10:15am |
Travel Trailers
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RE: Trailer Wiring - Auxilliary Modification
http://naumans.smugmug.com/photos/293915321_tXtGk-M.jpg
http://naumans.smugmug.com/photos/293915770_Ddcwa-M.jpg
http://naumans.smugmug.com/photos/293917361_puFqf-M.jpg
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Lucky13MN
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05/13/08 09:34am |
Travel Trailers
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RE: Trailer Wiring - Auxilliary Modification
Yeah, but what fun is that to make? :)
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Lucky13MN
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05/10/08 06:38am |
Travel Trailers
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RE: Trailer Wiring - Auxilliary Modification
Center location is 'off', then it goes to one side or the other.
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Lucky13MN
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05/06/08 12:28pm |
Travel Trailers
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RE: Trailer Wiring - Auxilliary Modification
Well, I have the wiring all done but no way to test it until Saturday when I get back to the camper. All that's left is to put it all inside the housing and connect it to the trailer frame.
The only thing I'm not sure about is the non-flasher side.
Power Source
Pin 4 12v to Fuse to center switch position (off)
Flasher
Left switch position to flasher in, flasher out to lights (pin 3)
Steady
Right switch position pigtailed to flasher out to lights (pin 3)
Almost seems like I need a diode in there to stop the flow back to the flasher on the steady side, but the out of the flasher will just go to the inactive side of the switch so that may act as the flow control.
?????????????
I hate electrical work.
Look like it will work from this primitive drawing?
http://www.l13.us/Uploads/auxlight.jpg
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Lucky13MN
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05/05/08 08:28pm |
Travel Trailers
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RE: Trailer Wiring - Auxilliary Modification
Sweet! I'm not the only one that goes a little overboard lol. :D
Looks great.
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Lucky13MN
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05/05/08 02:18pm |
Travel Trailers
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RE: Trailer Wiring - Auxilliary Modification
Excellent, thanks again for all the help - made this project much more enjoyable.
Now to find an ambient light sensor to use in conjuncion with the switch hahaha.
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Lucky13MN
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05/05/08 01:18pm |
Travel Trailers
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RE: Trailer Wiring - Auxilliary Modification
So #4 is hot on the trailer end? I thought that was where the vehicle power (to charge the battery, etc) went to.
Interesting... if that's the case it's even easier, I can just use the vehicle plug I bought and make the jump there so when I plug in the trailer harness it will give power to the lights.
I just ordered one of these to mount to the trailer frame that I'll mount the 7-way to (that the trailer harness will plug into). Just to make it look neat and give that harness a 'home' instead of just laying there.
I know I have more into this than I needed, but oh well... Thinking I could put a switch on this box as well.
http://www.etrailer.com/mm5/graphics/00000001/dt/t1/18159_display.jpg
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Lucky13MN
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05/05/08 11:49am |
Travel Trailers
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RE: Trailer Wiring - Auxilliary Modification
So if I just connect a power lead from the tongue jack to the green #3 pin that should do the trick, correct?
Something like this:
http://www.l13.us/Uploads/auxwiring.jpg width=640
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Lucky13MN
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05/05/08 09:53am |
Travel Trailers
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Trailer Wiring - Auxilliary Modification
We're seasonal campers now so we have our camper setup at the campsite for the summer (loving this so far). I noticed some travel trailers had their auxiliary lights on, which I thought looked cool and made sense. Of course I had to figure out how it was done and it seems you just run a power lead with inline fuse from the battery to the auxiliary input of the trailer's wiring harness.
I decided to take it one step further... stopped at Wal Mart this morning and bought a 7 pole vehicle adapter for the trailer harness to plug into and some 16 gauge wire. I plan on tapping into the power wire of the electric tongue jack and run that to the proper location on the vehicle adapter (with the inline fuse in place), I think this is the one on the top right. This way I have something to plug the trailer harness into instead of it just laying there. I may also run a switch to turn it on and off, not sure yet.
What do you think? Any reason this won't work how I think it will?
Here's the vehicle adapter I'll be using:
http://i136.photobucket.com/albums/q167/stockgem/91044.jpg
The plan is to mount the vehicle adapter somehow so it looks like it's supposed to be there. Will probably use that to mount the switch as well.
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Lucky13MN
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05/05/08 08:09am |
Travel Trailers
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