LED backup and side lights install

[ThePowells]

I didn't realize that this thread was so old, In our patrol cars we have a 7 second delay relay for weapons locks. My plan is to add one of the 7 second delays to each side so that the lights have constant illumination of 7 seconds after the last signal pulse. It should work left, right, or hazard lights and keep the lights constant on both sides during backing.

[Yoda]

Yoda Keith,

Excellent job! Adding lights to my Imagine is definitely in my future.

Jim

Thanks - I learned a lot. Some things I might do different is run the loom exterior along the frame. Run a smaller wire gauge. (whatever the light need) In other words pick your lights and based on power needed and distance of run choose the wire gauge. Mine was overkill and made some of the connections difficult. And for the wiring up front, run the wires and then add the loom once you know where your going. This is going to help me stay out of hurting myself at night. I think the light output is about right - not blinding or lightning up a runway for miles.

Side note on one of the 4x4 forms I visit once in a while, a guy was building the ultimate LED off road light system. It had multiple (dozens) of the brightest light bars and other lights you could imagine. If I remember correctly he had several thousand WATTS of LED power. I have no idea why he was doing it, but I guess he could.

Now I did have an idea, but it is probably nuts to do. I wonder if there is a simple way to put a remote in the trailer and be able to turn the light on in case we hear something bad. Probably take another relay and a remote doohickey thing. Hit the button and the world lights up. Hmmmm need to do more research.

[Guest]

Yoda Keith,

Excellent job! Adding lights to my Imagine is definitely in my future.

Jim

[Yoda]

Right side adjusted

With rear lights on. Notice color difference. Rear lights are more daylight

Behind the trailer. I do have some minor adjusting to do, but I need to be away from the garage. On big thing is where they are placed there is ZERO upward glare walking around the trailer. So when I go to hook up things I wont be fighting it.

[Yoda]

Rear lights are now operational. I panicked the first time I tried to fire them up and they did not work. Then I remembered I left the primary power unhooked for safety. Once I put that back together everything was good. Pictures later tonight

[Yoda]

First test last night of side illumination.

Left side. There is zero upward glare. Center of pattern appears to be top center of tire

Right side. I think I need to adjust this one up and in a bit.

Now to get the rear ones wired in.

[Yoda]

OK where to put the lights?
For the side cast lights I mounted to the frame under the propane tanks.

I know it is out of focus, but it is fairly protected here. I had already fished the loom over from the street side. In this location any upward glare should be cut off. If this does not work I can move out to the side more and mount to the propane tank frame. BTW - getting the propane tanks in and out and is a pain.

The rear light gave me some push back. I first wanted to mount to the L bracket my storage tube is mounted too. You can see the hole. Unfortunately there was not enough clearance behind the light due to the U bolt contacting the back of the light fins. I could have cut them away but decided to go with plan B. I had some 3"x3" aluminum left over from my saddle box repair, so I use it to mount the light to the receiver hitch frame. I drilled and tapped the back holes to hold the bracket (4 - 3/8" bolts). Other side is the same. I had run the loom wire around at this point to get rough measurement of length needed.


Now you probably wondering how I got the wires run from the front compartment to the RV belly area. It was actually fairly simple once I realized what GD did with their wiring.

Just below the buss bar I found a bunch of wires disappearing into a mess of foam. I undid some of the belly covering and found where they came through. In this picture I had already pulled one loom through and was preparing to pull the second. You can see the wire I was using to fish the loom through in the lower right corner.

On the belly side you can see I came out beside the factory loom. Strange GD did not bother to keep the wires inside - just let them fall where they may. However I discovered a bigger safety issue.



Instead of carrying the big loom another 4 inches they left their wires in contact with the rough edges of the hole in the first cross member. While not in the photo there is some minor chafing on some of the wires. Hopefully GD will read this and maybe double check their assembly . I will fix this with a rubber grommet when I run my loom through here and make sure the existing wires are taped up through the opening. I may cut off the unused piece of large loom and reuse it.

Well that's it for now. Time to get out and run wires and tie in the lights.

Any Questions?
Keith

[Yoda]

Now the fun began
Reverse line is on the left going through the front wall of the pass through and on the right is the red/black/ and white wires from the relays to the switches. Not shown is the red power wire that I slipped into the reverse loom going forward. You can sorta make out that Y connection in the upper left corner.


I then ran these looms over to the relays, tying them up out of the way. Note to self - the stick on pads dont stick to dusty paint, so clean all surfaces before you do this.

Meanwhile inside the pass through area.

Looms for front compartment grouped together and then running forward to the switches.



Cover plate is found here https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1



Cover plate lifts up for easy access. LED's are on indicating I have power out on the RV side of the switch. I will test later the reverse side. Now I did run into a problem.The blue see fuse block I got for my CPAP install has 2 defective power circuits at the top 2 fuse locations. I discovered this when checking the power out to lights side of the relay. I had then powered separately, but to fix the problem I used a jumper and I am running both lights off of one 15 amp fuse now.

Next up is running the looms and powering up the lights - oops I forgot to show where I installed the lights.

[Yoda]

Wiring an loom runs, I spent quiet a while determining how many looms I needed and what wire should be in them.

The lower loom has the reverse power and RV power wires. The upper loom has the wires that activate the coil (red and black for side and rear lights) and a white ground wire for the LED indicator lights.

Reverse wire running

I first fished loom and yellow wire from front compartment to hitch location.


I found a path from the overhang belly into the hitch area (loom with red band has reverse wire inside.


I opened one of the knock outs and installed a fitting that I ran the loom through and tied into the existing yellow reverse wire that was not used by GD. I stil need to verify this works and I also need to foam the fitting to make water tight, but the existing junction box is not. Down the road I will straighten the mess out when I get my new plug and box installed. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1


Inside the front compartment I ran the loom with the reverse wire to the curb side and then towards the switch location.

[Yoda]

Loom is as follows: www.delcity.net I ordered the following; High-Temp Split Loom, 3/8"

I decided to place the switches just inside the curb side pass through door

Tape makes it easy to do a layout. Behind the wall is the furnace - plenty of clearance. I was also aware of the wiring form the power and coax boxes that are visible at the bottom of the photo.


After determining where I wanted the switch box, I first cut back the fabric - taping back the edges, I then retraced the switch box hole. and drilled holes at each corner.


I used my Fien multi-tool to do the rough cut, and fin trim with the exacto knife. I tried to do everything without pulling the wall panel off,, but no luck.

In the end to get the LED indicator lights in I had to bring the panel down. While down I decided to secure the wiring mess with my 3M stick pads and zip ties. You will notice I folded the surface fabric back through the switch box hole for a clean appearance on the outside. There is a caution note. Be sure of your placement before inserting switches in the box and the box in the wall as they are a bear to get out without the proper tool.

[Yoda]

OK now to the how to (or not to) pictures
First the relays - after reading the diagram on the relay I figures out what wires do what.
So color coding for this relay is as follows, Yellow center is not used. White (ground) and black wire are for coil(black get signal from switch). Red is power in (this is energized by coil), and blue is power out to lights. Source https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Relays wired in beside my existing fuse block from my CPAP power install. Blue wire is power to lights.

Now to the switches and wiring to the relays.
Switch source - https://spemco.com/

VME-01 V Series Rocker Switch Gangable Black Mounting Panel, End VME-01 need 2

VVAZC00-000 Carling Contura 2 Hard Black Actuator, no lens VVAZC00-000 need 2

V6D1S00B Carling V series single pole rocker switch, On-Off-On, no lamps, spade terminals V6D1S00B-00000-000 need 2

Switches are already mounted in the housing. Wiring - Yellow is truck reverse source to activate relay and Red is RV source to activate relay. Jumper provides sam epower source to second switch. Center connection back to relay not attached yet. But I got ahead of myself a bit.

[Yoda]

Update - making progress, Switches are wired and circuits work correctly. Found a way from the front bay to the belly (where GD runs their wires - look below buss bar). Got loom's made up and pulled through. Fabricated a couple of mounts and got lights mounted today. Ill try and post pictures tonight, but right now I need a cold ice tea and put my feet up.

I wont tell you how many times I whacked my head working up front, both on the overhang and door frame. I finally put my hat on, but that did not help much. I used a small stool to sit on and it put the top of my head in perfect alignment of the top door frame and of course there was a sharp screw right where I needed to lean in. Next thing I need to learn is how to steer my creeper on my slanted drive - seemed to have a mind of it own.

More later

[Guest]

Jim,

I'll say a significant number. Last month I'd read some about grounding in vehicles https://www.w8ji.com/negative_lead_to_battery.htm
So I wanted to see how many ground points were on my truck.
I used alldatadiy and found 20 main ground locations where numerous grounds land.

Gene,

And this can be an issue. Lol. If there is an issue with a component, we (our techs) will look at the ground that is utilized and will look to check that its intact.

For the back yard mechanic, this would be a daunting task today without documentation.

Jim

[gbkims]

Gene,

Yes ground to chassis is common in autos where today Auto's have a significant number of chassis grounds.

Jim

Jim,

I'll say a significant number. Last month I'd read some about grounding in vehicles https://www.w8ji.com/negative_lead_to_battery.htm
So I wanted to see how many ground points were on my truck.
I used alldatadiy and found 20 main ground locations where numerous grounds land.

[Jon Sr]

Awesome post! Thanks for sharing! We had a 32' bumper pull for 6 years and had added backup lights to it. Used the exact same concept you are using Yoda. Same relay from Amazon. Only difference is I ran all the wiring to the back of the TT and installed the relay there. Would not do that again. We just purchased a new Solitude in July and I am already adding backup lights to it. As the Solitude has a hitch welded to the back from the factory, I purchased 2 brackets off of Amazon, attached the lights, and bolted the brackets to the cross tube. I can postion the lights anywhere along the length of the cross tube. I am going to place the relay in the front this time somewhere next to the area for the generator. I will also run a ground wire, and the hot wire from the relay, to the lights thru pvc electrical conduit the length of the frame. I used the conduit on my last install and didn't regret it. It's a lot more work, but it's a cleaner install and gives me the ability to quickly run more wires in the future if necessary.