The PVC post lights have a 3 wire connector
Ground
Stop/turn
Tail
Instead of installing a ground at each post that will get submerged thus creating a grounding issue down the road uses one of the 4-wire strands as a ground and attach at the tongue common ground screw. You buy 4-wire roll at 100 ft. for $15 at Parks and rewire trailer accordingly. I have now stopped splicing into that main run right at my marking lights due to not being water tight so again I run new wires up to tongue. I know you think this sounds overkill but I have about $2500 in trailer light replacement over the years and have tried different ways and this is my best solution without getting a patent on my trailer light solution and selling it.
“If you can’t fix a woman, chase some tail with fins and fur!!!”
2008 Sea Pro 1900cc w/115
(2) Daughters that make the boys cry
(1) wife that makes her husband take the kids outdoors to chase their dreams!
STB, I understand the concept entirely. It just doesn’t make sense to terminate all of the grounds on the trailer itself. If you are not going to use the trailer for the conductor, then why attach it to the trailer at all? That’s what I was saying.
Why ground the trailer frame if you are not using it as a conductor for the lights?
Hey Stump, good question. Its just redundancy. You are correct, the single ground wire to the trailer frame is not technically needed. Your lights should work when you tie all of your ground wires together at the junction box or to the vehicle connector. When you plug in your 7 round or flat 4 vehicle connector via the input on your vehicle it should ground. Unfortunately those plugs don’t always get a good connection (especially over time) so an addition ground to the trailer that doesn’t get submerged is just added security. The main reason LEDs fail is poor ground.
This also brings up why I recommend upgrading to a 7 round from a flat 4 or flat 5 if your tow vehicle doesn’t have a dedicated flat 4 or 5 input. Get rig of the adapters and plug straight into the 7 round input on your vehicle. The 7 round vehicle input is pretty much the standard these days.
Tight lines and following seas. F.V Pura Vida 29’ Reg
quote:Originally posted by StumpNocker
As far as using the epoxy poured LED's, that's pretty much how all of the submersible lights are designed, for many years now. Do you have a link or some pics of the ones you are referencing? The ones I ended up using from etrailers have served me well.
I’m not sure which manufactures use potting but I’m sure others do. I can tell you that a few of the name brands out there are not holding up. The below image is of a tail light that I removed from a customers trailer. It was advertised as a submersible LED. Obviously not submersible.
TecNiq assembles their LEDs in Kalamazoo MI and the quality in my opinion is the best I’ve seen. Again their underwater transom lights are made using the same process as their trailer lights. I’m sure there are other good lights out there but I can only speak from experience and I can say that TechNiq is very good.
