Which Wires Should be Tapped Into When Adding Additional LED Marker Lights on a Boat Trailer

Question:

My trailer is fully wired with LEFT and RIGHT SIDE MARKERS and BRAKES/TURN SIGNALS already. I am wanting to run some additional White LEDs that shine up on the boat for looks when Im driving at night. How can i do this properly without having an auxiliary wire coming from my wiring harness? I tried splicing the side marker wire but I did not get any power that way. Thanks

asked by: Micah M

Expert Reply:

In order to add LED lights that shine on your boat at night, they will need to be wired into the running light wire or wires on the trailer. On a typical 4-Way flat, it is the brown wire coming from the trailer side connector. To be certain, you can use a circuit tester like # PTW2993.

With the trailer connector and vehicle lights on, probe the wires coming from the back of the connector until you find the one that is hot all the time. You can trace this wire back to where you want to install the new lights and tap into them there.

A word of caution, adding extra lights may be too much of a power draw on the wiring system causing some or all of the lights to not function properly or it could even cause damage to the wiring on the trailer or vehicle. The remedy for this is to use a powered converter on the towing vehicle which will get the power for the lights from the vehicle battery. Also, you will want to make sure that the lights are properly grounded in order to complete the circuit so the lights will work.

expert reply by: Michael H