tiny house exterior lighting for street legal

[satanas]

Hi all! This isn't *explicitly* solar related but I've received amazing help for my inquiries here in the past and was curious if anyone can offer guidance in this arena.

I'm building a mobile tiny house within the shell of a vintage trailer but with only the aluminum skin & flat bed re-utilized ; everything else has been gutted, frame built from scratch, all new wires etc etc.

I got all new exterior lights for it to be street legal and I need to install and wire them to the junction box which will be connected to a 7-pin and plugged into the tow vehicle.
Here is my list of lights:
4 amber markers/reflectors
1 3-light bar amber marker (over 80")
4 red markers/reflectors
1 3-light bar red marker (over 80")
license plate light
2 combination tail lights (stop, tail, turn, backup)
I also have a new 7-pin blade & a junction box.

I'm brand new to electrical work and just trying to figure out how to wire these all up efficiently. I know I can use 16awg wire, can I just utilize the leftover red & black wires I have from pre-wiring my DC appliances? How exactly would I go about connecting everything? Any videos/resources would be a huge help. Thanks so much

 

[jeremy_nash]

When wiring up, you could use any color wire you wish. Try to avoid using the same color for all the wires, as it can make it harder should you ever have to troubleshoot issues with the trailer lights in the future

 

[CharlesK]

From my experience with remodeling a couple of RV's, WHITE wires are used for GROUND (negative). Just about any other color was used for 12V HOT wires. Note that these are for the HOUSE wiring. Also note that each circuit (all the wiring associated with a single fuse) had a unique color. So, if I found a Yellow wire in one place, and another Yellow wire some place else, they were both serviced with the same fuse in the fuse block.

CHASSIS Wiring (brake lights turn signals, back-up lights, etc. are different. There BLACK is typically used for GROUND, and RED is used for 12V HOT (positive).

The lighting that you mention falls into the category of CHASSIS Wiring. I would use black for all of the grounds. (The electricity doesn't care about the color of the insulation, but it would help me to avoid accidentally connecting things backwards.) Then, I could whatever other color I wanted for the positive 12V wires.

I would suggest making a simple wiring diagram, or at least a list of what you did, and keep it in the unit for future reference. You might make a list of color codes for your work. You, or someone else, may thank you later.

 

[Bubba1]

Buy the trailer light kit from harbor freight.

 

[John Frum]

Buy the trailer light kit from harbor freight.

link please

 

[Bubba1]

link please

12V LED Trailer Light Kit

Amazing deals on this Led Trailer Light Kit at Harbor Freight. Quality tools & low prices.

www.harborfreight.com

 

[12VoltInstalls]

Do you have trailer brakes? The harbor freight kit is sorta 4-way-flat native. You’d still need to wire the trailer brakes.

Forget the wiring color advice. It’s sorta correct but there’s a better way. For 12V I use jacketed 2-conductor wire. White is neg(-) and black is positive (+) home-run wires to a Blue Sea fuse box w/ integral negative buss. That’s for ‘house’ wiring.

For vehicle marker lights etc. for towing on-road use this convention with the appropriate colored wire to save yourself from future headaches:

 

[12VoltInstalls]

z

 

[12VoltInstalls]

z

 

[Woody]

From a book on DIY trailer design and build.

 

[12VoltInstalls]

he’s using his 7-way connector.
the ‘flat’ connector conventions don’t correlate - wire position and conventions do. Plus utility/enclosed trailers have a different color/function convention just to keep us on our toes.

 

[acdoctor]

I bought a new enclosed utility trailer for my build. 1 of the first things I did was replace all of their wiring. I took delivery everything worked, drove 20 miles and a marker light didn’t. They used those connectors that saddle the wires and pierce the wire. Use crimp connections only maybe solder. Make all splices behind the exterior fixtures or you could be removing interior wall coverings later. There is a standard color code just google or look on etrailer. Breaks need a larger wire than lights. There is a 7 cond. trailer cable out there. Run it down 1 side, splice into it at the axles for breaks. Run to back behind 1 tail light. Then to the other. Run left markers from behind left tail light, run right markers from right tail light. 7 cond. only needs to go to first tail. From there flat 4 cond is good.

 

[12VoltInstalls]

Run it down 1 side, splice into it at the axles for breaks.

Trailer Brakes do not run off the lighting circuit. There is a dedicated wire for trailer brakes-
Also, coloring conventions for four-way and five-way flat are different than RV 7-way cables - which are different than HD utility trailer 7-way cable color conventions.

Just use the correct color conventions for your application: having worked for a trailer dealer and knowing the nightmare of trouble shooting off-convention wire colors it doesn’t make sense to use just any wire color - since you’re buying wire, just buy the right colors. Haven’t checked recently but Amazon usedta have a vender with 25’ packs of the seven wire colors bundled. Then two years from now if something comes up you can find the problem 7 times more easily. Much more extra easier that away

 

[Picasso]

I got this guy on two of my trailers nice big box to branch off. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01FWIFS24/