As a by-product of having an original Cougar model camper (84” wide), DOT requires ATC to put clearance lights on all 4 corners of the camper (2 amber on the front, 2 red on the rear) that are supposed to be wired to the truck running lights circuit. In order to do that, ATC wired my camper plug with 3 wires (hot, ground, running lights).
I decided that I don't care what the DOT requires, and I didn't want to tap into my vehicle wiring harness to find the running lamps circuit, so I ran just the camper battery charging wires, and left the clearance light wire disconnected. It then occurred to me that those lights could be a resource as additional area lighting around the camper. At first, I thought that I’d tap into the wire end that I’d left out of the camper plug, but it was in the battery compartment, and that wasn’t a convenient spot for a switch. Then I figured I could run a wire to a more convenient spot, but that was gonna be a pain in the butt. Then I figured out that because ATC wires the camper outside lights (door and passenger side rear) with an interior switch, and the lights have their own switch as well, that if I could tap into the switched power going into the outside lights, then I could use the clearance lights as the initial area lights, and switch on the outside lights as needed.
So, I ran a short jumper wire from inside the passenger side rear outside light to the passenger rear corner clearance light. And because all the other clearance lights are connected: Voila… switched clearance lights. I then replaced the incandescent bulbs with an LED bulb, put a little reflective tape inside the light housing to increase the brightness, and replaced the 2 rear red lenses with amber ones.
The end resulting amount of light is adequate for basic camp use, is not obnoxious to other campers that might be near by, and because of the amber lenses, should minimize the bug attractant factor. If it turns out that the light produce isn’t enough, I can always upgrade to manufactured LED clearance lights available at most auto parts stores which tend to run much brighter than converted lights.
The second half of my outdoor lighting projects are what I’m calling work lights or camp set up lights, and they are made up of the rear spots, and some smaller round LED lights that Marty was kind enough to give me when I was down there having work done.
My camper wasn’t ordered with the rear facing spots at the time it was built, but fortunately, the ATC guys have enough foresight to wire the campers for all their options, so “all” that had to be done to wire the the lights after they were mounted was to drill a hole in the siding in the exact spot where the wire was dead ended. No problem….
Except that all the campers are custom (read hand) built, so where that hole needed to be was in some doubt. On a previous visit to ATC, Marty had told me that he was pretty sure that when my camper built, the location was 8” over from the side, and 6” down from the top. Pretty sure…
So I decided that I’d let them find the hole. I took the camper in a couple weeks ago to have them mount and wire the lights, and do some other work that I’ll cover later, and of course, Marty was right, and the wire was right where it should be, and the job got done quickly.
And as I said above, while I was there for the other work, a conversation with Marty about lighting led him to offer me some small round LED lights from his personal stash. I decided I would use them as “work/set up” lights mounted on the underside of the camper edges at each corner. I wired them them into the circuit with the rear spots. I tapped into the switched wire at the backside of the switch installed by ATC, and ran a wire to the outside of the camper, where I tapped it into some 2 wire “cable”. The cable runs to all 4 lights, and is grounded into the camper frame in the battery compartment, and so now all the corner lights and the rear spots all come on with the same switch.
With the 4 corner lights on, and the rear spots on, there is more than adequate lighting to set up a camp in the dark, but to me, it is much too bright and “intrusive” to keep on once camp is set, hence the use of the amber clearance lights and ATC outdoor lights.
Anyway, I think I’ve got lighting covered…..
Edited by wcorbett, 17 January 2018 - 04:48 AM.