Reverse Flood / Loading light wiring

mkirsch

Well-known Member
I want to put one of those fancy LED light bars on my trailer to light the way as I back in the yard, and to use as a floodlight when I'm working/loading/unloading at night.

What's the best way to wire it up so that I can activate it by putting the truck in reverse, or flipping a switch on the trailer?
 
I used a 7 pin plug setup. Have 2 backup floods on the back and for loading I put one up front as high as I could mount it and pointed down so it don't blind me when loading.
 
here is some pictures of mine i just used two lights and a heavy duty toggle switch and a in-line fuse p.s. works good on tailgaters too
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i mounted a set of kc lites on the trucks headach rack facing back, but down, and put them on switches with a sepearate fuse for each lite, they will lite up anything in back of the truck or the truck itself, dont wire into the reverse circut, your going to want to use them while stationary with the engine at idle or your going to have a dead battery after loading a trailer at nite and it takes some time to load, and get it tied down
 
Do you have a battery on your trailer? Does your truck have the factory 7 way trailer connector? A factory trailer connector will have a pin for reverse. Only use that pin to activate a relay because the wire is typically not heavy enough to give full power to the lights, you might be okay since you're using LED's. With a battery on the trailer you can mount an ON-ON or ON-OFF-ON switch on the trailer. The center terminal of the switch will go to pin 85 of the relay, pin 86 of the relay goes to ground. Fused constant power from the battery will go to pin 30 and pin 87 will go to the lights. One outside terminal on the switch will have fused constant power and the remaining terminal will be from the reverse pin of the trailer socket. Now, with the switch in one position the lights will come on whenever you put the truck in reverse, in the other position the lights will be on constant. With the ON-OFF-ON switch you can also have them not come on at all. If you don't have a battery on the trailer just run a wire from the truck battery back to the trailer, use at least #12, but #10 would be better.
Don't worry, it's easier than it sounds.
 

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