Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Hi All,

I'm getting ready to build my project Standie. I've stripped down an old pop-up to the frame and bought a real RV door and windows from ebay. I'm planning on building out the walls this weekend and was contemplating the requirements for exterior lights as my side walls are going to be a composite of 1/4" ply on both sides with 1" thick light frame with 1" foam core. The whole thing will be epoxy'd together to make a rigid piece. I need to be able to put all the required wiring in the wall before it is glued up as it won't be easy to change afterwords.

I see alot of other trailers on the road which have running lights all over the trailer, typically I see:

1. Turn / Stop tail lights
2. 4-5 running lights at the top of the back of the trailer
3. running lights low on each side of the trailer
4. running lights high on each side of the trailer
5. 2 or more running lights high on the front of the trailer.

What is the minimum requirement?

Depends on your state and since you are keeping that a secret we can't help ya.

However.......

Why minimum.

I want to be seen at night. I installed redundant tails and turns. Yep that's right 2 complete sets.

I placed 4 clearance lights per side outlineing the profile. Go to an RV sales lot and look at a comperable size trailer and follow their lead you will be O.K.

There are three things to think about:

1. What are the legal requirements? If your trailer is wider than 80 inches at its widest point then extra lighting will be required.
2. Extra visibility from the rear at night. Since the trailer, especially a wider trailer, can conceal the tow vehicle, many people put extra lighting and/or reflectors to make the trailer more visible.
3. Enhanced aesthetics. Thomas (2bits) used four stop/turn/tail lights instead of two. Two were legal and looked good, but four looked much better.

My trailer (counting the fenders) will be over 80 inches wide, so I have more required lighting. Even so, I will add even more lighting for reasons #2 and #3 above.

Gig'em, Tom

...everything you ever wanted to know(and then some) about the legally required(Fed DOT) lighting of your trailer...........
madjack
http://www.redneck-trailer.com/2009/J/J2-J4.pdf

Same information at the NTSA site but the text is a little easier to read. The pictures are a little clearer on the Redneck site. Would it be helpful to put the two together and post it somewhere here? I'll volunteer

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/standards/conspicuity/Trlrpstr.html?cm_sp=ExternalLink-_-Federal-_-DOT

thank you for the info. I assumed that there were additional requirements but didn't know what the details were.

So far I'm way behind my schedule as my wife and I spent hours fine tuning the profile of the camper on a building jig. We finally decided on a profile and have built the frame for the left side. We've taken a bunch of pictures and I will upload and post some soon.

Here's a pic

With all the slope on the backside, were should I mount the lights?

That profile looks familiar. I mounted my tail lamps about 20" up from the bottom on the undercut of the back curve. Made some tapered spacers from 2 1/2" black tubing to get them level. Lamps and plate don't extend past the longest part of the body so I won't run into them. The side markers were placed near the longest part of the body front and rear.

You can see I have 3 lights at the top front and rear. As the trailer is just under 80" they are not required. Just couldn't resist more teardrop lamps.

Jim

Carter,

That is one beautiful trailer! Congratulations.

Prem

Thank you Prem. It has been fun.

Jim

Carter,

hopefully my trailer comes out 1/4th as good as yours.

A couple of questions:

I designed my window height based upon 16" base seat frame 3" of cushion and an adult sitting upright, it appears that your windows are up higher,
would you change your window height if you had the opportunity? are there advantages or drawbacks?

Light color on the backside running lights, I see most running lights as yellow, I think that the red looks better. Does it make a difference?

Does your design shed water/snow well? I'm hoping the answer is yes as that was one of the reasons why we went with a style similar to yours.

Any one have any idea when the federal requirements come into play?
If I go by the federal I can't use some cool original vintage looking side markers that came on the Puck. They are white towards the front and red towards the back. The federal requirement says I must have yellow ones. Arizona regs say I don't have to have any if under 3000 pounds. Does the federal just matter if you are importing a trailer?
Jerry

Jerry

Just my opinion, and we all know what that is worth. If all the original lamps work no one will PROBABLY bother you if everything else is on the straight and narrow. If you are like most people you probably tow mostly in the daytime and it doesn't matter. Tail lamps, stop and turn signals are what people notice. I would hope that most cops would worry more about capital crimes than the color of your side markers. I'm not sure but original equiptment probably is ok regardless of the current rules, sorta like emission standards

Jim