Testing Trailer lights without a tow vehicle...

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Testing Trailer lights without a tow vehicle...

Postby burlesot » Tue May 28, 2013 7:51 am

Help! My tow vehicle is not easily connected to my teardrop (my teardrop is in a far away patio.) I have an extra wire harness connector that came with my trailer lights. I am wondering how I could use that extra harness to connect to my battery so I could see if my running lights, which I just wired up over the weekend, work.

Is this possible?

Thank you in advance.

TB
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Re: Testing Trailer lights without a tow vehicle...

Postby absolutsnwbrdr » Tue May 28, 2013 8:07 am

If you have a battery, just connect the white wire of the harness to the negative terminal of a battery. And then touch each of the green/brown/yellow wires to the positive terminal of the battery to test their respective lights.

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Re: Testing Trailer lights without a tow vehicle...

Postby les45 » Tue May 28, 2013 8:11 am

Yes, I do that all the time. I keep a couple of wire leads with small alligator clips on both ends and use them to connect from a spare battery to the individual connectors in the wiring harness. You can do the same thing with a couple of pieces of wire with the ends exposed or your spare connector wires. The alligator clips just make it easier to make the connections without needing four hands.
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Re: Testing Trailer lights without a tow vehicle...

Postby burlesot » Tue May 28, 2013 8:45 am

Awesome! Thank you guys! You saved me a lot of hard work moving the teardrop.

I can't wait to get home to test it out!

Sincerely,
TB
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Re: Testing Trailer lights without a tow vehicle...

Postby Dale M. » Tue May 28, 2013 9:56 am

A battery charger will do it also... Only requirement for light testing is source is 12 volts (preferably DC)...

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Re: Testing Trailer lights without a tow vehicle...

Postby H.A. » Sat Jun 01, 2013 6:24 pm

If your trailer has an onboard 12v battery it can be easy as jumpering from the "+batt" pin of your electrical connector to whatever pin of the electrical connector whats connected to the lighting circuit you wish to test.
Of course that requires your trailer battery to be negative grounded to the same as the lighting system grounds.( what would be already done in a typical good practice, but not mandantory were there some odd-ball reason for not doing so.)
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