My buddy has a new to him RV. He tried to connect wiring for the lights on a Jeep he wants to tow, so trailer wiring. I told him how, and he was getting strange results.
The RV shares the turn signal filaments and brake filaments. The Jeep also shares the brake and turn signal filaments, he had installed dedicated bulbs used solely for towing, he did not use the Jeep's normal lights.
Skip ahead to purchasing magnetic external trailer lights for troubleshooting. These lights have the same weird problem as the Jeep lights.
The Problem:
When either of the blinkers is turned on while either the brakes and or the tail lights are on the other side bulb dims a little. It looks like a blinker is turned on, on one side, while the opposite side also blinks (dims) just a little. So bright on one side while dim on the other.
The lights on the RV work normally.
I figured my friend had wired something incorrectly, or that it had a bad ground, or that the wires couldn't carry enough current.
I had him purchase a four relay circuit board and he ran the wires from the blinkers and the tail lights to the trigger of the board.
Then I had him run a dedicated 12 gauge wire from the RVs battery to the circuit board's 12V+
I also had him run a second 12 gauge wire from the battery + to the common side of each relay.
I also had him run a dedicated negative/ground wire both to the circuit board and to the trailer wiring harness
I had him do all of this as the last step since nothing else we tried made a difference.
I really thought that it was going to be a bad ground, a bad connection, or too small of wire.
But it doesn't appear to be any of the above.
It just struck me that maybe the ribbon cable used to connect the 4 way connector to the relay may have under sized wires???
Anyway, I could use some brain power on this from you guys that know electronics - any idea what else might be causing this?
Thanks in advance
Paul
The RV shares the turn signal filaments and brake filaments. The Jeep also shares the brake and turn signal filaments, he had installed dedicated bulbs used solely for towing, he did not use the Jeep's normal lights.
Skip ahead to purchasing magnetic external trailer lights for troubleshooting. These lights have the same weird problem as the Jeep lights.
The Problem:
When either of the blinkers is turned on while either the brakes and or the tail lights are on the other side bulb dims a little. It looks like a blinker is turned on, on one side, while the opposite side also blinks (dims) just a little. So bright on one side while dim on the other.
The lights on the RV work normally.
I figured my friend had wired something incorrectly, or that it had a bad ground, or that the wires couldn't carry enough current.
I had him purchase a four relay circuit board and he ran the wires from the blinkers and the tail lights to the trigger of the board.
Then I had him run a dedicated 12 gauge wire from the RVs battery to the circuit board's 12V+
I also had him run a second 12 gauge wire from the battery + to the common side of each relay.
I also had him run a dedicated negative/ground wire both to the circuit board and to the trailer wiring harness
I had him do all of this as the last step since nothing else we tried made a difference.
I really thought that it was going to be a bad ground, a bad connection, or too small of wire.
But it doesn't appear to be any of the above.
It just struck me that maybe the ribbon cable used to connect the 4 way connector to the relay may have under sized wires???
Anyway, I could use some brain power on this from you guys that know electronics - any idea what else might be causing this?
Thanks in advance
Paul