LED Trailer Lights

[Dignity]

My so called water proof lights gave up the ghost and I am going to fit LED's but I can't find the recent post on this item. Had a look at on set, brand name LED which included the white lights for the number plates but wasn't impressed with the short cable supplied which had a connector and then another short cable which had to be soldered onto my existing cable - 2 connections withn 300mm of the lights, even to me that looked like trouble brewing. Can anyone point me to the right site to buy some good LED trailer lights.

[gawby]

Mate you can get quality led lights from boat yards or truck supplies.
Most of what i have seen have about a 6 mt cable which you want.
Buy the cheep ones and you will regret it so pay a bit more for the good ones.
Graeme

[Dignity]

Thanks gawby, will search the yellow pages, the hard copy as the e-copy is the most useless search engine I have had the misfortune to use.

[Wahoo]

Mate you can get quality led lights from boat yards or truck supplies.
Most of what i have seen have about a 6 mt cable which you want.
Buy the cheep ones and you will regret it so pay a bit more for the good ones.
Graeme

Graeme, thats what i also thought, i have a set of Hella on my trailer, 18months old and some how only the top half of the lights seem to work, get me buggered

Daz

[gawby]

I just went down and had a look at the ones behind my truck on the trailer and they are Narvara led lights, about 300mm long and 100 high and work a treat.
I am sure the work shop got them from Truckline Truck Parts at verginia in brissy and imagine when i have no cars on the trailer it bounces all over the highways around qld without any faults with them.
I suppose with anything you can get good ones and bad ones in the same batch.
Hope this helps you.
Graeme

[bluefin59]

Ihave the navara lights as well had them 18mth with no problems they have the number plate light buit in and have 7 mt of lead i got mine from repco virginia $180...matt

[Nqfisho]

I have had a good run for the last 3 years with the Hella MultiLED combination lights on the back of my ute and they have been under water quite a few times. have a look on ebay searching for hella as there is a set on there at the moment.

[TheRealAndy]

I have the narva lamps. I smashed one up when I had a blow out up near townsville, still going after being drowned many times. Picked up a new one the other day, dont need to buy 2. The narva lamp comes with 9 metres of pre wired cable, so no joins needed.

Mad-one works for repco, so should be able to help out with repco part number.

[wrxhoon]

I have the LED brand lights , 5 year warranty, no problems so far .
They have short cable , I soldered them on the main trailer loom and used heatshrink.
Even if water gets in the joint , they are soldered so you have a permanent connection .

[Dignity]

WRX - I looked at the LED and I didn't think the connection joint was what you woould call waterproof. Interestingly what does the warranty cover i.e. the lights and the connections, unfortunately I have been burnt like that on quite a few so called warranty Items. I am on the sunny coast and if I am stuck may put them on in the short term.

Andy, Matt, gawby - I searched the NARVA website and found the ones with 9m of lead and they look like what I want to put on. Have to find a supplier on the sunshine coast.

Q, Wahoo - haven't searched the Hella site yet but will have a look shortly

[finga]

I have the LED brand lights , 5 year warranty, no problems so far .
They have short cable , I soldered them on the main trailer loom and used heatshrink.
Even if water gets in the joint , they are soldered so you have a permanent connection .
Use the resin filled or dual walled heat shrink and the jobs done. Waterproof joint if done correctly.
There's a mob out Beatty Rd Archerfield way and sell lots of LED's...Air Brake Services 32746046.
Don't let the name fool ya. They do sell LED's and from what I understand they're very reasonable in pricing. I know...I'm a tight a*se :)

[bluefin59]

Mate i also looked at the hellas but a lot more expensive and you have to wire up the number plate light seperate ,unless they have changed ...matt

[Bros]

Use the resin filled or dual walled heat shrink and the jobs done. Waterproof joint if done correctly.


Are you sure that is correct as I was looking as some a while ago and it was classed as water resistant which is proberbly good enough for a trailer that is in and out of the water and the heatshrink used on the joint was long enough.

[Dignity]

I just remembered that Repco is right opposite BCF at Caloundra, 5 mins away si Iwill call in there and have a look, they are usually have better stock than that super cheep mob.

[Angla]

I must say that I am a little tight in the money area. Why give it away when you don't have to, I say.

I have a set of led light on the boat traoiler and a separate led number plate light. I made sure I cut off all the connectors supplied and crimped all the cables then used the thick walled heat shrink with the resin inside. You know that water cannot get in when the resin completely surrounds the ends where the cables come out.
It has been 2 years of trouble free light that always gets dunked to the top of the wheel arches.

The word here is to make sure you SEAL the connections.

Chris

[dnej]

The LED Auto lamps,are one of the best around.
Resin finished.
Yes they have short leads,but the resin heat shrink fixes that issue of the join. Two year warranty,
rated to 100000 hours.
Waterproof,shockproof,rustproof,vibration proof.
Stop, tail,indicator reference number 80 BAR.
72 LED black frame, 120X100X28.Voltage 12.

PM me if you want to know more.

[finga]

Are you sure that is correct as I was looking as some a while ago and it was classed as water resistant which is proberbly good enough for a trailer that is in and out of the water and the heatshrink used on the joint was long enough.
There are two different grades of the stuff.
Get the good stuff. I used to use it on electric bore pumps all the time and they went down to 100m under water so it must be okky dokky to there.
Remember nothing is really water proof but water resistant to a certain depth.
just have a gander at divers watches....water resistant to say 100m or what-ever.

[TheRealAndy]

I am going to throw a spanner in the works re waterproofing. Having done my apprenticeship as an instrument fitter with a company that sells sensors that are submersed in water. I have also worked in plenty of wet factories, including ones that use salt water environments, so I have learned a thing or 2 over the years. One, resin covered electronics does not stop water ingress. IT helps, but does not stop it. The problem is that the fibreglass substrate used to hold the electronics has a different thermal coefficient to the resin, therefore meaning that both expand and contract at different rates. Same goes for components on the board. All electronics heats up and cools down, so immediately there is a problem. Silicone potting compound is much better, but typically not clear enough. A thin layer will work really well. Now any small gap is a major problem, as it tends to suck in water as things expand and contract. The other problem with using resins, espcially with electronic components that heat up is that as the resin expands and contracts at different rates to the components and circuit board, you also end up with mechanical stress on the compents and solder joints which results in failures.

Heatshrink with resin is also not waterproof. We have the same issue regarding thermal expansion. This problem is further compunded by the fact that the resin does not stick to the PVC wiring and any movement then breaks the seal. For those that do not beleive that this is true you need to go take a look at the inghams factory at murrarie, or a similar wet floor plant that has a lot of instrumentation. Once that seal is gone, the water gets sucked up into the cable and will find its way into the trailer lamps.

The only true waterproof connection is a compression gland with rubber seals. Nothing else works. It may get you by if you trailer is submerged once or 2 a year, or it might even last a year or 2 if used regularly. Rest assured it will fail. Compression glands dont fail. I have used the SS versions in 100m of water with no failures.

The narva lights do not have a conformally coated circuit board. The case uses 2 plastic parts joined together with a plastic resin. Not the best join, but suitable as the 2 plastic parts will expand and contract and almost the same rate. The cable itself is striped of the outer instulation at the entry point, and each individual wire has had insulation removed down to the bare copper wire. This is all potted in a hard resin too. Once again, its not rubber seal, but it will at least prevent any water that enters the wire from finding its way into the lamp itself.

[Bros]

There are two different grades of the stuff.
Get the good stuff.


I was in Auslec the other day and I needed some heatshrink for job I was doing and I saw this black heatshrink with a thicker wall and I asked the price. Well I nearly fell over and I opted for the normal stuff.
I have just bought some waterproof LED trailer lights for a box trailer I built which will live all its life outdoors in all sorts of weather so full waterproofing won't be an issue. I'll just use the normal stuff but make it longer to keep any water out of the joints. I will also solder the joints as it will give me a smaller joint and I can heatshrink those as well.

[Angla]

You would be better off with the thick walled stuff. How much more did they want for the metre length. I hope you didn't ask for the biggest diameter but more like the 3/12 stuff.

Chris

[Dignity]

Thanks guys, went to Repco and they didn't have the NARVA ones but had a Trojan set which is supposedly got 6 layers of resin, 9 metres of cable and a flat 7 pin trailer fitting. Was $177 but got it for $140. As I needed something I bought it. The wiring was not tinned (although the ends were soldered when I checked it out so was sucked in) and as usual there was no way I was going to get 2 cables into the trailer connection, had to bore the hole out and the compression bung wouldn't go in at all so I used self ammalgamating tape to keep it all togehter. Why don't they sell these connections that will allow 2 cables through. Each cable had the correct wiring for each light i.e. only yellow in the RH lens and green in the LH lens so it was a smaller diam overall. It also had an extra wire in the RH lens for mountning the lens vertically - why you would need to do that I don't know but it was there.

The ease of having lights with 9metres of cable was great, just cut the old cable tape it to the new and and pull it through the frame, the hardest part was the trailer connection. 10mins work and ready to go and I am now back on the road and off to go fishing. I was goping to do more research but that would have only delayed me further.

TheRealAndy - I know where you are coming from as I had some involvement in Underground cable jointing some years ago and the resin cored heatshrink still causes problems still and is only the first barrier to water ingress. The big cables, 110kV usually use an outer compression sleeve.

Thanks for all the help guys.