Strip lights on the exterior

Blueespy · December 2024

Wife has been after me to install some lights on our 2019 t@b 400 under carriage. Broke down in July and bought a 18' roll of LED strip lights with an adhesive back. Spent about an hour cleaning and sticking the lights on the under carriage. Looked good. Power was 110 so I put the little box at the frame right under the t@b door. Whenever we stop I run a short extension cord for a number of things so I was able to plug the strip lights into that for power. Well, after about 15k miles from FL to AK over some challenging roads, the LEDs finally failed. Pulled them off over the weekend but now I'm looking at repeating the install but I have some DC powered lights in my old Amazon cart. Problem being i'm not sure where to get the DC power. I know there is a small fuse box on the frame, on the drivers side of the t@b at the front and while I suspect there is DC power there, I"m clueless to exactly where. Would appreciate any assistance from other folks.

swiftwave · December 2024

If your door step has a light, you could potentially tap into that power source.

pthomas745 · December 2024

The "junction box" is what you are thinking of behind the tub on the front frame. There are a number of threads that discuss the setup.

https://tab-rv.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/15356/junction-box-wiring-help

There is a fairly easy way to tap into the battery circuit by using the trailer's 7 pin plug and a 7 pin plug socket. There is one example in this thread. @rfuss928 used an SAE connector for this setup, but there have also been examples using a simple 12V "cigarette lighter" plug.

https://tab-rv.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/8478/12v-outlets-in-2019-t-b-320-s-are-they-2-way

If you have the "solar port" on the side of the trailer somewhere, it also can be used as a power source from the battery in the same way. An SAE cable, using the proper polarity of the plug, with a 12V outlet attached could be used for 12V power.

Blueespy · April 23

swiftwave said:

If your door step has a light, you could potentially tap into that power source.

This was a great suggestion. Very easy to gain access to the wires and tapping into them to power the LED strip lights took almost no time. What took forever it seemed was crawling around under the tab, cleaning the frame and then sticking the LED strip lights on. I had two strings, independently connected to the control box (my thinking being it would be easier to replace one strip if it went bad). Just back from a short five day trip and the lights worked perfectly.

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