Light Switch Relay

[Anonymous-0]

Thought about adding a relay off my light switch to keep from burning up the switch when I haul my trailer at night with all the running lights going. My question is in the wireing of the relay switch 1 wire from batt.,1 ground,1 from light switch not sure about that . Do I just cut the wire at the light switch and connect both cut ends to the relay switch like one wire will feed in and on the other terminal connect the other end to relay terminal which would be out to the lights?
Thanks In Advance for any advice Mark

 

[Anonymous-0]

Mark - Run a #10 or #8 wire from the battery positive to one relay contact terminal. Put an inline fuse in this wire as close to the battery as possible.

Continue this wire from other relay contact terminal back to the tail light pole at the trailer connector at the rear of your vehicle. (Cut and tape off the connector's existing tail lite pole feed wire)

To power the relay coil, run a wire (can be #16 gage wire or smaller) from the ungrounded side of any convenient sidemarker or parking lamp on the vehicle to one relay coil terminal. Then run a 2nd wire from the other relay coil terminal to a good ground.

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As an alternative to a relay, suggest replacing all your trailer lights with LED's. LED's reduce the trailer current draw by 90% or more. Also LED's are brighter, and they last essentially forever. The downside is LED's not cheap - markers are $7 or $8 each, and tail light assemblies about run $20 - $30.

I've switched both my trailers to LED's - no more blown fuses, fussing with burned out bulbs in the dark, etc!

 

[Anonymous-0]

Thanks Bob M for the info that was very helpful.
Mark

 

[Anonymous-0]

My Ford come from factory with relays to run trailer lights. When I put in the brake control, I just pluged in the relays under the hood.