Video Transcript for Ultimate Overview of the Optronics Mini Side Marker and Clearance Light

Hello neighbors. It's Brad here at etrailer. And today we're taking a look and installing the Optronics mini LED side marker and clearance lights in red. Now these are also submersible so they're gonna be great applications for a boat trailer or whatever trailer you may have. Now these are gonna be a great addition or replacement or even upgrade for your trailer side marker and clearance lights. They're gonna be a three diode LED light.

So as your incandescent bulbs burn out and just kind of get old and crusty over time, this is gonna be a great time to upgrade your lighting source. Not only for longer lifespan, better light, but also better overall durability. Now when not illuminated it's going to be a completely clear housing. So it gives it a nice little modern look and it's also a polycarbonate lens and housing. So it's gonna be impact resistant and just hold up over time.

Now something else that's great, the fact that it is all sealed means that you can submerse it. So if this is underwater, that's gonna be totally fine. So holding up to the elements should be no problem for this. Now the three LED diodes give 180 degrees which is gonna be really nice because this is gonna be the furthest point of our trailer that sticks out. So for clearance, when driving at night, the driver of the vehicle is gonna be able to still see this and know exactly how wide their trailer is.

Now as far as installation goes it's also extremely easy to do. It does not come with the hardware. So you are gonna have to source some of that. If your previous lights don't have that hardware for you but it's gonna be a one wire installation and that's accomplished by having the ground integrated into the mounting. So all you have to do is tie into your trailer marker lights, and you'll be ready to go.

Now these are gonna be a great addition upgrade or replacement for existing clearance lights on your trailer and the red light you want behind the rear axle and towards the rear of the trailer. And this is gonna be great for letting us know exactly how far or wide the trailer is. That way you can kind of get a grasp of where you're at driving as you're going down, nighttime you can actually see how wide the trailer is to keep it off the side of the road. Ours here has seen obviously better days. So to put this new one on it's not only gonna give us a better light but also it's just going to have a working light. So in order to get this replaced, first you're gonna want to take off your old one or if you're putting a new one on you're gonna want to use these holes to line this up to be able to mount it up. Now you'll see that one side is completely open and then the other side actually has the ground, and that's pretty much a really nice addition because it's one wire installation. And then this portion will sit against the metal giving us our ground. So we only have to run one wire but to get this mounted up, you're gonna want to use this side to make a small indentation, either mark it with a pencil, you can use a punch or even just a small screwdriver to kind of create a marking there. And then once you have that spot instead of using this metal ground portion and potentially catching this, I recommend flipping it. And that way it'll be nice and even, and you can drill that. So once you have those holes enlarged I found that a 5/32 drill bit is gonna work well. You're also gonna want to drill a hole for the wire and it does sit a little bit higher than these two holes. So just go ahead and make that mark. Now once you have those drilled through you're also gonna wanna make sure that you have a nice spot for your ground to sit and get a proper contact. So if it is rust and corroded like this trailer is, go ahead you can sand that down with a little sandpaper and just get a nice clean surface. Now it does not come with hardware so you are gonna have to use your own. And what I've found is using an 8/32 here we have a stainless steel screw and that's gonna be good to hold up to the elements over time. This is completely submersible, and it's gonna hold up. So might as well make sure your hardware does the same thing. And I've gone ahead, just put a flat washer here and that's gonna just give it a little bit, it'll space out some of that pressure of the head on this plastic which you know, just added protection here. So I'm gonna go ahead and get our hardware passed through and on the backside, I'm gonna make sure that I follow it up with a flat washer, a split washer, and then finally a nut. Now if you are drilling in make sure that you don't have any wiring behind here before making your holes. Now we'll get this tightened down. You don't want to over tighten it as to break the plastic but you do want this to kind of snug up nice and flush against the frame and that way there's no moisture that can kinda get behind there. Now as far as wiring up, super easy, we already have our ground because it's integrated into this. So our red wire here is gonna attach to our running light wire which is generally gonna be your brown. So trace that back from your taillights or up front. And I've ran just an extra wire here. I just use a heat shrink butt connector and I'll be using one of those here as well to make our connection. So what I'll do here is just go ahead make sure it's cut the size where we need it and then strip this portion back. Now the heat shrink butt connectors are a great option for wiring that lives kind of out in the elements, because once you crimp it down and heat it up, it's gonna seal everything up and that way moisture can't get in there and break down your connection. Now if you need some of these, we have 'em available here at etrailer. So this brown wire that I have just jumpers back to our brown running light circuit. So if you need to tie into that again, you can use a heat shrink butt connector for that. And that way you just have a little jumper. You don't have to have this wire extend it. You can go ahead and just have an extension already there. So now that it's nice and crimped, we'll go ahead with our heat gun. And then as we put heat to it, you're gonna start to see it'll shrink down, creating that nice seal for us. Now all that's really left to do is test to make sure that that it's working, which as we can tell, we're getting some nice bright light here through the three diodes and then whatever wiring you have hanging down you're gonna want to tie that up. So it doesn't get caught. It's kind of nice too, to actually run it through some wire loom, just to kind of clean that up. And then you can actually use loom clamps to attach that if it is still hanging down we have that all available here at etrailer and that's just gonna make sure that you're wiring it will withstand all the elements that it's gonna see underneath the trailer. And that was a look and installation of the Optronics mini LED side marker and clearance lights in red with three diodes..