Optronics Trailer Clearance or Side Marker Light w/ Reflector - Incandescent - Oblong - Amber Lens

Video Transcript for Optronics Oblong Trailer Clearance, Side Marker Light Installation

Speaker 1: Today we're going to be taking a look at the Optronics oblong trailer clearance and side-marker light with reflector, offering the amber lens and black base. Part number is MC31AB.Here you can see our light installed. You'll notice it has a black base on it. Most of the lights in this size category are going to have a white base. It can add a pretty nice look to your trailer, if you have a trailer that's maybe a black, or a red, gray, something like that, and you don't want a standard looking light on it.It offers a single incandescent bulb. It also offers the reflectorized lens, which you can see here.

Basically, that stands in place of the separate reflectors. So it's DOT compliant, as far as not needing a separate reflector anywhere. And when the lights are off, if you we're to hit it with your headlights, it lights up so you'll be able to see where your trailer's located.Now incandescent bulbs such as this has been the industry standard. You see it on just about every type of trailer out there. If you're just replacing one light, I'd find one that matches, and go back with that.But if you're changing the lights on your trailer, a lot of people are going over to LEDs, basically because they're much easier to use.

You don't have to worry about changing the bulb out. They last many times longer. Also, they give you a cleaner, and brighter light. It can really update the look of the trailer.And as an added benefit, they don't draw as much power. So we don't have to worry about that element heating up in there.

We don't have to worry about drawing all that power through our vehicle.The light is SAE, and DOT compliant. So it's going to work for all of your needs, whether you're mounting it like we have up here, as a clearance light. Or if you have it down as a side-marker light.Now this light's designed with three inch centers for the mounting location. So that's going to match up with all the standard, oval-shaped clearance lights out there. So it should be a very easy replacement for you.Another nice thing about the light is like with most of them, this lens is replaceable.

So if for some reason, a rock hits it, or it gets damaged, instead of replacing the entire base and lens, you can just replace the lens.Now to begin your installation, of course you want your old light removed. We're going to take our base here, you can see we've got a single wire coming off. It's what they call a single wire design. Most applications . Just strip that off. In most applications, this is designed to work with a metal base. You're going to be attaching it to metal.When we have fiberglass like this, we can't get a good ground made through there. So we'll show you how this will also work with a two-wire set up, so whether you've got one or two wires, it should work out fine for you.Now for the one wire guys, you're just going to strip back your power lead wire. And we're going to use a butt connector to make our connection there, part number DW05744, if you don't have them. This is a heat shrink butt connector. This does an excellent job of keeping any moisture, or dirt getting in there, leading to corrosion.Get that crimped down on. And then the other side we'll crimp to our light. At that point, with a single wire, you're ready to mount it. You can see that metal tab right there. That's what establishes your ground as you put your fastener through.With our setup, since we are doing a two-wire, we're going to bring our ground wire through, strip it back, and we're going to add a ring terminal to that. Just a small diameter opening there, get it crimped down.Now to shrink this down, you'll want to use a heat source. You can use a mini torch, you can use a heat gun or a lighter. Just need to be careful not to overheat it. Just gently heat it up, and allow it to shrink.When it does shrink, it's going to look like the wire gets larger, almost as if it's magnifying it. See where it's starting to do it there. Just take that out to the end, then you'll have a little bit of clear gel that'll come out. You want to do that on both sides of your connector there, so it looks just like that.Now we'll just want to re secure it with our existing hardware. When we do this side, we want to ensure that our ring terminal is placed over that ground strip right there. Now with those secure, just going to place our lens over the top, and press down firmly, get it clicked in place.Now to test out our light, you can simply connect your trailer to your truck, turn on the running lights, or use a trailer tester like what we're doing. And it seems to be working just fine.That's going to complete our look at the Optronics oblong, trailer clearance and side-marker light with reflector. Part number MC31AB.