Tricked Out My Trailer Game Hoist

[JonBoy]

I've been seeing a lot of threads using the flexible LED light strips. That gave me an idea...I bought a new trailer hitch mounted game hoist and decided to add some light to it...I have it cabled up and wired into a 7-pin trailer hitch plug pulling 12V off the auxiliary line. Needless to say, this little beauty throws A LOT!!!!! of light It lit up my house like something out of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

The game hoist: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

The lights: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[EZ-10RANCH]

Now that's a good idea!! Nicely done.

[Bowhunter9790]

Impressive

[texan16]

Now that's a good idea!! Nicely done.

X2. Built a hoist for my dad a few years ago ( he is 73), gonna have to trick his out like this. Heck of an idea.

[Strain]

That's awesome.....may be a dumb question but how did you wire it to work off your trailer light hookup? I may have to do this if I can figure how to wire it

[coach_stew]

great job!

[Big Daddy]

Light that up in the middle of woods would look like The Holy Grail !! Good job

[JonBoy]

That's awesome.....may be a dumb question but how did you wire it to work off your trailer light hookup? I may have to do this if I can figure how to wire it

Depending on what connection you have (4-pin, 5-pin, 7-pin, etc) you'll have to Google the pinout for your connector. I went to Advanced Auto Parts and bought one of those cheap replacement 7-pin trailer connectors and wired in an 18ga twisted wire pair; one to GND (i.e. battery 'negative') and the other to +12V auxiliary (i.e. Battery 'positive') and then spliced the other ends of the twisted pair to the cable coming off the LED strip. Pretty simple...all-in-all took me about 30 minutes of fussing with it.

[JonBoy]

Here's a pic of the 7-pin connector I bought for it all wired in...you can see the LED strips in the corner of the pic. The LED strip comes in a big roll...they have sections where you can cut & solder on new leads which is what I ended up doing. I cut the LED strip into 3 sections, soldered leads onto the new sections and spliced them all together with the trailer plug.

[law1piv]

Good Idea !!

[Strain]

Here's a pic of the 7-pin connector I bought for it all wired in...you can see the LED strips in the corner of the pic. The LED strip comes in a big roll...they have sections where you can cut & solder on new leads which is what I ended up doing. I cut the LED strip into 3 sections, soldered leads onto the new sections and spliced them all together with the trailer plug.

[ATTACH]519578[/ATTACH]

I wish you had step by step picture tutorial....hahahaha....as I am not very electrical savvy. I may give it a shot though. Awesome idea!!!

[JonBoy]

I wish you had step by step picture tutorial....hahahaha....as I am not very electrical savvy. I may give it a shot though. Awesome idea!!!

Sorry brotha...I didn't do the step-by-step pics. But it really is as simple as screwing a wire to a terminal and then twisting the other end of it to the like-colored wire Here's the reference pic of the trailer connector pinout that I used:



I screwed the black wire to pin '1' and the red wire to pin '4'. Hope that helps
p.s. Also, when you look at the LED strip where the wires are attached, there is a '+' and '-' printed next to the pre-soldered wires...it's pretty tiny to its a little hard to see but its there.

[Coach W]

Very cool. I've often wanted more light back there.

[Strain]

I'm going to give it a shot.....I'm inspired...

[Strain]

With a 4 flat I guess I could hook it up to the ground wire and the tail light pin correct? Then when my lights are on the strip would be on too??? Sound about right?