Tail, Turn, Brake Light Add-On

Improve the visibility of your RV's rear with Boogey Lights TAIL - TURN - BRAKE add-on led strips.

Have you looked at your rear recently? No, not that rear -- the rear of your RV! Are the tail, turn and brake lights clearly visible to those traveling behind you? Can drivers following you see your brake lights clearly? Lots of fifth wheel and travel trailers have the bare minimum rear facing lights to meet DOT requirements. Many are mounted within 12-18" from the bottom of the RV. This makes them difficult to see by anyone other than the vehicle immediately following you. What about those vehicles a few cars back? Can they see them clearly? Probably not because the stock tail, turn, brake lights are usually hidden for drivers further back in the pack. Boogey Lights TAIL - TURN - BRAKE add-on led strips are an easy and inexpensive solution to improving the visibility of your RV's rear. SOLD AS A PAIR.

These LED strips are based on our HEAVY DUTY LED light series. They are simple 12vdc LED lights. There is no 'intelligence' built into the strip itself. Just the super bright LED diodes in the color and length configuration you select. How you wire them to your 12vdc power source will determine how the LEDs behave.

We urge you to read the information presented here before purchasing. Our product documentation is quite thorough. Product specs, an explanation of the available configuration options, 12vdc power considerations you should be aware of, wiring information, installation documentation and even a video on how to install are ALL on this product page. Chances are every question you have about this product (and more you didn't know you needed to know) are answered here. Be sure to scroll down, expand each text group section and read the information presented. Also, click on and read the information on the INSTALL INFO tab where we cover important installation considerations.

Features

These Tail-Turn-Brake add-on led strips are based on our popular HEAVY DUTY LED STRIPS. The exact same product; just packaged in pairs and limited only to colors applicable to tail-turn-brake light applications to make it easier for consumers. Depending upon the length, each Heavy Duty LED Strip contains between 15 and 75 high-intensity super-bright 5050 tri-chip RED LEDs. No other Heavy Duty LED strip on the market today has more LEDs per foot than Boogey Lights®.

Sold as a PAIR. The PCB is black, created with 2 ounce copper and encased in industrial grade PVC with 1.2mm of 3M® VHB tape affixed to the back.

The 3 diode RED versions are .5" wide. The 4 diode versions (REDA, REDW) are .75" wide. All are .25" high with five different lengths offered (see below). Additionally, the end caps have a screw hole allowing these strips to be screwed to the mounting surface for additional holding power. The product photo carousel on this page shows photos of the lights.

They're offered in five different lengths and are easy to add to just about any fifth wheel, travel trailer or motor home. Here are the five available lengths:

15 LED Strip: 12.25" long x .5" wide x .25" high, 2.2 ounces
30 LED Strip: 22.25" long x .5" wide x .25" high, 3.1 ounces
45 LED Strip: 31.75" long x .5" wide x .25" high, 4.3 ounces
60 LED Strip: 41.25" long x .5" wide x .25" high, 5.4 ounces
75 LED Strip: 52.25" long x .5" wide x .25" high, 6.5 ounces

(The REDA and REDW versions are .75" wide.)

NOTE: These five fixed lengths are the only sizes offered. Maximum length for our Heavy Duty LED strips is 52.55" (75 LEDs). They cannot be made longer nor are they sold on rolls due to the strip design. If you need to go longer distances, use multiple strips.

Each RED Heavy Duty LED strip has a 36", four (or 5) conductor power lead that makes it easy to tie into the existing tail lights.

The LED strip is secured to the back of the RV using the 3M VHB tape and 3M Adhesion Promoter. Also, if you want extra holding power there's a place to add a stainless steel screw on each end of the heavy duty LED strip. Installation time is about an hour total. 12VDC.

Did we mention they are SOLD AS A PAIR?

If you need to extend the power lead wires on these LED strips, we offer 4 conductor POWER LEAD WIRE too.

12VDC POWER CONSIDERATIONS

These lights are not vehicle specific. They'll work with any 12vdc vehicle that has a sufficiently sized circuit. Keep in mind that adding additional LEDs to your trailer/motorhome/tow vehicle may exceed your vehicle's rated amperage for that lighting circuit and throw an error because the lighting control module (LCM) 'thinks' there is a problem with your electrical system due to the increase in amperage draw. In these cases the easiest work around is to add an independent relay (3 or 4 relays depending on how your tow vehicle/RV is setup) to the circuit to make them work. The relays draw milliamps and won't cause the LCM to error out. This problem is most likely to occur with pickup truck tow vehicles but it's possible to occur in a motor home too. If your tow vehicle is a pickup truck - particularly one built in the last 10 years - we strongly suggest adding relays to your installation initially. Don't wait until after you do the install to find out your truck's LCM doesn't like the additional amperage draw you've just added. Click on the INSTALL INFO navigation tab of this product page for details on how to wire relays into the lighting circuit.

These LED strips are simple. They're just 12vdc LED lights. There is no 'intelligence' built into the strip itself. Just the LEDs in the configuration you select. How you wire them to your 12vdc power source will determine how the LEDs behave.

What is RED + AMBER (REDA)?

REDA is a new type of LED strip we designed. It uses our single color RED tri-chip technology with the addition of a fourth diode that is AMBER. Designed primarily for motor vehicle tail-turn-brake applications, that fourth AMBER diode can be wired to the left and right turning indicator circuits. The remaining three RED diodes are wired such that one diode connects to the running light circuit and the remaining two diodes connects to the brake circuit.

HEADS UP! Not all trailers or motorhomes have separate turning indicator and brake light circuits mounted on the rear of the vehicle. Many (perhaps most) motorhomes/trailers are setup such that the Brake light and the Turning Indicator share the same circuit (at least on the rear of the vehicle). If you're buying the REDA version of this product thinking you'll use the Amber led for your turning indicator you may have to pull the turning indicator circuit from another location on your tow vehicle/motorhome which makes the installation a little more challenging.

What is RED + WHITE (REDW)?

REDW is a new type of LED strip we designed. It uses our single color RED tri-chip technology with the addition of a fourth diode that is WHITE. Designed primarily for motor vehicle tail-turn-brake with reverse light applications, that fourth WHITE diode can be wired to the reverse lights. The remaining three RED diodes are wired such that one diode connects to the running light circuit, one to the turning indicator and one to the brake circuit.

AVAILABLE LENGTHS

This product is offered in FIVE different lengths. Here are the available lengths:

15 LED Strip: 12.25" long x .5" wide x .25" high, 2.2 ounces
30 LED Strip: 22.25" long x .5" wide x .25" high, 3.1 ounces
45 LED Strip: 31.75" long x .5" wide x .25" high, 4.3 ounces
60 LED Strip: 41.25" long x .5" wide x .25" high, 5.4 ounces
75 LED Strip: 52.25" long x .5" wide x .25" high, 6.5 ounces

(The REDA and REDW versions are .75" wide.)

NOTE: These five fixed lengths are the only sizes offered. Maximum length for our Heavy Duty LED strips is 52.55" (75 LEDs). Sorry. They cannot be made longer nor are they sold on rolls due to the strip design. If you need to go longer distances, use multiple strips.

LOOKING FOR ANOTHER COLOR?

The TAIL-TURN-BRAKE light add on LED strips offered on this product are RED. We however offer these same Heavy Duty LED strips in a variety of other colors. For example, if you're looking for White, Amber or Orange LED strips, you can find them listed with our HEAVY DUTY LED STRIPS.

Includes

Two - LED strips in your choice of RED, REDA or REDW Heavy Duty LED strips in the length you choose (12vdc). Each strip has a 36" power lead hard wired to it.

3M Adhesion Promoter

Installation Supplies

Installation Instructions

Three year original owner warranty.

DOT COMPLIANCE

The AMBER and RED single color LED strips are DOT COMPLIANT. They conform to applicable provisions of the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 108 requirements.

PRODUCT APPEARANCE NOTE

This product uses our HEAVY DUTY LED Strips. The PVC molding and polyurethane coating that protects the LED strip itself may have some imperfections in the material surrounding the LED strip due to the manufacturing process. It's unavoidable. We build and warranty these products for their performance in tough, outdoor environments on all kinds of heavy duty vehicles; not for their cosmetic perfection. For most applications, these Heavy Duty LED strips are never seen as they're usually mounted to the bottom of a vehicle out of sight. You only see the glow from the LEDs and even then, only when it's dark. For this product however, because of where they are mounted you will see the LED strips themselves; especially in day light. If you're looking for a super-bright, tough, easy to install add-on TAIL/TURN/BRAKE light, this product is ideal for your application. If however you're very particular on how something looks and/or are expecting a perfectly formed hardened plastic look when viewed up-close in the light of day, this product is probably not for you.

INSTALLATION VIDEO

In this video Dave from Watts on Wheels installs our REDA Tail-Turn-Brake light product to his DRV Fifth Wheel trailer. They also install awning lights too. Check it out.

INSTALLATION

We suggest mounting the ADD-ON Tail-Turn-Brake light above the existing stock tail light housing where it can be easily seen from 100+' behind you. The longer the LED strip, the better the visibility. The LED strip has a 36" power lead so unless you want to extend that power lead length, you'll need to mount the LED strip within 30" or less of the stock light housing. See our product photos for examples of real customer installations. The ideal mounting location is one in which you can drill a 1/4" hole in the RV to feed the power lead cable through and then drop down to splice into the back of the existing tail/turn/brake circuit. This makes for a clean installation. In some situations you may not be able to do that in which case the power lead cable may need to be run on the outside of the RV and down to the stock tail/turn/brake light housing. You'll need to take a look at your RV to see what's possible. If you have to run the power lead wiring on the outside, we suggest using either Butyl tape or 3M VHB tape to securely fasten the power lead cable to the RV (we also suggest wrapping the power lead in split-loom). It's not ideal but it can be done so it looks good. You'll of course need to remove the existing tail light housing on both the left and right sides from the RV to gain access to the wiring. It's usually a very simple thing to do. As for making the actual wire connections, we prefer to cut the existing wires (once we've clearly identified them) and then use butt connectors (supplied in the kit) to re-connect while at the same time adding in the new Boogey Lights LED strip. Some folks prefer to use a scotch lock connector however in our experience, they're not as reliable particularly on vehicles that move, flex and vibrate. Our kit includes some butt connectors to do this.

In this video Dave from Watts on Wheels installs our REDA Tail-Turn-Brake light product to his DRV Fifth Wheel trailer. They also install awning lights too. Check it out.

Wiring to Existing Tail / Turn / Brake

Each single Boogey Lights LED contains THREE DIODES, all of which are RED. The number of LEDs on a Heavy Duty LED Strip varies based on the length of the LED strip. The longer the LED strip, the more LEDs on that strip. Each Heavy Duty LED strip has 4 conductors: One 12vdc negative (the black wire which is the ground) and then three 12vdc positive wires (color coded red, green and blue). Each of those three positive wires connects to one of the diodes in each LED. This gives you three different LED Diodes you can control making it ideal for Tail, Turn, Brake light integration. Simply wire the Boogey Lights LED strip to your existing RV tail light housing as follows:

Existing Ground -> Black wire ground on Boogey Lights LED Strip
Existing Tail Light 12vdc+ -> Red wire on Boogey Lights LED Strip
Existing Turn Light 12vdc+ -> Green wire on Boogey Lights LED Strip
Existing Brake Light 12vdc+ -> Blue wire on Boogey Lights LED Strip

Depending on your RV's tail light wiring, you may not have these same three 12vdc positive wires. In some RV trailers, the brake and the turn signal share the same circuit. In that case you would wire both the Green and Blue 12vdc+ wires on the Boogey Lights LED strip to the existing turn/brake light circuit on each side of the trailer. Note that some trial and error may be required to identify which wires on the existing light housing operate each of these light functions. Have a 12vdc multi-meter handy can be helpful in these cases.

In the event your tow vehicle/RV lighting control module (LCM) is throwing an error and/or the LEDs aren't working correctly (assuming they're wired properly), it's due to the increase in amperage you've added to the lighting circuit. The LCM sees the amperage increase as a potential electrical problem and shuts down the circuit (and/or throws an error code). The simple solution is to install relays. A relay will only draw milliamps which won't cause the LCM to error out. This issue is more likely to occur with pickup truck tow vehicles than it is with motor homes but can happen on both. Most any 10+ amp automotive relay found at any auto parts store will work. We offer a 30 amp heavy duty automotive relay for sale on our website. We use these relays for all of our heavy duty semi-truck tail-turn-brake lighting installations. We also offer this water proof junction box which will house 3 relays.

Here are two relay wiring diagrams for the two possible lighting circuit configurations:

NOTE: These lights are not vehicle specific. They'll work with any 12vdc vehicle that has a sufficiently sized circuit. Adding additional LEDs to your trailer/motorhome/tow vehicle may exceed your vehicle's rated amperage for that lighting circuit and throw an error because the lighting control module 'thinks' there is a problem due to the increase in amperage draw. In these cases the easiest work around is to add an independent relay (3 or 4 relays depending on how your tow vehicle/RV is setup) to the circuit to make them work to the circuit to make them work. The relays draw milliamps and won't cause the lighting control module to error out.

IMPORTANT NOTE: To achieve the full adhesive strength of the 3M® tape affixed to the back of the Boogey Lights® LED strips 3M® Adhesion Promoter (aka Primer) must be applied to the mounting surface first. This is an important step to ensure a secure bond. The 3M® Adhesion Promoter creates a chemical bond between the tape and the surface such that the LED strip will stay stuck (at least until you decide you want to remove it). Using any other solvent such as rubbing alcohol or acetone is not the same thing as using 3M® Adhesion Promoter. While these solvents will help clean the surface, they do not prime the surface nor can they be used instead of the 3M® Adhesion Promoter. 3M® Adhesion Promoter IS INCLUDED with this kit. If you want your strips to stay stuck it's important to follow the mounting instructions included with the kit and to use the 3M® Adhesion Promoter included.

Did we mention that using the 3M® Adhesion Promoter included in this kit is an important step in the installation process you should not skip?

Need additional assistance? Give us a call and we'll be happy to assist!