trailer hitch reverse light idea
 

Hi all.

I wonder if anyone has made/bought a light that you can put into your trailer hitch receiver and its connected to round pin connector to work as a reverse light when the X5 is in reverse? Never hurts to have more light back there and it may look snazzy instead of just an empty hitch receiver (or rubber cap/plug).
Something like this but white/clear instead of red...
https://www.amazon.com/Light-Up-Rect...K4YR5FP5HVFPYK

It would be a 3rd reverse light. I think its a neat idea to brighten up the ground around rear when reversing and figured why not try this approach...

OR do you have another fun way to use the empty trailer hitch receiver (please don't say for hanging metal balls or propeller fan or 4th brake light...)
Thanks,

EDIT: I decided to not use a relay, but instead just wire the positive wire into the positive wire from reverse light harness/connector.

Mike in Calgary.

Ok so I'm going to go ahead with this project and connect into the Reverse light wire harness... So now I have two questions that I'm hoping an electrical guru may be able to answer...
I am going to be connecting an LED, so is it OK to connect to the existing reverse lights positive wire for power OR should I connect a relay to this power wire and then connect to LED? I'm sure the Relay way is smartest but if I go that route, will it then cause a light out Error somehow? I currently have my euro fogs running LED bulbs and tied directly into the brake lights (no relay) and I get zero errors so that's why I was going to try tapping directly into the reverse wiring with this LED housing/wiring.
Thoughts for me to ponder?

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You should be fine tapping an LED lamp into the existing reverse light circuits. In fact, for what you propose the LED is best, as it will have the least impact on the existing circuits. As you have already found with the euro fog (brake) LEDs. :thumbup:

thats what i thought. i bought the parts needed so may as well tap into reverse light wiring . will do pics and write up in case others wish to do it too

this is the light ( https://unibondlighting.com/uni-bond...-lamps/lw6008/ ) ($30 fro local parts store) I'm going to mount to a blank trailer hitch cover plate, by drilling hole through its center to run the light mounting bolt through ( https://www.curtmfg.com/part/2275003 ) ($7 from Amazon) and just use simple waterproof connectors and wire to tap into reverse light switch.


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Ok so I got the hole drilled into the metal trailer hitch cover so I could attach the LED housing via the included hardware and then found a waterproof connector set and spliced one end onto the LED wiring... Other end will go to vehiclehttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...733aacfb1a.jpg

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That's gonna put out quite a bit of light...! :yikes: :bustingup

I hope so. I love having the ground illuminated and I can angle it down so it's not blinding ppl/cars behind me when I do put it in reverse.
I'm excited to get it wired up :)

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Is it wide angle? Otherwise you may not get much light around to the sides of thecar, where you need it most.

I actually have a claymore mine in the draw bar hitch back in the US. Granted it's inert but absolutely no one tailgates me....[emoji38]

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I was looking at these yesterday: https://www.ebay.com/itm/LED-Trailer...53.m1438.l2649

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/HQsAA...j7/s-l1600.jpg

lets see some installed pics!!

i wish the wiring wasnt so visible

I too was looking at these but I feel these don't put out many lumens therefore useless.

As for if the uni-bond LED I bought is a wide angle... I will find out soon [emoji16]

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So by FAR the wiring took me the longest as I'm anal about tidyness of a repair/mod.
I would probably do it differently if I did it again but I ran the wiring inside the trunk through accordion wire grommet and then back out of spare tire well area via another accordion wire grommet... I'd skip that part next time and just go from tail light housing to trailer hitch area since your wiring is sort of outside the trunk hatch in the first place.
Here is a pic of the wiring
I didn't actually use this (right side) connector but instead rather used the left side. I had this one photo'd so this is for reference..
Wire 1 is for euro fog positive
Wire 2 is for reverse light positive
Wire 3 is negativehttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...baf8032dd1.jpg

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I will post nighttime pics tonight.
I don't call this a success nor a failure as the light I chose is not wide enough to broadcast to the sides but the wiring and other hardware is all in place in case I ever cared to swap out a more wide spectrum L.E.D.

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Ok after adjusting the light it's nice and bright but not as wide as I would have liked but still incredible.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...7fd5e5957f.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...dddc56dfec.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...88cf7bc52e.jpg

Ok these pics cAnt do it justice for the amount of light output honestly. It's actually very bright.

I've been toying with the idea of putting an LED inside the trailer receiver as well but heard it automatically deactivates the rear PDC? Is this true?

This is NOT true. I had a step in the hitch receiver for years too with no errors or setting off the rear PDC sensors
NOW mind you, I tapped into the reverse light wires for the LED light wires instead of making a 7 pin round connector and plugging into the trailer harness connector (as that then would tell the trailer module to disengage the reverse lights, rear PDC and brake lights, so making it worse than what I'm trying to fix)

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I think the suggestion is that if you connect the reverse light to the trailer wiring, the trailer module may detect the light as being a trailer attached, so the rear PDC sensors are disabled, the DSC goes into towing mode and the CC presents errors for the "missing" trailer lamps...

I can see this happening in certain conditions. Not an issue in this case, as the new reverse light is NOT connected to the trailer module...

Oh yeah, I wanted to connect it to the oem trailer hitch connecter by using a 7-pin to 4-pin adapter.


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This TCX light from Ali Express was a perfect fit for me and an easy install

I think about 42 watts of LED brightness blazes the rear!

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/TC-X...720100562.html

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Gb...=w1196-h897-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/mY...=w1196-h897-no

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/4f...=w1196-h897-no

The camera aesthetics are not for everyone, but Hey, it works for me. :dunno:

Mike

Wow that is discreet and still leaves your hitch receiver open. Great find/install!!

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