{"id":638,"date":"2026-04-21T21:34:56","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T21:34:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gerardweatherby.org\/camping\/?p=638"},"modified":"2026-04-21T21:34:56","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T21:34:56","slug":"light-upgrade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gerardweatherby.org\/camping\/light-upgrade\/","title":{"rendered":"Light upgrade"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The interior lights that come with the Casita are … affordable. The switch mechanism is prone to wear and difficult-to-impossible to access for cleaning or updating. Amazon does sell some almost identical clones, but they suffer the same issue. I had a couple of leftover marine lights <\/a>from the boating days, so I decided to see if they would fit. The stock lights are longer than the marine lights are round. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"Holes
Drill here.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Round
Entrance light. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After drilling out the existing light by the doorway, I was happy to find that the round light covered the existing holes. My first marking of where to drill — the black sharpie marks shown by the red arrows– was a bit off. So I used a combination square to draw a pencil line and redid the holes. The carpeting on the inside cabinet walled pulled away pretty easily, so I was able to feed the wires and connect with WAGO connectors.

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"wire
Extending the feeder wire.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"wire
shriking the insulation.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"crimp<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"light
WAGO is the way to go.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After cutting the old light out, I found there was sufficient ground (white) wire to fasten a WAGO, so I pulled the white out of the top and crimped an extension wire on. The carpet on the shelf was glued down well, so I ended up using a paint scraper to lift the carpet to get to the wires. I crimped on a marine grade heatshrink butt connector to extend the wire. It’s overkill for a trailer — the shelf is unlikely to be doused in saltwater –, but it’s the parts I had on hand. I didn’t have a matching white so I used the black I had and put white tape on the wire coming down through the hole. The light uses marine colors, red for positive and black for negative \/ ground, while the trailer uses residential black for positive and white for negative \/ ground. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Round
New and old<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The lights don’t match, but I expect the switches will last much longer than the stock RV-style ones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The interior lights that come with the Casita are … affordable. The switch mechanism is prone to wear and difficult-to-impossible to access for cleaning or updating. Amazon does sell some almost identical clones, but they suffer the same issue. I had a couple of leftover marine lights from the boating days, so I decided to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-electrical","tag-hotel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerardweatherby.org\/camping\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerardweatherby.org\/camping\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerardweatherby.org\/camping\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerardweatherby.org\/camping\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerardweatherby.org\/camping\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gerardweatherby.org\/camping\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":649,"href":"https:\/\/gerardweatherby.org\/camping\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638\/revisions\/649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gerardweatherby.org\/camping\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerardweatherby.org\/camping\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gerardweatherby.org\/camping\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}