Pimp your (dog's) ride
The mutt still gets around OK, but the day will come when her cancer catches up with her and she won't have the puppy power she is blessed with right now. Since I will still want to get her out when that happens, I am getting her used to riding in her doggie chariot. With some treats she will hop right in the trailer and seems to tolerate it well enough - though the speed bumps do startle her a bit. The trailer I bought (from ebay) is a unabashed piece of junk, with a horrible rubber smell that took weeks and many washings with vinegar, baking soda and mild soap to get out (or at least down to a tolerable level). This thing stank like a tire in a harbor freight warehouse, I think that leaving it outside for weeks so the ozone could work on it probably accounted for about 50% in the decrease of the stank. Needless to say I would NOT recommend this, but I suspect that many of the cheaper trailers will have a similar stink, but regardless this one was very bad. The only thing going for it is the size, which is perfect for my dog. I did look at several more expensive models and they were just too small, so I was stuck with this rolling turd.
Anyway, back to the point of this. The trailer was missing some pop, so I picked up some waterproof 5050 LED's which come in a strip which can be cut to size. The ones I bought also have a cool RF remote and the whole thing works on 12V. 12V is great in a vehicle, but a but more difficult in this setup. If you are looking for something similar, search Ebay for "5050 RGB Led Waterproof RF Remote" and make sure to verify that the remote is RF since many are IR (infrared which requires line of sight). There seems to be many different remotes, I like the one that shipped with mine since it has many different modes, unfortunately the seller I bought from does not seem to be selling the same model I purchased anymore.
I decided to pick up a portable battery that does 5V USB charging as well as 12V or 9V. There are not many of this type of portable battery to choose from anymore. The one I bought was the "RAVPower 15000mAh Portable Power Bank" (available from Amazon like most things). No complaints so far, however I did notice that with the full strip of LED's (I bought a reel of 5M of 5050 LED's), the battery was cutting out due to it's overload protection which is actually a good thing. Even with 5M of LED, I could get the battery to power them reliably if I dimmed them with the included remote. When I cut down the LED's to use with the trailer (probably have 2 meters of LED's on the trailer), there was no problem.
Installation was super easy - I just wrapped the LED's along the base of the trailer and zip tied them to the metal frame. Then I cut the LED strip to size - the strips are marked at intervals where it is safe to cut them - I just used scissors. Finally I needed to extend the 4 wire cable from the LED strip to the controller for the LED's (the white box in the pics) - this was extended about 18". I ended up soldering the 4 wire cable when I extended it, but there are extension wires on ebay (search for "4 Pin Extension Connector Cable Wire For SMD 5050") and they only cost a couple bucks (so I could have done it without doing any soldering). I kludged together a bag to hold the battery and controller which attaches to the trailer, and I keep the remote on the bike. The LED controller which was shipped with my LED's has several modes including solid colors, fade modes, dimming and other sequences. For road riding I just use the solid red or orange modes since those won't cause an issue with cars, but will increase the visibility. When riding on paths I can use the multicolor fades which look really cool.
Below is an Amazon link for the battery.
Anyway, back to the point of this. The trailer was missing some pop, so I picked up some waterproof 5050 LED's which come in a strip which can be cut to size. The ones I bought also have a cool RF remote and the whole thing works on 12V. 12V is great in a vehicle, but a but more difficult in this setup. If you are looking for something similar, search Ebay for "5050 RGB Led Waterproof RF Remote" and make sure to verify that the remote is RF since many are IR (infrared which requires line of sight). There seems to be many different remotes, I like the one that shipped with mine since it has many different modes, unfortunately the seller I bought from does not seem to be selling the same model I purchased anymore.
I decided to pick up a portable battery that does 5V USB charging as well as 12V or 9V. There are not many of this type of portable battery to choose from anymore. The one I bought was the "RAVPower 15000mAh Portable Power Bank" (available from Amazon like most things). No complaints so far, however I did notice that with the full strip of LED's (I bought a reel of 5M of 5050 LED's), the battery was cutting out due to it's overload protection which is actually a good thing. Even with 5M of LED, I could get the battery to power them reliably if I dimmed them with the included remote. When I cut down the LED's to use with the trailer (probably have 2 meters of LED's on the trailer), there was no problem.
Installation was super easy - I just wrapped the LED's along the base of the trailer and zip tied them to the metal frame. Then I cut the LED strip to size - the strips are marked at intervals where it is safe to cut them - I just used scissors. Finally I needed to extend the 4 wire cable from the LED strip to the controller for the LED's (the white box in the pics) - this was extended about 18". I ended up soldering the 4 wire cable when I extended it, but there are extension wires on ebay (search for "4 Pin Extension Connector Cable Wire For SMD 5050") and they only cost a couple bucks (so I could have done it without doing any soldering). I kludged together a bag to hold the battery and controller which attaches to the trailer, and I keep the remote on the bike. The LED controller which was shipped with my LED's has several modes including solid colors, fade modes, dimming and other sequences. For road riding I just use the solid red or orange modes since those won't cause an issue with cars, but will increase the visibility. When riding on paths I can use the multicolor fades which look really cool.
Below is an Amazon link for the battery.
