Annoying Lighting Failure

[Marine359]

Our 2108ds has been plagued since new by a lighting failure in the dinette slideout lcd puck light. My first reaction was to replace the lamp. No good. It still stays on for awhile and then goes off. Multimeter shows continuity when it’s on, no continuity when it goes off. So, my first inclination is that there must be a short somewhere in the wiring that goes to the slideout. I’ve checked the wire harness to the slide and don’t see anything amiss. Has this happened to anybody but me? Any ideas on how to trace the short circuit?

[Ranger Smith]

It is probably an open and not a short. A short would blow a fuse. Usually it is a bad crimp where the wires connect.

[bigb]

Where do you get continuity, across the lamp? No continuity would indicate something is open in the fixture itself. What about voltage, can you measure for voltage when the light goes out? First between pos and neg and if no voltage then try between pos and a known ground, that will tell you which wire is the problem. If it's the ground that is much easier to fix as another one can be ran from any grounded part.
When you say you replaced the lamp do you mean the whole fixture or just the bulb/lamp?

[Morich]

Since LED are polarity sensitve, we have a bit more trouble sorting out which is battery and which is ground as the fixtrue often looks the same. But the idea is still the same in that there has to be a path for power to get to the LED and also one for it to get back to ground.
Full circle is a good "circuit", so I look at the two connections and expect to see one power and one ground. If I'm missing one or the other, I know whether to chase the power or ground side and that cuts the chase in half!

I've not looked at trailers in a long time and we don't get the best info on them, so I wonder if the wiring has ID stamped on them like motorized?
That might give you a head start on which goes where and does what?

https://www.winnebago.com/Files/File...ical_guide.pdf