I don’t know how many times I have asked (yelled) that of my wife to see if we had power after hooking up to the shore power at an RV park.  In our old trailer we had a nightlight plugged in by the stove and I could see it by peeking in a window.

With the newer Airstreams I have seen, they have a blue LED at the power cord receptacle on the trailer.  I thought that was a great idea.  You can check right there that power is being fed to the trailer.  When we were looking for a new trailer I don’t remember thinking about that feature.  However, when we got our trailer I looked for it.  It wasn’t there!

Our trailer has the 50amp, dual A/C option.  I would not have probably purchased that option if I had the choice but we got a real good deal on the trailer.  It was unfortunate that it was not there.  So what to do?

Make my OWN! (well sort of)

I really like LED’s and wanted to do something with an LED.  In further research I did not know how to hook it into 110v and to light an LED without making some grandiose circuit.  In looking around at Chicken (Radio) Shack I found a solution.  A neon light.  They natively run on 110v.  They aren’t as efficient as LED but I don’t care when I am on shore power.

I know what I am going to use for an ‘idiot’ light but where to put it.  I needed access to 110v and want to be able to readily see it.  The solution was taken from running coax cable in our old trailer.  To do the coax I ran it through the refrigerator access door.  Opening that door you had access to the entire area behind the refrigerator to run the coax up the wall and out to the interior.

The added benefit of using the refrigerator access is that the refrigerator is there and therefore a 110v outlet.  Problem solved.

Here is the solution.  With the light off and then with the light (power) on.

Light Off

Light On