Hello Everyone, We are a team of graduate students at the Integrated Innovation Institute, Carnegie Mellon University.Some of you may have engaged with us over at this thread: HeavyEquipmentForums Our team has narrowed down our research to focus on visibility and awareness issues during night time construction. Particularly when using excavators, loaders and haulers. We would like this forums assistance to tap into the rich body of knowledge in this domain. We request members to provide in-depth descriptions of visibility issues faced by equipment operators. Be sure to describe, the nature of the activity, the equipment being used, the lighting setup, manpower details and any relevant site conditions. We would also be thrilled to hear, if you have any ideas on potential solutions. We thank you for your valuable contributions
Don't forget to factor in the loss of vision known as lack of night vision that begins near dark and can last for 30 minutes or so, unless the night vision onset is reset by inadvertent exposure to light. The lack of night vision is a reason that the time of twilight is such a dangerous time on streets and highways. Night vision usually takes about 30 minutes to acclimate. Red lights do not impede night vision.
Driving a wheel loader at night: A loader with a chrome exhaust stack, at night the rear facing lights on the cab are reflected by the stack, and look like headlights of a vehicle, in the rear view mirror in the loader. Turn around and look, and nothing behind the loader. (many times...) New Deere wheel loader with LED screen for instruments and info, at eyelevel on the windshield pillar. The menu/scroll buttons have surrounding green led lite rings, pulse modulated to dim them at night. Turning head to look behind, retina persistent images make hundreds of green circles across eyes' field-of-view. Switch identification symbols and illumination are mostly useless, especially for presbyopic's. Tactile location and identification is useful/essential. One knob, in the general location where the windshield wiper switch knob is located, makes it easy to reach for and turn on the wipers in the dark. (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder switch clusters, all of the switches in rows, or in reticulated clusters, like the single 'switch pad' in new Deere equipment, are a very bad idea.) Unimportant switches and displays should be out of the ordinary operating field-of-view. The info/diagnostic/codes display stuff/switches could be at knee level, or behind the seat for that matter. That's stuff that is used once or never each shift, it's stupid to have it at eyelevel, as in new Deere equipment. Windshield defogging and windshield wipers, and clear rearview mirrors are especially important at night.
Thanks for that observation Jim! I guess that's why Volvo & CAT paint their exhaust stacks black?
sidzart; I don't mean this in a flippant way, I mean it sincerely, it seems as if the people who design the machines have never operated the machines for real for a work shift. The best suggestion I have for grad students in the equipment design field is to find a way to actually operate equipment at work, at the least for a little while. Idiosyncrasies and idiocies will be obvious after you have had to use a machine at work. I have a newish loader, with obscure pictographs identifying the switches. Multi-cultural, language nonspecific, switch identifications. Someone, before me, has put plastic 'label maker' labels all over the switch panels to identify the switches, in English. I expect that in Germany, or in Egypt, other people have done the same thing, in their respective languages... PS: Black paint is cheaper, chrome attracts some guys... I don't think any company designer gives a **** about reflections, if they even knew about it...
Hi Jim, you are right to assume that we have very little experience using this equipment. We have operated the equipment briefly, but this is no compensation for actually performing job-work on a real construction site. It's for this reason that we are interacting with the community at HE Forums. On a side note, I can share that equipment manufacturers are aware of the ambiguity in the switches/graphic labels. There seems to be some obstacle (especially legal/liability perspective) to customizing them to local languages. If anyone here is an equipment operator based in Pittsburgh, PA we would love to meet with you in person. Thank you for your contributions. We are keen to learn more about night time construction.
Sidzart, I am in the pittsburgh area. I have ten years in residential/commercial site development and am now working for Peoples Natural Gas as an operator/foreman. Would be more than willing to meet in person if you have questions. With this new job, we do a lot of night time emergency work so I have gained a few thoughts on night time visibility.
I'm in the Pittsburgh area as well. Although I haven't done a whole lot of night work recently, 30 years ago I spent quite a while working a couple of different jobs at night. More recently, I did a lot of snow plowing, which is often night work, although not necessarily heavy equipment work.
Thanks for your inputs everyone! I would appreciate if you could spend some time on the latest component of our research at: HeavyEquipmentForums