My Deere 310 has a backup alarm. I've given some thought to adding a switch to disconnect it. The noise carries far, and I don't want to **** off the neighbors, especially if I am plowing snow at night or early in the AM. There isn't anyone around when I work, as it's my home, and not a constructions site, so it's probably not necessary. Even so, I think I would be liable if someone got hurt and the alarm was off. Maybe the answer is to research Massachusetts law to see what's required.
Fundamentally, you need to consider what you're trying to avoid. Is it; Breaking the law? Annoying the neighbours? Hurting someone? Presumably you are a reasonable person and that your ultimate goal is to avoid anyone getting hurt. If you make your best efforts to make this happen, and document it, I would think that you would have a pretty good defence if someone got run over by your backhoe. Google hierarchy of controls.
I don't poop in my own neighborhood. No early or late noisemaking and that would include the diesel engine. Disconnecting the alarm is not a good idea.
If there’s no one around, like you say, then let it beep. I’ve helped out my neighbors enough that no one would complain anyhow. My 310 has a Back-Alarm bell on it so disconnecting it is a no go. I think the old gongs were the best anyway because you could tell how fast the machine is coming at you by the ding speed.
Surprisingly at the quarry management somehow got the MSHA inspectors to allow the loader that fed the Hot Mix plant to be equipped with a strobe light for the times it was used before or after sunset. Also the couple times we had to run crushing plant 24 hours a day for a Interstate Highway repave job those machines were fitted with the strobes for night time use. The quarry is not in a heavily populated area but there are 25 or so houses within a one mile radius of the quarry. Just remembered there used to be back-up alarms with noise sensors that would automatically adjust for background noise. They did make noise but at least not as bad as the max powered ones!
Curious why cab Kubotas don’t have backup alarms? Is it the difference between home machines and commercial, out-in-public machines?
Everything around here has BU Alarms of some type including Commercial Trucks. Insurers would not take kindly to a bypass switch install if ever found out.
yes ,if it is built to go on a job it will have a travel alarm.
Excavators were never required to have travel alarms in Washington State.
https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/standardinterpretations/1980-07-11 It seems that an alarm is required when there is an obstructed view behind a piece of equipment. I’m guessing that the backhoe arm creates the obstruction, necessitating the alarm.
A loader backhoe is not an excavator. I'm not saying that an excavator shouldn't have a travel alarm. I am saying there there is no regulation in Washington State the requires one to be in installed and working in an excavator.
understand.
I about ran a guy down with a curved boom backhoe, the whole time I am turned around in my seat looking back and as I turned and backed he tried to get out of my way and managed to stay behind the damn boom from me. That was scary.
The sad part is that most inexperienced people whom get in the danger zone and are maimed or killed did not pay any attention to the back up alarms. Perhaps they hear so many that they are deaf to them. On our skid steers they do not go off unless both levers are in the reverse position.
Agree on the inexperienced people being the problem the majority of the time. If I was training a new person on things at the quarry I made it a major point to tell them if they did not have a clear view of operator's face the operator could not see them! Also if I knew or thought there was someone in the area while I was operating but I could not see them clearly I would stop everything even to the point of shutting machine off until I could assure that the area was clear!
I have had switches on backup alarms wont do it anymore let them beep Not sure alarms are as idiot proof as the idea intended but I for one would still leave it alone for liability reasons alone cause when an if you hit a public street of any kind and anything goes on your equipment was not in proper working order as the manufacturer intended it to be I do believe reducing the voltage would make it quieter if your not on a job site of any kind even the neighbors house then there is no requirement from osha for a minimum decibel requirement
I fill out a check sheet each day at work, and initial that the backup alarm on my truck and excavator works. It's one of those things I won't take a chance on.
On all my "take-home" trucks, I use a white noise backup alarm. The white noise doesn't penetrate structures like a conventional back up alarm.
Heymccall has the best idea for the BU alarm... This video demo's a directional BU alarm. IMHO the best solution... Skip to 1:25 to miss the Verbosity https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=white+noise+backup+alarm&&view=detail&mid=F4D49FB5A042EDFAC7B1F4D49FB5A042EDFAC7B1&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=/videos/search?q=white%20noise%20backup%20alarm&&FORM=VDVVXX
Researching this some more, turned up a factoid... A person can locate the source of a "white noise" but a pure tone is hard to locate. Says this video https://www.bing.com/videos/search?...search?q=White+Sound+Backup+Alarm&FORM=VRMHRS
Now that is different.
Those types of BU alarms are mandated on certain large urban construction projects in Toronto. Anything to do with Rail or subways and you must have one of those alarms. I'll tell you working on a site with 25+ of those alarms going off constantly and you can't tell where one is compared to the other. Totally useless. A flashing strobe would be much more effective.
Interesting to see mention of flashing strobes. The quarry where I worked a few years back had a contract to supply material for work on the section of I-90 near us. The amount of material was such that to keep up we had to run the plant more or less round the clock. Only down a few hours between shifts to fuel up and grease things. To keep neighbors happy company got permission from MSHA to turn off back-up alarms and use strobes from sun down to sun up on the haul trucks and front end loaders. I wired them up with a simple toggle switch the operator could flip from on to the other. On some machines it was easiest to mount the switch at the back-up alarm on the rear and some I made it easy for operators and mounted the toggle right in the cab.
With my ears, I haven't been able to tell where any noise is coming from for years. Travel alarms have become just another sound now so whenever I'm on a job site I wear all the colors I can and my head is on a swivel. We also use a lot of quackery here and they are far more obnoxious that any motion alarm I've had to deal with in the past. News report told of a man that backed over on Wednesday by a dump truck. Apparently. the cab video showed the travel alarm was working. The news media implied that the accident "may" have happened because there was no rear view camera on the truck.
I have switches on all 6 of my machines that turn off the alarm. When I am moving equipment into neighborhoods either after 10pm or before 5am, that alarm is worse than the machine itself. Even where my yard is there are homes within 500ft. Also when clearing snow in parking lots after hrs, I'm not listening to that all night.
I don't think it absolves me of any responsibility of having a spotter, but I'm really happy to have a camera on the dump truck. it's just another tool in the toolbox.
Back up alarms, strobe lights, cameras, people running around dressed in chartreuse, orange suites, shirts, hats, socks, underware, gloves everything in bright colors. I though we got over the Elvis look a long time ago. OTR drivers waring safety shirts in the cab of their truck with a safety coat hanging over the back of the shotgun seat. What's next safety colored prophylactic's with strobes and backup alarm. But try being in a shop and having to do brakes, brakes have to be released with wheels chocked. On later Freightliner Cascadia's if the yellow button is pushed in and brakes released and the drivers door is opened the city horn starts a rapid Blaring obnoxious honking. Why because of drivers forgetting to set their brakes because there is no park mode like a car with a automatic. Idiots forgetting to set the brakes. So another item installed to stop brain dead people from committing the stupid. Meanwhile I go Deaf from a safety horn.
Have the same regards to the super safety nonsense, need to be trained as aware of surroundings or at least brain active to be aware of surroundings and do not get ran over in a construction yard or forget to set a parking brake as a driver. As we deliver clay to a cement producer the loads are dumped inside a turn of the century building, once inside you cannot leave the cab without safety eyewear, safety toe boots, a fluorescent yellow best or shirt on and a hard hat. Is nothing except the truck allowed One at a Time, loader in use cannot access, building has no cranes or mobile upper structure and the pile is shoved back at a angle the loaders can climb to push up with nothing to fall or impinge on a safety condition. Just stupid.
Osha isn't poking around your home, if you're out in the sticks that backup alarm carries for a mile. I had someone move my truck in the yard and I was on the other side of the hill, could hear it plain as day while talking to someone. I'd put a switch on it. IF its working a job site, yes indeed you want the backup alarm, but 3am clearing the snow from your driveway, cut it off. My dump truck has an alarm on the body hoist, same backup alarm but under the body, oddly it has a fuse that falls out of the holder when its not time for an inspection sticker. Every excavator i've rented and even the fire trucks have a 'backup alarm disable' switch that's good until the key switch is cycled.
We have alarms we QD in for projects that want one. Otherwise if we can see out the rear view of it no stupid beeper. I'd rather use the horn and flash warning lights where needed over a constantly beeping thing people get used too. All my trucks have aux reverse lights too, pretty hard to miss like on my service truck when the two 3,000 lumen rear deck floods come on along with the 4" DOT reverse lights.
Seems like forward alarms should be next for those that cant put thier phones down.
I suspect a phone was involved with this one.
Comments have been made that Tesla and other electric machine producers are going to be required to add a noise generator for blind people so they won’t step off curbs into them.
It is no joke you can move a Prius around quite a bit on battery only, and damn they sneak up on you.
You should see horses come unglued when a Prius drives thru the barnyard in the stealth mode. Bob
my skid steer had a back up alarm when i got i,t first thing i did was rip the dumb thing off and put a WHITE SOUND 1 on it and now it is great to run
Interesting discussion. I would ask this- Have you ever heard a UPS truck backup alarm? If not, why not?
Can't say I have and it doesn't matter to me as the Infernal Government through OSHA states our equipment must have a back up alarm or some other nonsense that's more expensive to implement. So our insurance company writes that regulation into our policy due to the knuckle dragging trial lawyers drooling at the mouth to go over every Federal Regulation on the bookds in the event of an accident in order to collect a dollar or millions. Don't know about UPS, their policy or fed regulations pertaining to them and don't care as it doesn't pertain to the construction industry.
We are all used to construction related equipment and trucks. I'm guessing UPS trucks may not be under a back-up alarm regulation. I have never heard one on any of the FedEx or UPS trucks that have been to my house.
UPS is probably a special case. They never, ever fail to beep the horn when they back up. Somebody must be looking over their shoulders to make sure they do it every time or else they would not do it so reliably. They probably are their own insurance company, they are so gigantic, so they get to write their own rules. Ambulances usually have a backup alarm cancel switch and the drivers always seem to use them. Except for me, I never did except under special circumstances. It is a big box backing up usually in the dark with people milling around. I want everyone to know that I am backing up, in a situation like that. The patient is not going to be bothered by a few seconds of mild beeping outside.
In my time under OSHA and MSHA rules, it still amazes me that UPS has not seen fit, much less be FORCED to equip their trucks with backup alarms. Shows ya what I know.....
I disconnected mine pretty quickly after I got it. The machine itself is loud enough, I, too have neighbors that I don't want to bother regardless of time of day. And the BU alarm was making me bonkers.
Did you ever figure this out? I just bought one. Home projects. And one of the neighbors is complaining already. Haven't found diagram/schematics yet. Don't want to give myself down time by cutting the wrong wire... Thanks
The wires attach to my beeper with a stud and nut. I disconnected one wire and taped it up. Easy.
My 580k has a fuse in the fuse panel you can pull if you want to.
You could apply a piece of gorilla tape to the front to attenuate the volume, it'll still warn anyone within a dozen feet without letting the whole state know.
The reason is it is ups policy to sound there horn before the vehicle is set in motion if they do is another story
Mine are all on toggle switches citing the neighbors. Not necessary if nobody around to me.
I am not sure what a white noise back up alarm is. The BU alarm on my service truck has variable volume based on the noise level around it. I can't even hear it from the cab... Until I back into something, then it is really loud. I have outfitted a lot of client machines that work in residential areas with this type. Now I am off to Google white noise back up alarm. But, in my opinion, travel alarms save lives and I get pretty annoyed when I find that an operator has disabled one. I am not trying to start an argument with that; I am not going to change anybody's opinion on that and nobody is going to change mine.
I know an operator who backed over his very own two year old son with a skid steer, the boy died. A two year old kid doesn't pay attention to alarms - so they don't work. If I was going disable a backup alarm, I'd add other safety equipment like a remote camera, to counter the loss of safety.
Well a few years back my wife's car was hit in the back so apparently brake brake lights don't work either!
Now,... That was funny !!! Your wife might not think so, but that was funny !! I don't equate brake lights to an audio backup alarm, though.
I had a 1989 Dodge Spirit car I'd purchased in 1992 as a bank repossession and my wife drove it. Real scooter with a Turbo II engine, Mopar Performance engine parts and Borla exhaust. That car was better to me than the stock market as it was rear ended five times by different parties and I rebuilt it each time. Finally sold it off with 398,825K on the clock as it was getting rusty. It didn't quite make 400K before the teenager driving it ran into the rear of somebody changing a CD in the dash. I towed it to the local scrapyard. No backup alarm on this one but it did have functioning brake lights; even when wrecked in the rear.
I had the same problem on monday
Today was a a solute **** show. City street, been excavated to 20” depth so I am first in with twenty ton Type 5 base highway grade to make the ramp to fill to Five inch depth from curb. Blue Hairs in sub compacts, idiot contractors in pickups doing something then the City Light Bulb change crew shows up IN THE WAY and angry I am backing across the four way intersection to dump my rock. Alarm bleating, backup lamps on and the truck moving took a city cop to get them out of my way. Was that way all morning.
Every time I back into a parking spot, it seems an idiot or three insists on walking directly behind me as I'm reversing. So many people are simply "switched off". SWMBO's Toyota Camry has a parking sensor on it that beeps - but it's a beeper in the cabin that warns the driver when the car body is close to anything. No sound outside. It works to the rear, and to the sides of the rear too. I don't see why this technology can't be applied to construction equipment. A guy 6 houses up the street has a Hyundai iLoad van that is a company unit, and it has a loud reversing beeper on it. So every time he goes for a drive to smoke some weed, we can hear him every single time, about every 2 hrs on average (his wife doesn't let him smoke weed in the house, apparently). Not good for people on shift work wanting to sleep. Reversing beepers are the most annoying thing ever invented, and a construction site with 10 machines all going backwards and forwards, is just a cacophony of annoying noise. Interestingly, people on the autism spectrum become quite agitated at the sound of reversing beepers, they have a heightened response to penetrating noises.
Too many backup alarms make you ignore the sound. Our 180 Volvo has a beeper like a cat coughing up a furball. Really stands out in the crowd.
I agree. In fact on two large wheel loaders we delivered to a customer late last year my special projects list were to add a customer supplied 360 camera system and then blue strobe lights that activated in reverse. I would up putting a pair of 360 degree beacons with blue lenses at each corner of the rear bumper for full 180 degree visibility. And to me it made sense. Especially when so many people on site are in pickups or other construction equipment and not on foot to hear and locate it quickly. This is an instant visual indication.
I have installed such object detection systems on construction equipment and also some OEMs offer it as well as either a factory option or a dealer installed option.
Amazon has an alarm that sounds like a duck caught in the duals.
FWIW anytime i find a BU alarm or horn not working it gets fixed before i leave the jobsite. been working at this same dealership for 25 years, never had a complaint. most of my customers want them working