Do you guys add more lights to your tractors or do the factory lights provide adequate lighting for your night work? :beatsme This is a dozer that I recently saw with significantly more lighting added. :eek2
There is almost never enough lights on a dozer for after dark operations as equipped from the factory. I've added hundreds of lights to heavy equipment over the years, really appreciated the halogen lamps when they came out. In many cases had to install larger output alternators as the factory models were too small, in many cases only 35 amp.
Nope we rent/buy those stadium lights on the trailer with a generator. When I don't have those I turn off all the lights or adjust them so that they shine where I'm looking not on the machine. Like on a dozer or loader I don't have them shine on the blade/bucket but out in the distance, so my eyes adjust to the dark not the lights shining on the blade/bucket.
Cat's newer machines are coming with HID lighting packages. Our 345 hammer and 991 have them. Excellent improvement as the stock lights are usually enough with these 2 machines now. All but 2 hours of my shift is dark so I know firsthand about lighting and where it needs to be. Our older equipment, like all the pit loaders (988, 990, 992), have 2 lights added on each side. They are placed on the hydraulic and fuel tanks, right below the catwalk, to aid in visibility to the side. I'll see if I can snap some pictures this week.
I myself am a light freak, I have added lights to every machine I own. My personal truck gets mistaken as a chrismas tree! and i have as many lights on my domor as a new cat road grader. I just wish I could afford the 4 to 500 dollars a light for HID worklights.
Was only lurking this thread till I remembered about this; its a military tank search light that has a flash blindess range of 1.7 miles. It runs on 48 volts and 1800 watts. The beam is abjustable to flood also. Try Ebay. :usa
I need about 10 of those! Im really thinking of buying some daylighter off road lights and mounting them up, I just need a wide beam pattern
Check out Lightforce ya can't beat those lights.
The extra side lighting added to our pit loaders: Side lights on the 992 Side lights on the 988 Rearview camera on a 773 haul truck
that is sweet....i want one!!
Those Lightforces are nice, but they sure are exspensive.I dont really know about plastic housing for 220 dollar apiece lights. Hella seems to make real good worklights, and the ralleye series for trucks.
I'd much rather work on a jobsite that has those nifty "moon globe" lights on portable gen sets. But extra lighting on the bigger stuff is much needed though, right from the factory, even as a dealer added option, that would be nice.
Moon globe Hey there. Can anobody of you post pics of moon globe lights? In Norway we put xenon lights on the new machines and that works very good. Its like dayliht when you turn them on.:thumbsup
here's one set I use, only 1 out of the 4 bulbs were being used, and this is just coming daylight
ok Thanks for the pics. Looks like you have a nice work place there
yup, I like it there..........it's a great little hobble
Great lighting options I work at a lighting manufacturer that makes several different HID work lights. The name of the company is JW Speaker and it is located in Wisconsin. Check out this link for some nice HID lamps. http://www.jwspeaker.com/catalog/hid_lights.htm The 8450, 9710, 9720, 9750 and 9760 would do a great job lighting up your work area. The 9710 and 9720 are used in a lot of mining applications.
Lighting on the Austin Western Just finished mounting 4 forward 65W floods plus the head lights. Also 2 LED rear facing 4" white lights. They are ok but I may replace them with 1 of the 65W floods. wiring is about finished and I still need to work on the interior plus the front turn signals. the yellow lights to the rear are wigwag strobes which second as turn signal. (strobes cancel when turn signal is turned on, built in flasher means no flasher is required in the cab). I got to work it this week. total of 10 hours so far for me. I LIKE IT. still a lot of work ahead on the old thing.
Welcome to Heavy Equipment Forums walkerj! :drinkup
Thanks for the Welcome! Thanks for the welcome. I joined this forum so I could gain a better understanding of what the people working in the construction industry and driving heavy equipment are looking for from their lighting package. We do a lot of business with equipment manufacturers and it would be nice to speak to our customers with input from the actual users so any input would be welcome. We also have lights for sale, so if anyone is interested, check us out. In addition to HID lamps, we have some LED dome lamps, signal lamps and working lamps.
Wish you had of been around a few months ago when I started this rewire project. Always looking into upgrading my lights so don't leave. As Countryboy said "welcome"
Yeah, I could have probably helped you out with some HID lamps. They aren't cheap, but they are only 35W and you probably could have replaced 2 of your 65W lamp with 1 HID. The other nice thing is that they are extremely resistant to vibration because there is no filament. If you are still looking for some interior LED dome lamps, check out MDL 417. http://www.jwspeaker.com/catalog/courtesy_dome_lights/model_417.html It has a low level red for night time illumination and bright white.
I am not that familiar with the lighting on dozers but I think the standard lighting on most equipment is not nearly good enough for real nighttime work. Depends what the machine is doing but for most tasks you gotta add lights. You will do better work with less effort if you can clearly see what you are doing. I think light position is v important too. You should have the lights higher than eye level so that the shadows cast are not visible to you, ie the lights are illuminating more than you can see. I have never done it but I thought about mounting a small 110 volt portable petrol generator on the back of my excavator to power lights. You could easily mount and power 4 by 500 watt flood lights on top of the cab which should give great light. A crude solution maybe but might be the thing for occasional night time work. Only thing I was worried about was possible electronicinterference with the computers on the machine?
I used to do lots of dredge reclamation work and used aircraft landing lights mounted high on the dozer to inspect the water flow against the bundwalls. It saved a long drive and the bulbs were cheap and could be replaced in minutes if they broke down. Hardly ever!!...........C ya..........Ray
Does anybody know how many lights you can put on a hoe, and not have a problem with overloading your alternator.
It will depend on the make & model due to what other things you are running like an a/c, toaster, kettle, heated seat :cool2 but most important I think is the fuse capacity that it feeding them all. I wanted to change the 2 factory fit front of cab lights (2x70w)to a pair of twin filiment ( 4 x 70w) but these draw 3amp a bulb plus rear of cab 1x70w a beacon 70w and motor to run beacon plus a boom light 1x70w all on a 20amp fuse :Banghead. I am told a way around it is to run the front as 12v x 70w in series but the lamps I have, have a common earth so can only run the bulbs in parallel
It's a 345ME and I would like to put on 2 more lights on. I have 2 on the boom and 3 on the cab and machine. Or is there better lights that I could replace the one on the boom.
Rob, I ran the numbers and it's actually pretty staggering the fuses you'd need for your upgrade. I don't know how much power a rotator motor uses, but, just to run all 7 lights you'd need at least 41 amps worth of fuses. I don't know how many guys know this, but to get amperage numbers you divide the wattage by the voltage, so the seven 70 watt lights is 7X70=490/12v=40.833333 off to as far as my calculator will go. And the other things to remember when wiring these things up is that you really don't need massive wires to do the job, I found a chart with a calculator in it that will help choose wires and such. http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm Ray
Thanks Ray, I should know that but it was a very long time ago that I failed my Physics exam , Just to clarify, it is a 24v system so 7x70=490/24v=20.416666 which doesn't allow for the beacon motor and is too near for comfort on a 20amp fuse. I have ommitted the boom light at this time and only replaced 1 of the single lamps for a twin. So things are safe enough. I had ordered some 24v 50w which will give me 200w on front of cab in place of the original 140w BUT having changed 1 lamp I have 210w now :Banghead The head banging is because the bulbs were special order H3's and cost 3x a 70w bulb :beatsme Me thinks change beacon bulb to a 50w then I can have a 70w boom light. I might even try a 50w in the back of cab light as it is more a warning for other people than for me working. :drinkup Thanks for that link that is very useful.
Stupid question but why don't you use one of the spare fuse slots and run another set of wires/switch?
Not a stupid question at all, if you know there are spare fuse slots and how to use them With reference to my duck I dont know if there are spares available and nobody from Atlas / Terex has suggested it so I assume not. I do know everything runs through the computer and the machine in theory will shut down before it blows a fuse due to overload.
There is a easy way around the fuse problem... Run positive from the battery to a relay, get a controll signal from your original light cable, a switch between the signalline/relay, and a fuse on the main positive before the relay. Relay is then controlled by the original light and the switch. You can add as many lights as your relay/fuse allows you. (this trick can even be extended with another relay) Mind you, your alternator is then limiting the maximum draw..... Problem then is to cable this up in a nice way, dosen't look pro if your wires is just tied hasty all around.. Having 4 or 5 on top of the cabin is not unusual here around. Added a pic, this Komatsu got 4 on top of the cabin, plus the 2 on boom and 1 on the back.
Because we have lights under the cabin we have no problems with shadow on the blade.
Often we work through the night on jobs that we have little time on. Therfore we have added lights to our machines. Adding lights is probably the first thing we do to a new machine. Factory lights never work well for us.
Just purchased my first dozer, only a baby BD2J here in Aust, trying to find info from the experience of others and if HID will stand up to vibrations. Cheers Bruce
Yes they will.
Just wanted to say in partial defense of the OEMs, there are some specific regulations on lighting when traveling on-road which does add some constraints. Europe is especially bad, some countries even require the operator to put covers over non-compliant work lights when traveling on-road. I also wanted to give a thumbs up to the Speaker lights. I worked for an industrial vehicle OEM that used their LED tail lights and we had no problems, except for people that smashed them out. I know they supply some big customers like HD and Freightliner. ISZ
I have been re-wireing and putting new lights on my dozer. Of course the factory lights only light up the back of the blade but have some use when pushing. I have been walking around those LED ovals in the autoparts store. I think a half dozen of those things up in the ROPS would work well. Problem is going to be putting them in a good place. I hate to put anything above the sweeps 'cause I know I'll wipe them off. If I put them below the sweeps I will get a real good view of the hood and the underside of the sweeps. Does anyone have a good picture of recessed lights on top of a dozer? I could use some ideas....
I am agreed with your point of view. Heavy equipment needs additional lights for operating it in dark time. So many times i added additional lights to my equipment in order to avoid any risk.