Adding good Area/Work Lights - What do you use/suggest?

[FlyFishn]

All,
I need to add lights to my tractor - Kubota LX2620, ROPS. My intent is to get 360deg of lighting so I can see well around be when I'm working. The OEM headlights are blocked by the loader and loads so they don't help much, but they do offer good lighting when they are able to shine through.

Thoughts?

My intent is to have many lights wired in sets - front, rear, sides - so I can turn them on and off as needed/as work conditions require.

 

[anomad]

I have had these in my shopping cart for a while now, but haven't pulled the trigger. I have experienced excellent customer service from super bright leds. But interested to see what other folks have to say. I have to stay in a fairly small size to fit the factory mounts on my cab.

https://www.superbrightleds.com/off-road-led-work-light-led-driving-light-6-rectangle-17w-1-300-lumens+packamt-2-pack+beam-60

I replaced two of the forward facing incandescent lights already with some SBL's I already had and the difference was dramatic. I have their fog lights and a light bar on my pickup. I used to make my own ridiculous bicycle lights with their components when I was commuting by bicycle. That was fun.

 

[Sportsman762]

I had a friend who put 360 lighting on his Kubota L60 series. The side and rear lights were mounted low on the rops using a common mounting bracket. The front light was under the top of the rops, so the rops had to be up to use it. The biggest issue he had was getting 180° illumination off of the side lights. Using a pair of lights for the side would have provided a true 360° illumination but he has a 15° dark spot at 5 and 7 o'clock.

I prefer to have a nice bright front and rear light, with a lower output light down low near the floorboards facing out 30° or so lets you see bottom of bucket and what your turning your front wheel into. A high illumination light will blind you off of snow, rain puddles, or back of bucket. A mid lumen side light facing 90° off of the side of the tractor mounted slightly above the fender. High mounted high lumen rear mounted light aimed high, with a low lumen light mounted about toplink height pointed down. A high lumen light pointed down could blind you off the implements or ground.

Everyone wants the highest lumen light possible, but I find that it is very easy to blind yourself with high lumen lights and actually reduce your vision. This is why I light high lumen lights front and back so I can see where I am going, and what I did. Lower lumen lights to fill in and for close in illumination. Using high lumen lights for close in illumination kills your night vision reducing what you can see in every direction.

 

[Windblown]

I spent a grand total of about $40.00 for 3 Amazon work lights, wiring, & switch. Are they good? Sure, work lights just need decent lumens and a wide spread since you're not trying to see something 300 yards away as you approach it at 80mph. I tucked them under the roll bar to keep them out of harms way and mounted the switch into a corner of one of my utility boxes.

Awesome difference being able to actually see all around the tractor and the cab work area at night!

 

[RayIN]

All,
I need to add lights to my tractor - Kubota LX2620, ROPS. My intent is to get 360deg of lighting so I can see well around be when I'm working. The OEM headlights are blocked by the loader and loads so they don't help much, but they do offer good lighting when they are able to shine through.

Thoughts?

My intent is to have many lights wired in sets - front, rear, sides - so I can turn them on and off as needed/as work conditions require.

I use flood lights, never spot lights. Amazon has a good selection of LED flood lights, mine are 2" high x 5" wide.

 

[rontaki]

Any consideration of head-mounted light?
Also consider the color-temperature and CRI - color rendition index. A high CRI 80+ would help render colors better. The color temperature is personal preference, although extremely high/cold (bluish) or too low/warm (yellow) are probably not good for task lighting.
I haven't looked at specs of the type of lights you need for this task. When I bought some "forever" LED flashlights, I choose a warmer, higher CRI LED at the expense of a higher lumen count, as the richer light spectrum was better for my eyes. Some prefer the bluer light. There's probably not much choice for what you're looking for at a reasonable price, though.

 

[rontaki]

Yellow light is best for seeing in fog, it does not flare back at you as much as blue light does.

 

[FlyFishn]

To add to the question - the lights in the following link are what I have on our old tractor - 12 of them. 2x front, 2x rear, and 4x on each side spanning the 180deg around each side.

LED lights

Below is the result of those. I'd like to improve on this on the new tractor.

 

[RjCorazza]

I used 55w NiLites on my tractor 10 years ago, and they have worked great. They're a combination flood / spot, 55w each, and I used (2) front and (2) rear.
In hindsight, I think the smaller 36w lights would have been adequate though.