Always Improving: My NX

[bgruss75]

Decided to put some modifications on my tractor.


Also managed to harvest the last of the garden and till 'er up. Bout 3 lbs of jalapeños and bells.

 

[DieselBound]

Harvesting by the silverly light of the LEDs?

Thanks for sharing!

I bought cameras and a monitor (tractor not yet here) but had to send the monitor back as it was defective

How bad are the stock lights? My B7800's lights were described as being worse than those on an Amish buggy. :laughing: I found this to be more than true: the bean-counters clearly were in charge when it came to the lights (they should have been forced to operate one of these tractors at night, for several hours and for several days)! It was a no-brainer to add lights. Wife was telling me that she didn't want me working at night- of course, this all changed and she's accepted that it was an essential thing to do: final straw was when I ran home from work one day at dusk to track down someone out on the property, had a head lamp on [my head]! If I need to upgrade on my NX I should have no argument from my wife: well, there's never any argument, but...

 

[holeycow]

The lights will be barely adequate if they still have the halogens...

I can just barely make-do haying in the dark with my dk90 and it has 4 on the cab and two in the hood. The baler is close enough behind that the rear lights are ok, but could definately be improved too.

If I didn't know my fields and what a swath looks like in the dark I would be hooped. I was researching lights a bit this spring but never followed through....

Tractors should have really good lights. Many do not. I think Kioti fits in the do not category. I noticed the newest, biggest Kioti's have led's (PX 1053, etc.). So they are coming along. Slowly.

I would plan on lights.

 

[bgruss75]

These are pics of the hood lights which are better than the halogen work lights, but obscured by the FEL at drive height. I didn't get a pic of the OEM work lights before replacing them but I wasn't able to make out terrain as well as I wanted.



That's too bad about the monitor, but better identified before you installed it than after. I've learned my lesson by not function checking everything before installation. With the LEDs front/back and rearview camera I invested about $170 and 4 hours. The camera took 3.5 and each light 5-7 minutes. All were worthwhile investments.

 

[DieselBound]

I was concerned with putting LEDs on my B7800 as that tractor gets brutalized. Back when I put on the lights LEDs were a fair bit more expensive and the thought of breaking them steered me away: I had to install an alternator (tractor came stock with dynamos- yeah, really!) in order to get enough power (LEDs wouldn't have required this, but it's nice to have more alternator output) The lights I have, plain old tractor lights, put out a lot of light. The headlights on my Polaris (halogens) are horrible, if you face them- they're insanely intense! (and in my cars I'm running FOUR 65w "Off Road" halogens- lots of back road driving)

Anyway, I'm anxious to be able to see (pardon the pun) first hand (read: finally get my tractor!) what the lighting is like. I'll check back with you on what lights you went with (and on any tips on installation). After my new garage is built I'll be able to do upgrades like this based on time permitting rather than based on time AND weather (this time of the year it's hard to get the weather to cooperate).

Can you talk about the mount there with the monitor?

 

[MinnesotaEric]

Decided to put some modifications on my tractor.
View attachment 484395View attachment 484396View attachment 484397View attachment 484398

Also managed to harvest the last of the garden and till 'er up. Bout 3 lbs of jalapeños and bells.
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I swapped out my stock lights with 36W LED Flood lights and in the winter frequently work into the wee hours burning or plowing. One thing I've learned from the LED lights on my truck and tractor is the human eye needs yellow light in order to "see" depth perception and objects. The LED light, while better than stock isn't as good as I had hoped given the sheer amount of light coming out. I also added side lights as well. Anyway, if anybody knows of LED lights like what we've installed only at 4500-5000 degrees kelvin instead of the 6500 degrees in the photo below, l'd like to try them out.

 

[DieselBound]

Eric, I hadn't really done that much research into LEDs, but I learned a lot when researching HIDs (car retrofit). Here are few things that people are probably not cognizant of:

1) PROJECTION = sending light output AHEAD of you; with slower moving vechicles it's not as key (I believe that it becomes an issue when you're traveling at and above 30 mph);
2) Light in the higher Kelvin spectrum scatter more in the presence of water vapors (or particulate matter);
3) More light right around you means that your pupils shrink and are less capable of picking up light further out (HIDs w/o projectors actually make visibility WORSE)- I think that this is what "snow blindness is about" (though I can't say that I'm all that familiar with snow like others are).

 

[MinnesotaEric]

Eric, I hadn't really done that much research into LEDs, but I learned a lot when researching HIDs (car retrofit). Here are few things that people are probably not cognizant of:

1) PROJECTION = sending light output AHEAD of you; with slower moving vechicles it's not as key (I believe that it becomes an issue when you're traveling at and above 30 mph);
2) Light in the higher Kelvin spectrum scatter more in the presence of water vapors (or particulate matter);
3) More light right around you means that your pupils shrink and are less capable of picking up light further out (HIDs w/o projectors actually make visibility WORSE)- I think that this is what "snow blindness is about" (though I can't say that I'm all that familiar with snow like others are).

Overly bright is wrecking night vision? what you say makes some sense as the "yellow" HIDs on my Infini throw out every bit as usable light as my F150 with its high beams on and a 30" LED light bar.

 

[DieselBound]

Overly bright is wrecking night vision? what you say makes some sense as the "yellow" HIDs on my Infini throw out every bit as usable light as my F150 with its high beams on and a 30" LED light bar.

Think fog lights. They're meant to "focus" on a couple things:

1) Cast light out and down toward the sides of the roadway to pick up fog lines;
2) Operate in the lower Kelvin range (yellow-ish), which tends to scatter less (and cause "snow blindness"- consider that if you have your high beams on and hit a bank of fog your first reaction is to kill the high beams!).

When you're running in fog you should be running MUCH slower and cautiously. Fog lights aren't really made to help you necessarily drive faster, just safer (keep you on the road).

If you need a lot of light scattered around you then non-projected lights are great. I do know that an LED work light that I have is blinding and that I have trouble getting it to spot the areas that I am concentrating on: keep in mind that this is all happening outside (no buildings to work in) and in different weather- meaning that I'm already a little edgy, so any slight shortcomings I tend to amplify!

 

[DieselBound]

Just some lighting info from John Deere:

John Deere Agricultural Parts Tractor Lighting