Side view LED lights

[4shorts]

This winter I've been doing a few driveways along the main road close to where I live. In one situation I have to back into the driveway and use the snow blower. The problem I have doing this is that the guys driveway always has a tall snow bank out by the side of the road and when I back into his driveway my plow is partly out in the street and where the snow bank is so high I've had a few close calls with vehicles whipping by and just missed hitting my plow. The vehicles may have seen me and they might have been just driving fast but I don't like taking chances so I decided to install a LED strobe light up front of the fel seeing it's sort of a dark spot right now.

I made the boxes to fit the plow attachment I made last fall. I didn't want to mount them right on the plow because of the trip springs and although Grote said these lights are bullet proof I really didn't see a good way of putting them in that location so I went with the space I had available. The lights are part of the plow and not the FEL. I only needed the lights for the plowing operation of the tractor. I used the new Grate Super Nova LED strobe lights. These things aren't cheap. I paid $100. for each light not including the rubber gasket or the wiring pig tail but there worth every penny in my opinion. When I did the install I also put a pull connector at the quick release and one up by the FEL so if I need to disconnect it's still easy to do. Anyway I'll add a short video when it uploads but here's a few photo's to bore you all with of the project.


Here's a video of the lights: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi6OOWYiLJU&feature=channel_page

 

[BobRip]

Nice weld in the first picture. Did you have to grind it or was this as welded.

Good idea. Cars come up fast when you are only going a few miles an hour.

 

[4shorts]

Nice weld in the first picture. Did you have to grind it or was this as welded.

Good idea. Cars come up fast when you are only going a few miles an hour.

No grinding on that weld. It's right from the gun. That was done with my Mig. If I wanted a really good looking weld I would have Tig welded it but it's good enought for what I needed.

You right about cars comming up on you fast. They even drive flat out in snow storms around here so that's why the side LED's. I'll try anything to prevent an accident. Vehicles do give you more room when you got all these LED strobes flashing. Heck if they hit me now they can't say they didn't see me

Thanks for your comment.

 

[JohnDeere4300]

Nice job 4shorts!

Those are some nice strobes and they should be able to see those, and that was a good place to mount them.

That is some nice looking welds, but i expected that from you.

I would say put out a couple of the highway cones next to the street,(BUT) they will either run over them or not pay attention to them, and some will probably steal them.

I haven't seen you post much, but i know you have been busy.

Have you put the stack on that big orange machine yet?

 

[JohnDeere4300]

You could get the color that the police use, that will get their attention, they would probably slow down pretty quick seeing that color flashing, i know i do.

 

[4shorts]

You could get the color that the police use, that will get their attention, they would probably slow down pretty quick seeing that color flashing, i know i do.

Do that around here and they might shoot you Haven't been posting much because it's been flat out on this end. I'll have to post a few pics tomorrow of what's coming in the shop this week and yes it's tractor related. Glad you liked my welding. At least I do something right Maybe that weld was just a fluke

I just posted the link to the short video of the lights working. Great hearing from you again my friend.

 

[BarryinMN]

May need to keep an eye on them as snow covering does not melt off.

 

[medicshawn]

4Shorts I would recommend putting actual strobes in place of the Led's. One of the down sides of Led's for warning lights is they have a narrow beam pattern (I couldn't come up with a good descriptive term). If you have a strobe it throws light 360 degrees (assuming no obstructions). The led is much narrower closer to 30 degrees (I don't know the sctual number but it's narrow). So basically unless you're looking straight on the light isn't very bright. If you notice most emergency vehicles overcome this with reflectors, or redundant lights. I think you would get better coverage from a strobe in that location. If you hae your plow on the ground and a dump truck comes by he won't see it as well as a passenger car would. You could also try some reflective tape. Fit and finish is spectacular as always.

 

[actionaj]

Thats a really nice job.

 

[patrick_g]

4Shorts I would recommend putting actual strobes in place of the Led's. One of the down sides of Led's for warning lights is they have a narrow beam pattern (I couldn't come up with a good descriptive term). If you have a strobe it throws light 360 degrees (assuming no obstructions). The led is much narrower closer to 30 degrees (I don't know the sctual number but it's narrow). So basically unless you're looking straight on the light isn't very bright. If you notice most emergency vehicles overcome this with reflectors, or redundant lights. I think you would get better coverage from a strobe in that location. If you hae your plow on the ground and a dump truck comes by he won't see it as well as a passenger car would. You could also try some reflective tape. Fit and finish is spectacular as always.

Properly designed, an LED strobe will throw light 360 degrees around the horizon. One way that is done is to put the led firing straight down onto a round reflector (sort of cone shaped) like are often used for sidewalk illumination and similar.

Pat

 

[4shorts]

In this case I only wanted the light to be on each side of the FEL in the front pointing straight from the left and right side so motorests would see me side on if they were coming up on me if I was backed into a driveway with my FEL pointing out towards the road. The top cab light is an actual double strobe light that can be seen at 360 degrees. Putting these lights on the front of the FEL gives me lighting all over the tractor.

 

[patrick_g]

In this case I only wanted the light to be on each side of the FEL in the front pointing straight from the left and right side so motorests would see me side on if they were coming up on me if I was backed into a driveway with my FEL pointing out towards the road. The top cab light is an actual double strobe light that can be seen at 360 degrees. Putting these lights on the front of the FEL gives me lighting all over the tractor.

Oh, no problem 4shorts, I was just expanding Shawn's horizons. I agree completely with your installation.

...and furthermore... some LED's have a scattering medium in their lens (top of their plastic encapsulation) and send out light in 2 pi steradians (hemispherically.) LED's are available with any number of beam "half angles."

Pat

 

[medicshawn]

I still think you get better coverage from a strobe. Led's are getting better every day but there is alot of engineering required to make them have broad coverage. Led's are definitely the future. Low current draw, incredible life, and super bright. Just not perfected. The Led lightbars (blue)our police department uses are so bright they had to turn the power down.

It doesn't really matter what warning lights you install people still aren't paying attention. Emergency vehicles loaded with lights get hit every day. The most dangerous parts of my job are driving to and from a call, and working on the Highway. It's really hard to work and hope cars zipping by at 70 MPH don't hit you. If I had A dollar for every idiot who almost hit me I could be retired.

 

[4shorts]

I still think you get better coverage from a strobe. Led's are getting better every day but there is alot of engineering required to make them have broad coverage. Led's are definitely the future. Low current draw, incredible life, and super bright. Just not perfected. The Led lightbars (blue)our police department uses are so bright they had to turn the power down.

I'm very familiar with the newer light bars. We install them here in our shop for government related customers. These are strobe just LED strobe. You would have to see these in person to appreciate just how bright they are. They are called Super Nova LED's so they got that name due to how bright they are. I also like the fact that there low power consumption and I really don't think the regular strobe would take the punishment considering where there located on the tractor.

Here in Newfoundland we are not permitted to use blue or red lights on our machines. Only Department of Highways are permitted to do so along with government vehicles. I'm happy with these lights. I really don't want to blind on coming vehicles so they will run into me

 

[Window Geek]

... send out light in 2 pi steradians (hemispherically.) ...
Pat

What?

I got 2. I got pi. I got hemispherically. What was the other term?
Aren't those banned in baseball now?

Actually, I've been looking into LEDs. Don't have to upgrade the alternator with such low current draw. Are there any LED work lights? It would be nice to pile on the illumination without cooking the wiring.

 

[patrick_g]

What?

I got 2. I got pi. I got hemispherically. What was the other term?
Aren't those banned in baseball now?

Actually, I've been looking into LEDs. Don't have to upgrade the alternator with such low current draw. Are there any LED work lights? It would be nice to pile on the illumination without cooking the wiring.

The other term is descriptive of a solid angle as in spherical trigonometry. It is a 3D vice 2D measurement. Whereas in 2D trig there is 360 degrees in a circle (or 2 pi radians) in spherical trig a sphere is 4 pi steradians so a hemisphere is 2 pi steradians.

MedicShawn: I have no beef with conventional strobes (Xenon gas with capacitor discharge) as I have worked with them for a while when I was consulting to an aircraft illumination company. I helped design units for fuselage and wingtip mounting. An outgrowth was "strobe whips" (strobe light on a whip antenna for use on dune buggies. I used powerful strobes to "pump" a liquid laser in a research program I did for upper division physics credit. I LIKE STROBES but I stand behind my original comments.

Pat

 

[4shorts]

You guys are just getting to technical for me patrick_g you know your stuff sir. Tip my lid to you. I'm happy with what's there now weather I did good or did bad by putting them there. I've also replaced the tractor lights with these.

 

[patrick_g]

You guys are just getting to technical for me patrick_g you know your stuff sir. Tip my lid to you. I'm happy with what's there now weather I did good or did bad by putting them there. I've also replaced the tractor lights with these.

Nifty looking lights! Interestingly enough, there have been new developments in filament lights that boosted efficiency well above fluorescent lights. Unfortunately making the filaments manufactureable/mass producible and therefore practical outside of the lab has not been accomplished yet so far as I know. They run at a higher color temp than typical tungsten filament bulbs and could sage many megawatt hours of electricity and tons of CO2 when/if available at the local store.

Pat

 

[medicshawn]

Ok I want to see the strobe whip.

The new Led light bars are spectacular. I have no practical use for one but I would definitely buy one if they weren't so expensive.

 

[medicshawn]

4 Shorts I change my argument here's what you need.

SafeGloWhips