Anyone using the new LED or HID lights

[Thumper & Buttercup]

I know that there is a thread on this and in it a couple guys said they were ordering the expensive lights. So has anyone got them and how is the light off of the units.

Our tractor has a 40 amp alternator and the stock lighting is Halogen so with all the lights that are on the tractor I'm at 220+ watts or half my usable voltage. Either I go with the cheaper Halogen lights and wire them so they can be used by themselves or get the more expensive lights and add them to the tractor then it won't matter. I'm going to mount two rear work lights low on the rops and two high lights facing forward for when I'm doing loader work in the dark.

I'm looking at the JD lights but have not gotten a price on them yet. So what are you guys running, thanks.

 

[LRH]

I have 8 of the TruckLite LED's; 4 of the 81360 trapezoid pattern, and 4 of the 81380 flood pattern; and no, they are not all on the tractor. Two of the traps are on the front, and I have temporarily setup the rear with traps at the upper brackets and floods at the lower (fender area) level, and plan to swap the positions to see which way works best, or see if it even makes a difference. I have always been accused of overdoing the wiring with relays, heat shrink, adhesive backed heat shrink, GM WeatherPack's etc, but these with low 1.2A draw, and stable lumen output from approx 7-16 volts make wiring simple. You will like them.

 

[DieselPower]

Ahh, someone else with the same affliction I have, wiring. Having installed thousands of lights on truck/tractors over the years I have my own little system to. Probably a little worse than yours. In addition to the relays, adhesive lined heat shrink, WeatherPack/MetriPack/MicroPack I also run everything in split loom conduit using all the breakout's, T's, clips and other associated fittings. I also have a heck of a stock of junction box's and bulkhead connectors. I look at it this way, if it's worth doing it's worth doing right the first time and when your installing 400-800 lights on one truck you really don't want to have to redo it again.

The LED lights work great. I have installed a bunch of them on tow trucks as work lights and the truck owners love them. I even got a pair of the new DOT legal LED headlights for one truck. So far the truck owner is very happy with them.

 

[MJPetersen]

Because of my rather small (15 amp) dyno I have been experimenting with the LEDs. I have a thread of my conversion of standard head lights to the LED bulbs. I have used the MR-11 bulbs (picture is of the MR16 which is a little bigger around, but similar) and the 1157 LED replacements BA15. In my head light application I have found that they produce more light than the original standard 25/35 watt bulbs. It is also much whiter light and I do not worry about leaving them on even when the tractor is off because they draw almost nothing. MR11 draws 1.1 watts and the BA 15 draws 5 watts. When I add additional work lights they will be using these bulbs.

I am very happy with the result.

Mike

 

[medicshawn]

I bought some Maxxima MWL-01 Heavy Duty LED Work Lights off Ebay. I'm also still in the install process but hooked up to a car battery thery seem very bright. They were a little cheaper than the trck-lite and grote options.

 

[AndyMA]

Our tractor has a 40 amp alternator and the stock lighting is Halogen so with all the lights that are on the tractor I'm at 220+ watts or half my usable voltage..

Just wanted to clarify a couple of things. As an electrical engineer, one of the things I constantly notice is that very few people seem to understand electricity. Voltage is potential, like the height of the water in a bucket. amperage is the flow of electricity, like the amount of wter flowing in a pipe. Wattage is power. Ohm's law states that E=IR where E is the same as voltage. In this case 220 watts/12 volts equals 18.33 amps. If all of the alternators current is available to the lights then in fact they will use slightly less than 50% of what's available.

Andy

 

[Thumper & Buttercup]

Great posts guys,

I'm still looking and my wallet is calling me names already.

Andy,

What I am worried about is with the 220 watts draw with the current lights and then adding another 220 watts with the additional lights. This does not include the dash lights, tail lights and the engine systems.

So now I would be putting 440+ watts of draw on a system that is maxed out at 480 watts. So I would be a little over 36 Amps on a 40 Amp alternator without all the little stuff added.

I like the look of the New JD lights so I'm going to check their prices today, but I'm still in the planning stages right now.

Mike,

I read your posts and all your info, that one helped a lot. Looking for feedback on what you guys think of the light you get out of the lights. Have a good one.

 

[LRH]

Are the JD lamps HID, LED, or halogen?

 

[Thumper & Buttercup]

We'll,

I went to JD, the parts person in a round about way would not tell me the price of the lights except they were expensive, the only thing he would tell me that they were $400+, this is for the HID lights. The Kid went on to say they have $5000.00 + of them sitting on the shelves.

I went to visit a friend who has a JD account and he looked up the lights they are $465 each.

I think I'm going to get a couple of the Bass Pro switches and wire up regular Halogen lights so I can run the tractor lights and one set of the others or just the dash lights and tail lights and both sets of the new lights.

Thanks for all the reply s guys!!

 

[Thumper & Buttercup]

Hey medicshawn,

How bright are those lights, are you using them to the rear and how far can you see? Is this a light that you can just see between the tractor and the equipment or is there some depth to the light? Thanks for the info.