Let there be light, lots and lots and lots of light!

   / Let there be light, lots and lots and lots of light! #1  

kiotiken

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 29, 2011
Messages
2,344
Location
Dunrobin, Ont
Tractor
2012 Kioti DK45 HST Cab
Welcome to TBN's 10 000th thread on installing LED work lights! I couldn't stand the factory lights on my cab, they just didn't offer enough light to be comfortable with my surroundings in the dead of winter while using the snow blower. I had planned on keeping them and building an additional light bar for the LED lights, but in the end, it was just too easy to replace the factory lights, it didn't make sense to try and make it any more complicated. The only time I can see wanting my factory lights is for road travel, you wouldn't want to shine these LED's into on coming traffic, but they would have been useless with the LED's on.

So I ordered a 10 pk of 18W CREE (does that mean something?) LED lights from ebay. They arrived and were much better quality than I expected. I'm not sure about the quality of the circuitry, but the light housings are all aluminium and have a nice heavy feel. I toyed with how to mount them and if I should put them on a separate switch (from the factory lights) but decided to strip the factory lights and re-use the existing switches. Kioti adds these metal brackets to the back of the cab (it's been discussed and decided they are simply used for moving the cab at the factory and have no other purpose) that just begged to be used. I was going to go all 4Shorts fancy on this (not that I would have hit the same results), I even thought about strobes and new marker lights built into a custom box, but in the end, I have enough on my plate and a simple piece of angle iron with 3 holes drilled was all the job needed.

I mounted 4 in the front and 4 in the back. In the front, they are mounted side by side which fits nicely into the space provided by Kioti for lights and allowed me to point the outside lights down slightly and the inside lights straight forward for distance. The rear and rear/side facing lights let me see a very wide area around the tractor, perfect for snow blowing and knowing what's around and where the snow is going.

All I can say is :eek: they're bright!

lights1.JPG

lights2.JPG

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Pretty hard to take pics at night. They don't show how bright they really are.

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   / Let there be light, lots and lots and lots of light! #2  
Looks awesome, I'm just adding this to my letter to Santa, along with the backhoe ditching bucket edge that CM had made! :thumbsup:
 
   / Let there be light, lots and lots and lots of light! #3  
Holy smoke!! Those night shots are awesome. The LED's really DO add some extra light. Occasionally I work the driveway(snow) at night and extra light would be welcome. Brings you right out of the "tiny corridor" effect.
 
   / Let there be light, lots and lots and lots of light! #4  
Really nice improvement Ken and they look good too.
 
   / Let there be light, lots and lots and lots of light! #5  
Curious which seller you used. Need to get some lights for the golf cart and the tractor one of these days...

Aaron Z
 
   / Let there be light, lots and lots and lots of light! #6  
Our old BH came with no working lights so this is of interest. What source and price did you go with?

A hickory tree ran into the SUV a few years ago and even with holes drilled into the tail light assembly it filled with water and messed up the brake light finally. Knowing that was not good for the kids and wife safety I told the son to find a solution. Just the OEM plastic was over $200 for one side and from Amazon he came up with high quality OEM spec replacement for only $288 and they are LED and so awesome. I took a shot with just one replaced and the difference was huge.

Thanks for the photos.
 
   / Let there be light, lots and lots and lots of light!
  • Thread Starter
#7  
Thanks guys, I'm looking forward to winter storms even more now!

Aaron, the seller I bought from doesn't seem to have any more 10 pks listed, only light bars, but there are tons of the exact same package listed. I'm not sure how it really works, it's all from the same factory, I'm not sure if it's a bunch of people reselling them or if it's one person with a bunch of accounts. Here's a listing of what's available:

LED CREE 18W | eBay
 
   / Let there be light, lots and lots and lots of light! #8  
Wow, now just a couple to each side and it will be like daylight around your tractor.
 
   / Let there be light, lots and lots and lots of light! #9  
We just "lit up" our second tractor with three 27 watt LED's.Two facing forward and one rearward.Used the fourth on my Rhino.They are sold by Tuff lite led's...4/$109.00...well built and really work well.
 
   / Let there be light, lots and lots and lots of light! #10  
Ah. This explains it. I was wondering why I could see the Parliament Building last night while looking out my front window here in Bay Roberts,Newfoundland. Then I see this thread today :duh:

Nice job Ken. It's going to make a Hugh difference to your tractor. :thumbsup:
 

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