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