anyone switch to LED lights?

[herm0016]

Going to upgrade the work light to the HF led flood, need to either add a switch or change it to turn on and off with the head lights. also, thinking of installing LED headlight bulbs and flasher/running light, brake light bulbs. have you done this, has it worked out with the flashers? any recommendations on bulbs?

 

[grsthegreat]

Why bother swapping brake lights and turn signals to led? Waste of money. But swapping head lights and work lights is a good idea. I was never sold on swapping to LED until I did a side by side comparison. The LED flood won out hands down. But I didn’t get a cheapo HF light as I never have any luck on HF stuff. I went with a quality CREE fixture, and after 5 years there still going strong.

I didn’t swap head lamps because my cab tractor has upper front and rear floods. The head lamps are usually blocked by the bucket anyways.
this is my 2¢ worth

 

[ericm979]

It's too bad that work lights with switches are not that common. The stock one could use improvement.

Many times the drop in LED bulbs are not in exactly the same place vs the reflector as the original bulbs. With road vehicles' headlights that can result in poor light patterns and blinding oncoming traffic. But the few times I have tried this on a road vehicle I took them out because the pattern was bad. Instead I used higher quality brighter halogen bulbs. It's less of an issue for a tractor being operated off road.

Often the flasher relay needs to be changed to work with the lower current draw of the LED bulbs. Last time I did this on a road vehicle I found a plug in LED-friendly replacement.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

Herm,

Are you having to operate your tractor along a roadway, or road it down a public highway?

Just wondering what the goal here is?

I doubt I would replace mine with LED. On the cab tractor (at least mine) it came with 2 front and 2 rear worklights. They are "bright enough" for my needs, but if I'm operating in the dark, it's usually along an area I know well (like mine or a neighbor's driveway, etc) and I'm not worried about unknown objects.

And I agree with GRS, the headlights are often blocked by the bucket if I have that on. I still run them of course, because they do add light to the general area.

 

[ptsg]

I've added two front flood LED lights for the front and two for the back. It makes a tremendous difference on lighting the area around tractor. I've also thought about replacing the brake lights with LED bulbs since those heat to much that I'm sure the brake light lens will become brittle over time.

Here is the front ones. Two 18W flood lights. Left is with just the stock halogen lights and right is halogen plus LED flood.

The rear has two 36W flood lights but I have no pictures on the dark with those turned on. All of these aftermarket lights are just Chinese specials. They seem to work just fine.

 

[herm0016]

End up plowing snow in the dark quite a bit here, drive is about 1500 feet long to the dirt road and there is very little light pollution in our valley that runs north and south. sun raises and sets maybe 45min early and late due to the mountains on either side of a narrow valley which makes day time pretty damn short in the winter.

the HF road shock lights are actually very good. and I have one in stock from my previous tractor.

was thinking of changing them to LED because about half of them are out anyway. LED's have much better shock resistance than incandescent, esp. in the cold. first thing I did on a new to me oilfield unit was switch all the work and warning lights to LED. lasted way longer, brighter.
I have a sunshade/rops may put a couple floods up under the sunshade as well, but want to get all the stock stuff going first.

maybe i'll grab another of the HF lights for the sunshade and find one with a switch for the work light. this is tempting, 50% brighter too.

Off-Road LED Work Light / LED Driving Light with Push-Button Switch - 5" Round - 42W - 2,000 Lumens

The UTE Series LED Pod Lights feature heavy-duty construction with a classic lens design for uniform light distribution. Control this off-road LED work light with the integral on/off switch. Available with a 60° flood beam pattern this light is great for use with trucks, ATV’s, and marine...

www.superbrightleds.com

probably right on the headlights, as something brighter may hinder vision in the snow after bouncing off the bucket. I am not a huge fan of light from above when its snowing though. maybe mounting to the holes on the glass frame by my feet for a pair. or point some halogens at my feet for when its really cold, haha!

 

[PILOON]

I'm all LED's now and will never go back.
LED's even outperform the Halogens they replaced.

For my main front it is a 12 LED 'bar' that has the 4 centers as spots and the outer 4's as floods.
Rear work are 4 " LED floods for snow duties.

Even my cab interior is now a 12" LED strip, and that's literally night and day.
My turn indicators are now also a LED strip.
My 'Stobe' is a DIY deal using the old lens and a bunch of LED's.
When U replace flashers U need to add a resistor as LEDs simply don't draw enough current to operate the flasher device.
Best of all is the durability of LEDs vs filament bulbs and their short life.
Another consideration is that many CUTs have low generator output.
With the much lower power drain of LEDs you usually can add a lot more lighting using the same factory wiring and switches.

 

[grsthegreat]

my upper lights cause no issues in snow work on my cab unit. They place light out very far. I have to remember to kill them if working along road with oncoming traffic…..blinds drivers.

i generally only use my cab led lights during winter snow removal. In spring thru fall it stays light long enough not to need them.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

My experience has been similar to GRS. I get much more area coverage from the 4 work lights (2 front and 2 rear facing) than I could with any light hood height or lower lighting angles.

"Darkness in Winter".... Yeah, I've heard of that (LOL).

I'm still using the factory installed standard work lights that came on the cabbed Branson's for many years:

I had to replace the bulb in this one after hooking it on a tree limb a couple years ago. I got lucky in that it only managed to yank the bulb out of the housing. It broke the bulb, but the housing and the wiring connection were fine.

 

[5030]

I went 100% LED except fot the emergency flashers.

 

[grsthegreat]

I found CREE leds that fit on same brackets as my original halogen. Also pics showing original lights vs led.

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[Cougsfan]

I run my tractor in the dark and in the snow every year. LED's would be nice and If mine ever went out that is what I would buy to replace them. But I would never replace them because of a lack of lighting. The factory ones work fine for me.

 

[oosik]

I no longer "tractor' in the dark. I'm retired. Nothing so important that it can not wait until daylight.

However - if I were to need additional light. Look at the marine LED lights from J A McDermott Corp. They are located in Ridgewood, NY.

They are extensively used on commercial fishing boats in Alaska. I have considerable experience working - at night - with these lights providing illumination. They provide daylight conditions - 150 feet wide and out a quarter of a mile. The biggest ones only require 50 watts. Serious illumination..............

 

[czechsonofagun]

I replaced my tail light with LED, it was cheaper than buying replacement cover for Kubota light.

Tail Light

I broke the tail light on B1750 about a year ago, finally started looking for new cover. All I needed was the plastic red light lens if you can call it a lens. Like this one: $18.80 plus shipping was the best price I could find. So I spent nine bucks at the local TSC and made my own...

www.tractorbynet.com

 

[bdhsfz6]

I plow snow at night and sometimes do emergency road repairs after dark. The headlights on my Kubota L6060 HSTC are obscured by the FEL implements and I saw no reason to upgrade them to LED.

I did however replace the front & rear OEM halogen cab work lights with quality Tiger LED's. Not cheap but the LED's throw 5X the light. They make a world of difference when doing work at night. They light up the landscape well enough to mow after dark.

 

[GSVette]

I switched all my work lights to leds- haven’t bothered with the rest.

Much brighter than the original incandescent lamps but I do notice interference on my cab radio when they are on. Probably need to install a line filter.

 

[kantuckid]

With motorcycles and scooters there's the incentive to bolster a lower output charging system and gain light when fewer HL's etc. are involved, plus the idiot factor towards those who pull out in front of riders so often.
With my tractor I'm in that retired and no dark work to speak of category, so I'll pass on this idea. Some incandescent's are really bright anyway.
Having replaced more than a couple of those "they last forever" LED's in home and two wheels, I recently read an article in the NYT's saying that LED testing which tell us these fantastic number of years and hours of LED life that explained how those long years are not real life applications. Fact is the testing is the LED emitters alone and not enclosed that yields these fantastical figures. Given the reality of those magic emitters always being enclosed, same as a tungsten filament and so on, it's now understandable to me why I've thrown away those so-called last forever LED's. They have their positives but the testing is un-realistic as was explained.
My SUV has LED HL's and they are really bright but honestly, I liked Zenons a lot too. Both are really pricey in OE version, not so much in Chinese stuff.

 

[grsthegreat]

Ya, agree on the led’s dont last forever. I cant tell you the number of forever lamps I’ve had to replace over the years.
my old Chevy van had led dash board. One by one lights failed. Instead of replacing a 50¢ bulb, I had to remove entire dash board and ship it to a restorer in Detroit.

 

[YanmarFever]

Where is everyone buying these LED's I have a branson 5520 and a mahindra 5010 that are screaming for LEDs
Any suggestions ?

 

[CH4Ohio]

I did a search the other day for headlight LED bulbs using the Kubota light bulb part number. Surprised to find a set of them on eBay for under $30. At that price I decided to go for it and they just plugged right in like a replacement bulb and they are MUCH brighter.

I was mainly looking for replacements for the cab-mounted work lights. Based on recommendation from another recent TBN thread, I bought the Tiger Lights. (My original Kubota lights were getting rusty inside on the reflector -- disappointing.) WOW! Direct replacement. Plugged right in. Super bright. I went ahead and replaced the rear work lights too. Not cheap but very bright.