Lighting

[JerryG]

gmason,
When I put on my two 100w front lights and my two 55w rear lights I completely bypassed the tractors electrical system. I ran a 6-gauge battery cable from the positive side of the battery to a homemade 8 fuse, fuse box. Then I ran those eight wires to a homemade bank of 8 switches. From there the wires are branched off to the different accessories and lights.

 

[dieselpwr]

Al F
The following is a response I posted a while back, but you may find it helpful in your application.

I just installed extra lights & an accessory power outlet on mine this weekend & am just itching to put them to the test on a long snowy night time workout. I chose to install them on the bottom side of the top of the ROPS because the factory headlights are pretty useless when you have the loader on & in a carry position. (if you put them on the top side of the ROPS you can no longer fold your ROPS down fully) I put four lights on total. Two facing forward & two rearward @ 55 watts per bulb. I have one flood & one trapazoid beam facing each direction for close & more distant illumination. Works pretty well as near as I could tell from the short trial I gave them. If you do it yourself, be prepaired to spend some time if you want to make it look nice & clean. I think the money & time I stuck into mine is well worth it. FYI the alternators put out 40 amps & the setup I described above pulls just over 18; so you can still run the factory head lights too & everyting should still be all right. I don't think I would want to add too many more than I did though without looking for a more powerfull alternator. Happy lighting.

Troy

 

[gmason]

dieselpwr,
Can you elaborate a little more on how you made the connections to the eletrical system?
Did you connect like Al F?
thanks
gary

 

[dieselpwr]

Gary

I am again doing the cut & past from another post that I did a while back - its long but it should give you all the info you need.

- The ROPS appear to be almost 3/16 wall tube so I simply drilled & tapped four 1/4 - 20 holes, added a dab of locktight for added piece of mind & bolted the lights directly to the tube. The weld seam of the tube just happened to be right in the center where I drilled & tapped so there really wasn't an issue with having enough thickness for the tapping. -- As for power, I did come directly off the battery & installed a 30 amp fuse in line to handle the lights & power outlet. I split the line after the fuse running constant power to the outlet & switched power to the lights. The switch was just a standard rocker switch with a high enough amperage rating to handle the lights & it fit perfectly in one of the blank spots in the dash. I picked the switch up at a local Fleet Farm store. -- I decided to only install one switch for all four lights. You certainly could switch them separately if you chose to. It's just a matter of installing one more switch & pulling one more wire. My thought was - when I work in the dark, I always need to be able to see in both directions - to go forward, to back up & / or keep an eye on the implement behind me. The only exception I can think of for that logic is if you have a backhoe & would only be working from the rear. If I am just transporting / traveling I can still just use the factory front lights if I want. -- As for running the wires I chose to run all my wire in flexible plastic conduit (available in most good automotive or electrical departments). That way it has a little extra protection & matches the factory wiring perfectly. (look at the wires running to the rear flashers / signal lights) I ran the wire outside the ROPS in the flexible conduit for three reasons. 1) There appeared to be a real pinch hazard for the wires with the extra slack needed to fold & unfold the ROPS if your not paying attention to what your doing. 2) Ease of maintenance in the future if the wires decide to go bad at the folding point after a few years (which is probably fairly likely after a lot years of bending) or if your needs change & you want to add or delete wires. 3) Being in the conduit on the outside alows for minimal slack in the wires while still allowing & forcing the wires to make a more gradual bend at the fold point. I know thats a long answer but... Hope it helps.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

gmason--(for some reason my cookie must be corrupted so i used my email address instead of my user name since it was not accepted) As a matter of fact, there really is a wire already behind the seat near the right side of the ROPS awaiting the connection to the NH rear light on the series III Boomers--it is there for the NH rear worklight. The NH rear worklight has a switch on it, but does not have one on the dash. Although I don't own a series III Boomer, I gave them a close going over many times before deciding these fine tractors were just too big for my needs. Look for the wire--it will be there.

 

[djradz]

Gary, I posted this also on your other message, but I think this is probably the right place.

The symbol you referred to as a T with dog-ears is NH's version of the ground symbol. NH, like automotive manufacturers use such a connection to the tractor frame to complete the circuit, rather than running another wire back to the battery. Since the negative side of the battery is also tied to the frame, this completes the circuit.

The other main thing you need to understand is the connection of wires from one page of the wiring diagrams to the next. If you note in the lower-left corner of each page is a "Frame #". This designation is used throughout the diagrams. On every page (frame) there are references in a box such as FR.3, D. This means this wire (HM-31-BK-18), which is on page, Frame-1, connects to a similar point on Frame-3, point D. If you look on Frame 3 you'll find a similar box with a FR1, D, label.

My suggestion is, if you want to understand the electrical system completely, start on Frame 1, where the battery, G-01, the alternator G-2, and the other main system components like the starter, main fuse, and other parts are located. Then branch out from there. Note the wire designations, which carry on from page to page. These are further explained on Frame-8. (Just a note, I see I gave you the wrong color code for T, as it actually stands for TAN). Good luck with your new toy, er ah, essential piece of equipment. If you have further questions, I'll do my best.

Also, this wire everyone keeps referring to is a pair of wires you will find in a connector under the right hand side gray plastic 3-point control housing to the right rear of the seat. It is tucked under there along with the wire to the right rear flasher. However, this wire(s), designated as HC-082-BK- 14 and HC-049-0-14 (on the right hand side of drawing Frame-4 ) for S-10 and E-14 may not be adequate for what you intend to do. These are 14 guage wires, which are capable of handling 15 amps, or 180 watts total. Usually, as shown on the Frame-4 drawing, this wire requires an internal switch in the lamp. If you go the ROPS route, I'd suggest you look through the drawings for another place to pick up power, either through an existing fuse, or add one and then switch the new lights at the dash in one of those spare rocker holes. Whatever you do, make sure you've adequately fused it. Good Luck.

 

[gmason]

Thanks djradz, I tore into this project last night and got my guage panel off(very easy) got to the fuse panel and then needed to get the blue cover out of the way to get to some of the wiring. I got under the hood and found 6-8 bolts that go into the firewall that looked like it held the blue dash cover. I put several extensions on my rachet and got those bolts off.

Some of the bolts(1/2inch socket) are still somewhere I haven't been able to see yet that they fell out of my socket when I pulled the wrench back out.

I should have take the FEL off the get a little better access. I was able to figure out more of the wiring diagrams after looking at them for a while and find the abbreviations on frame 8. Dah!

I was looking some way to link into the Bus Bar, but that didn't work out, and after looking at the diagram more, I found the HM-005-R-14 circuit just as it comes to the F.6(10a fuse) fuse at the fuse block. This wire comes from the 40amp main fuse so is HOT without the key. This was what I was looking for.

The lights I got look great. They're 6-7" wide and only 2" tall, very low profile, black with 50w halogen lights. They can rotate to the front and back along the long axys. They came with a rocker switch that after taking a dremal tool to cut out some of the blank rocker plastic, fit perfectly next to the headlights rocker. And get this, the rocker lights up to a perfectly matched NH Blue when it's ON. What luck!

I connected to the HM-005-R-14 wire with one of those trailer connectors where you place the two wires you want to join into a little plastic holder that has a metal piece in the middle that 'cuts' the insulation off the two wires when you squeeze the pliers down on the metal piece. Great little part, saves a bunch of time in splicing two wires.

So I took the new wire to the hot clip to the switch(after a inline 15a fuse). Then from the switch down behind the cover around the steering column to the floor then I followed the wire harness that goes along the drive train to the rear lights/fuel tank and up the ROPS.

I took and put a piece of 1/2" foam insulation and doubleside taped it to the bracket of the lights to give the light a little shock padding. I've got a couple of Zip ties holding them to the top of the ROPS, so no holes drilled(I fugure I can always go back and permantently attach them later) But the ties seem like they should work, and you can always tighten them a little more later.
I've got another hour or so to finish this project up, maybe more if I have trouble finding those bolts and putting them back into the firewall.
This is really not that hard of a project if you can figure out the exsisting wiring and can gain access to it.

It's all 'low' voltage, so I'm not too worried of getting burned and nothing I'm doing can't be "backed-out" later.

If any other NH'ers need info/help on this I think djradz and I are very knowledgeable now.

gary

 

[paccorti]

Gary,

Sounds like you did a great job on this. One quick point. I'm not sure where the fuse box is but I removed one of the black side panels under the dash (the one on the right as you sit in the seat). That side cover is much easier to remove as you don't have to contend with the muffler. Not sure if that was an option for you. In my case it did give me easy access to the dash area.

Peter

 

[gmason]

peter, well the fuse box is right under the instrument panel. The two screws come right out and the panel does too.
I took the left side off since the switches are located on that side. I've gotten it all wires and working, now I just need to put it back together. NH did a great job of labeling all the wires with the same curcuit identifying numbers as is in the OM. For a grounding wire I just looked in the OM and found a ground wire then went to the tractor and for the wire with that number and bam! Great!
Pictures coming..
gary

 

[djradz]

Gary, glad it's all working out for you. Too bad you had to start taking off the blue dash. I too, like Peter, thought the easy way to get at all the under dash wiring was to remove the black two-piece covers below the dash and above the deck. ... but hey, if this worked for you, who am I to say. I didn't quite understand your note on the rocker switch. Did you mount it into one of those two slots above the steering column or some place closer to the existing light switch? Duane