rear hitch LED lighting (5 watts for $4)

[Sodo]

Added a rear LED light today. It lights up the ground well, you could find a contact lens! It only uses 5 watts, barely any power. Very easy quick project, makes a big difference at night. I wired it up in parallel to the taillight, so it's on whenever the lights are on.

I used one "COB Daytime running lamp", they are two for $8 all over Amazon & eBay. The other one is mounted similarly on my ATV.



Mounted it on a piece of sheetmetal "flashing", it was 90 degrees but I flattened out the angle a bit. The light comes with a strip of 3M doublestick adhesive, which I used to attach it to the metal flashing.

I drilled a couple holes and screwed it on with sheetmetal screws. The light is simply wired in parallel to the taillight, with ScotchLock connectors.

Nice a bright light, you can see to reverse or work with an attachment.

 

[Coyote machine]

Nice! What is the end of the cable? Stranded wires? Plug connector?
Thx. CM

 

[Sodo]

Sorry no pics of that part. The LED cable is a nice tough unit with micro-wires (stranded). I extended them with 18ga wire to be large enough for the scotchloc connectors and taped it all together. You need to secure the cable as it comes off the LED (and the other end) but after that its a tough cable. The Kubota wires powering the taillight were 22ga (tiny).

I dont like scotchloc connectors, but used them anyway because the amperage for the LED is so low it can't NOT work. But I'm going to cover them with sealant now that I'm thinking about it.

If you ever have to hook up a 3-pt attachment in the dark you will like this $4 mod!

 

[Coyote machine]

Thanks. It seems to come from Beijing, no surprise there.:confused3:

 

[Sodo]

I've ordered twice. First time from china in a week or so. $8 was not a large risk and it worked out fine. Second time it came from a US location in two days. I'm going to use some for lighting inside my pickup canopy too.

 

[aczlan]

Curious why you mounted it to the flashing vs to the tractor itself? That looks like a very wide beam, so it would seem that mounting it to the angled part of the tractor would provide a good angle?

Aaron Z

 

[Sodo]

Angle would be fine but testing it at that fwd location you refer to made shadows on parts of the 3-pt. Preferred the 3-pt to be completely illuminated.

 

[aczlan]

Ah, makes sense.

Aaron Z

 

[k0ua]

That is a cool mod Sodo! :thumbsup:

 

[srs]

Sodo, nice job on this. What are your thoughts on using this light to use in my cabbed tractor? Would it be too bright, just right? I definitely need a light INSIDE my B3030 and I would use a switch obviously to turn it on and off. Your thoughts? Thank you. Stanley