Seeing the Light
LED warning lighting for quarry and mine vehicles
By David Timms, marketing manager, Britax PMG Ltd
Operating specialist off-highway equipment is often a difficult and potentially dangerous task and there has never been a greater focus on ensuring the safety of operators and visitors to quarry and mining sites, making it good practice to introduce reliable high-tech safety equipment on to machines to visually warn of their presence and operation.
This need has created a growing trend among quarry and construction machine operators to fit LED amber warning lighting as part of a range of solutions to aid safety and awareness in hazardous situations, and this equipment is particularly vital on large dumptrucks, faceshovels and wheel loaders where visibility for the driver is often restricted, making it vital to warn any personnel in the vicinity of the machine of its presence.
The extensive Britax range of LED warning and working lighting has grown significantly in recent times, providing top-quality, high-power LED lighting solutions for most applications.
An LED lamp or warning module draws only one-sixteenth of the power of a traditional filament bulb lamp and provides a strong, bright amber light that is clearly visible over greater distances in all types of daylight. Life expectancy of an LED lamp is also greatly extended as they are sealed against water and dust ingress, making an LED lamp a true ‘fit and forget’ product which can only be seriously damaged by harsh impact or improper use.
Of particular interest to off-highway vehicle operators, an LED lamp has no bulb or bulb holder and so provides much greater resistance to vibration damage, which will also contribute to safety and a reduction in vehicle downtime, as technicians will no longer be required to change damaged filament bulbs.
LED lamps are suitable for all types of 12V and 24V vehicles and, in the case of some products, can be specified up to 48V without the need for any voltage input adjustment.
LED warning modules can be supplied in a number of colours including:
- Amber: general warning and safety
- Blue: reverse warning
- Green: indicating operator seat belt is deployed
- Red: used on vehicles carrying explosives
- White: general awareness and scene illumination.
In addition to amber warning, it is now possible to specify most other mandatory and auxiliary vehicle lighting functions with high-power LED versions, including:
- Beacons featuring a range of mounting options
- Longer light-bars that provide an LED illuminated sign plate for company logos or messages
- Work lamps
- Rear stop and tail lamps
- Front and rear direction indicator lamps
- Rear fog lamp
- Rear reverse lamp
- Front and rear work lamps.
LED work lamps are especially useful for quarry and mining vehicle applications. A variety of shapes and fixing types incorporate an extensive range of light outputs which are measured in lumens (an international system of SI-derived units for ‘luminous flux’, which is a measure of the total amount of light emitted by a source). The higher the quoted lumens number, the more intense the visible light the lamp will give out. The Britax LED work lamp ranges from 540 lumens to 4,500 lumens in a range of styles that feature aluminium housings, polycarbonate lenses, stainless-steel mounting brackets and a five-year warranty.
In some construction and road- maintenance situations the machine operator may be required to comply with the recommendation of ‘Traffic Safety Measures and Signs for Road Works and Temporary Situations, Chapter 8’, which requires vehicles stopping on highways for works purposes and inspections to be equipped with amber roof warning lights comprising at least two independent light sources. These warning lamps must conform to ECE Regulation 65. Britax offer a range of LED beacons and light-bars that provide conformity to ‘Chapter 8’. The beacon range can be specified with a choice of mounting options.
Moreover, Britax LED products comply with the latest European EMC electro-magnetic compatibility requirements, which ensure that the maximum levels of radiated and conduced electronic emissions from the product do not interfere with sensitive electronic systems on the vehicle, eg engine management.
Further safety-related products within the Britax range include rear-view mirrors and a top-quality camera kit help maintain a view around the vehicle. Within the range the mirror heads can be specified with electrically adjustable and heated lenses with wide-angle options. The camera system includes a 5.62in TFT screen and a high-resolution camera that uses LEDs to provide infrared night vision.
For further information on the Britax range of products visit: www.britax-pmg.com
