Adding work lights... advice please.

[IDKUBOTA]

Greetings All,

I have work lights on my 2012 l3800 that came from the dealer installed. There is a rear work light that plugs into the extra wiring plug under the left rear left fender which has its own on and off switch on the rear portion of the light. There is also a light it appears to be wired into or behind the fuse box with wiring running through the middle of the tractor under the tin. This wiring has its own in-line fuse and and on and off toggle switch for a front work light. Both are located on the ROPS. I recently added a 22 inch LED bar the front of my canopy and spliced into the front work light wiring so that both lights run off the toggle switch. It works really well and I can use the original work light to illuminate both the left and right side of the tractor as it swings almost 180° horizontally. I then decided to add 4 additional LED work lights (2 high intensity lamps I have had for 5 years) and 2 lights less intense lamps that came with the light bar. The light bar and 2 smaller lamps also came with a wiring harness with toggle switch and an in-line fuse of 15 A. I spliced the wires from the rear work light and tied in the wiring harness. immediately I heard an unhappy sound. The rear work light is wired into the fuse box in position 2 which is a 10 amp mini fuse. 6 fuses later I have decided that a need to do something different- even attaching just one light caused the fuse to blow. After spending a couple of hours scratching my head and replacing fuses I reconnected the rear work light wires properly and disconnected the new wiring harness. The rear work light works just fine now but I do not have my for additional lamps wired up. The instructions that came with the light bar and lamps show the harness being connected to the battery. I thought I could bypass this by using an already active circuit. I am definitely inexperienced when it comes to wiring and would prefer not melting a wiring harness and complicating an otherwise perfectly good day. any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,

-IDK

 

[Clementine21]

If you are lucky, the lamps may list current draw (amps), but my experience with multiple LED lamps is that their current draw is so low you'd have to have many to reach the 15 amp limit.

Maybe some day tractor will have a covered, waterproof terminal box mounted on the inside of a fender with multiple connections to make hooking up additional lights easy.

 

[Clementine21]

From your description, your original work lights are probably not LED. I chucked all the incandescent lamps on my old tractor and switched to LED. So much more light and so little current draw. Not terribly expensive any more, either.

 

[jyoutz]

You have obviously exceeded the draw for the circuit. I would just run additional lights direct to battery with a separate switch, fuse, and relay.

 

[i7win7]

I ran a high amperage cable to the rear (winch,jump starts,ect)
Then added my own wiring for various electrical devices, some of this thread maybe useful to you.

Adding electrical devices to tractor

Purpose of post: to provide general ideas to fellow tractor owners wishing to add lights, electric sprayers, even some high current accessories for short term intermittent use (think winches, jump starts). I'll start with the high power preparations. #1 good heavy duty wire, at Walmart you...

www.tractorbynet.com

 

[Roadworthy]

Since you're worried about melted wires, etc. you should be aware that even if you install a large enough fuse to make your lights happy a greater current draw may also necessitate larger wires. You should measure the current draw of each light you're adding. I put a 240 watt LED light bar on my ROPS and "knew" I'd need more power than my work light circuit could supply. In case you're wondering it takes twenty amps to generate 240 watts. I put my handy dandy ammeter in circuit with the LED light bar and found it drew only five amps so although it supposedly has illumination equal to a 240 watt light the real current draw was only five amps - easily within the ability of my ten amp fuse. LED is the ONLY way to go any more!!

 

[ctfjr]

. . .
Maybe some day tractor will have a covered, waterproof terminal box mounted on the inside of a fender with multiple connections to make hooking up additional lights easy.

Maybe

I installed a small 6 position fuse block on the inside of the fender as shown. A 30 amp inexpensive automobile fan relay (circled) was mounted near it. A 20amp line (fused at the battery) was run from the battery to the common of the relay. The normally open contact feeds the fuse block.
The work light connector is now wired to the relay coil so that circuit sees a very small load. When the tractor key is 'on' the relay pulls in.

I currently have forward facing and rearward facing led floods, my camera / monitor, snowblower chute rotation motor and deflector actuator all on separate fused lines with their own switches.

 

[IDKUBOTA]

Thanks for the info. I appreciate it. I really like the covered plug and play option. Ive got some thinking and learning to do.

 

[DustyRusty]

Did you observe the polarity of the lights? I do know that some LED lights are polarity sensitive, and if you reverse them, you will cause a dead short across the lines. You really don't need a lot of inches of LED lighting on a tractor, since you will never be traveling at a pace where you will outrun the lights like you would on an automobile. In tractor LED lights, bigger isn't always better.

 

[IDKUBOTA]

I think that the polarity is appropriate but of course my polarity check has been red to red and black to black. Thanks

 

[GreensvilleJay]

ALL 'raw' LEDs are polarity sensitive...nature of the beast.
So called 12V LEDS for lighting 'usually' use white for ground and black for +12 volts, USUALLY. Some come with ground ring already attached.
I have a whack of LED 16W lights though, that are NOT 'polarity sensitive', can run off AC, +DC or -DC, also run in CC mode for smooth dimming.