Take down / paddock lighting

[Eric]

So prior to painting I'm thinking of throwing 4-6 led spotlights up top to REALLY light the area up around us..when say parking in a tight spot or the "what's that?" moment when boondocking.. Going full LED to reduce draw ...has anyone done this? Does it help enough to justify it? I'm thinking full 360 light up....

Let's hear it what do you think?

[Jeremy]

I've scratch-built a new GRP rear cap for my bus into which I have incorporated a large home-made light fixture that will illuminate the area behind the bus. This is intended primarily for use when stationary - specifically for working on the boats which will be on trailers behind my bus. I very strongly suspect that it would actually be illegal to have this kind of light turned on when the bus ws moving on a public road - but they'd be ideal for use when reversing into a camping space or whatever.

I'm also considering a 'pop-up headlights'-type arrangement for lights on one side of my bus. These would be flush when traveling but 'popped up' (ie., projecting from the side of the bus and shining on the ground) when parked. These would be mounted into a GRP panel which runs along the side of the bus near the roofline.

The new rear cap, complete with light fixture, is finished and just about to be fitted - but it will be a little while before I'm able to get some bulbs mounted into the fixture and find out how well it works. I'm thinking 3 or 5 bulbs in a row, depending upon how much illumination it gives. I do have some 'photos in my camera that I took just a couple of weeks ago of the rear cap. It does look a little odd, so I'm not entirely sure what I feel about it at the moment.

One of the things which gave me the original idea, by the way, was reading about the old Futurliners - they were basically mobile exhibition stands, and had a large fluorescent light gantry which projected out of the roof when they were parked up. You can see it in the photo below:




Jeremy

[Eric]

Futurelines look so awesome......however wheres the photos of yours?

[Sean]

So prior to painting I'm thinking of throwing 4-6 led spotlights up top ... full 360 light up....

Remember that, technically, in most states you are supposed to have any forward-facing ones covered with opaque covers while driving.

That said, we have two enormous HID floodlights on the top front corners of our bus and have never had a problem.  We use them when we are picking our way into campgrounds or forest roads at night with low-hanging trees.  I would not be without them.

-Sean
http://OurOdyssey.BlogSpot.com

[Eric]

Sean-

I love hids are our car has them... But I have to ask how much did they set you back? And what brand are they? The led onesi want are 125 each bit I could go 4 in hid form and the few extra bucks for that kind of performance would be WELL worth it ...

[jok]

I added one tractor light on each side at the front facing the side of the bus and two at the rear. Each can be turned on with the key fob. The rear lights are wired into the backup lights and the front lights have a switch for each one in the cockpit. I also have the Prevost Docking Lights. Now I have no excuses to back into anything in the dark.

jok

Works great when coming back to camp after dark. Just hit the key fob and we have light.

[Eric]

Key fob is a great idea I was going to make our door remote as it is electric....throw in a relay and vola I have lighting too

[Sean]

I love hids are our car has them... But I have to ask how much did they set you back? And what brand are they?...

I got a great deal on them, $250 for the pair on eBay, brand new.  When I had one go out on me later, I found out they retail for $500 apiece.  (I ended up repairing the one I had once I found that out.)

Not sure of the brand but they were sold as 24v work lights for Caterpillar excavators.

Patience is the key when bargain hunting for these kinds of items.  I'm sure I stole them simply because they are 24v -- had they been 12v models, I am guessing the bidding would have gone much higher.

This was also 8 years ago, when LEDs were really not available for things like floodlights.  Today's market is somewhat different.

-Sean
http://OurOdyssey.BlogSpot.com

[Jeremy]

I found my camera cable, so can post some photos of my rear cap, as mentioned yesterday.

As photographed here the cap is straight off the fibreglassing bench, so is a bit rough - there's no point prettying it up at this stage as there's still more fibreglass work to do to attach it back onto the bus (the whole front and rear panels of my bus are fibreglass, so the cap was an intregral part of the rear panel until I cut it off. Once it's bonded back on I'll do whatever bodywork it needs before painting).

The top face of the cap (the purple bit in the first photo) is the remains of the original cap, but the rest is new (needed because of raising the roof of the bus). The horizontal opening in the middle is the 'light fixture'; the back of this was moulded around a length of aluminum tube, a section of which will later be polished-up and re-inserted form the rear reflector of the light fixture. There'll be a lens on the front of the light which will just be a bit of curved polycarbonate or acrylic stuck over the opening with Sikaflex (although I'm not sure yet whether heat build-up inside the light will be a problem).

The bulb holders will be standard automotive items inserted from the rear (ie, from inside the bus), with the bulbs themselves almost certainly being Leds, but again some experimentation will be required to find what works best.

The little streamlined thingy which projects over the light fitting is the camera housing, which I moulded up around a lump of plasticine. It contains two cameras, one pointing backwards and one pointing down at the rear bumper / tow hitch. Because of the shape of the rear of the bus, the 'pointing down' camera has to be positioned some way behind the rear cap in order for it to have 'line of sight' to the rear bumper. 

Other features of the rear cap are the three recesses which house Led marker lights, and the openings at the sides into which will be fitted rear light assemblies from a Landrover Freelander (as shown in the last photo).










Jeremy

[Jeremy]

Just thought I'd update this old thread with an 'after' photo taken today of my rear cap re-attached to the bus. Still some bodywork to do, but you get the idea. I ended up having to do quite a lot of work to the rear face of the rear slide to get everything flush - you'll see that the 'raised edges' of the slide shown in the first photo don't appear at all in the second (much earlier) photo. The second photo also shows the original rear cap before it was cut-off and modified to accommodate the roof raise.

The third photo is just a gratuitous shot showing what the rear slide looks like when extended.








Jeremy

[Iceni John]

My bus already has Weldon 2020 lights mounted up in the front and rear roof caps, complete with 85W sealed-beam lamps.   They're BRIGHT!   Obviously I've disconnected them from their flasher and covered their lenses to make them quasi-legal-ish, but I'm thinking of using the front ones as white spotlights, and keeping the rear ones as high-mount supplementary brake lights.   Some simple covers should keep me kosher at the front.   The federal vehicle lighting requirements are ambiguously worded about doing this at the rear, but some of the new transit buses here have pairs of high-mount extra brake lights, so that'll be my excuse!   I have this fear of being rear-ended by some gormless twit who has obviously much more important things to do than watch the road, so that's why I'll keep the rears red instead of making them into super-backup lights.   For driving in fog I also have a painfully-bright Hella rear fog lamp, but that's another story.   If I ever need extra light in a dark campground, I've always got my hand-held HID spotlight that will throw a tight beam at least half a mile.   You can never have too many photons.

John

[Oonrahnjay]

    Nice work, Jeremy.  What's in the rear slide-out? 

[Jeremy]

    Nice work, Jeremy.  What's in the rear slide-out? 

The bed!

J.

[Oonrahnjay]

    Nice work, Jeremy.  What's in the rear slide-out? 

The bed!

J.

    That would have been my guess.  What are dimensions and what is the clearance, top of mattress to ceiling?

[belfert]

Why use LED for this?  It doesn't sound like you will use the lights enough to make it worth spending a lot of extra money to save energy.