Skylight opens up night work
A NEW LIGHTING SYSTEM THAT HAS been specially designed for forestry use turns night into day to allow crews to pull wood in the dark.
It’s called the Skylight and is the latest innovation developed by the team at Nelsonbased DC Equipment under their Falcon Forestry Equipment brand.
The FFE Skylight can be fixed to any grapple or carriage to floodlight the work area where felled trees are on the ground, enabling the hauler operator to easily identify and grab them.
Tests with independent contractors have shown that the illumination provides an even spread of light to the grapple line of sight and immediate surrounding area. The light also enhances infrared, as infrared focuses on a narrow line of sight – by incorporating the Skylight this allows wider range of view in low light.
“The feedback we’ve had from the crews that have used the Skylight has been fantastic – one said that it put out an astonishing amount of light and it was not dissimilar to working in natural light conditions,” says Frankie Davidson, of DC Equipment.
DC Equipment has now established a design department team, staffed by 6 engineers/draughtsmen, whose task is to develop products from start to finish, using established design processes.
“We’ve formalised how we design products so that it follows a set process that begins with the questions ‘what is it that we are developing, what is it going to do and does it meet the requirements of the people we are designing it for’ and from now, that’s how everything will be done,” says Frankie, who admits that the previous method was too ad hoc.
“We constantly come up with ideas, however the process of developing them needed to be improved, and that’s what we’ve done, right down to making sure that even the nuts and bolts are properly thought through.
“It will mean our products are more standardised, more reliable and perform exactly the way they were designed”.
The FFE Skylight is designed and built to work in the toughest forestry environments. The shock-proof housing is constructed from high-tensile BIS 80 plate and the light components are completely waterproof.
Inside is a Hella LED light unit, consisting of 6 high-powered bulbs. The unit comes with the same type of re-chargeable battery (10.8V) that is used in the FFE Camera System, so they are interchangeable. With a full charge, it will provide non-stop lighting for up to 10 hours. A mounting plate is also supplied.
Frankie says: “This simple light will help crews become more productive.
“We see them using it to start work earlier so they can pull a full day’s tonnage and then get their equipment serviced and maintained in daylight hours. During the fire season, they can start even earlier in cooler temperatures using the Skylight and knock off when it’s too hot and dry without missing out on production.”
The FFE Skylight is on sale directly from DC Equipment priced at $2950 (see www. dcforestryequipment.com).
NZL