Getting the Lighting Right: Best Practices for Your Light Kit LED Purchases

14th Apr 2025

Shifting from day work to night work is a growing trend in both the agriculture and fishing industries. As the daily temperature rises, so do the dangers of sun exposure and heat exhaustion. The natural solution is to shift work to the nighttime, but that brings its own set of risks.

A way to alleviate those risks is through the smart use of outdoor workplace lighting. Agricultural workers can use a light kit LED set with their tractors to illuminate an outdoor area. It's important to get the right lights, though.

Here are some best practices for using work vehicle LED lighting.

Understand Your Lighting Needs

Not all automotive LED lights are made the same or work with the same machinery. Before you start comparing light kits, it's important to define what you need from your lighting system. Some factors to consider are:

The kind of vehicle you're outfitting
How often you work in low-light or nighttime conditions
If you need flood lights or spot beams
Work conditions, such as dust, rain, snow, or mud

A pickup truck used for agricultural work will have different lighting needs than a piece of heavy machinery. The time of night you work will determine how much light output you'll need.

Floodlights illuminate wide, close-range areas. Spot beams allow for longer-ranged and more focused lighting.

Benefits of Work Vehicle LED Lighting

You may wonder why you'd want to switch from your traditional lighting options to LED lights. LED lighting has many benefits over the alternatives. These include:

Energy efficiency
Brightness and clarity
Long lifespan
Durability
Compact size

LED lights consume far less power than traditional lights, which helps to preserve your vehicle's battery life. They produce a cleaner, whiter light that mimics daylight to improve visibility.

Many LEDs last upwards of 50,000 hours. They're also more resistant to vibrations, temperature changes, and environmental stress. You'll get a lot more life out of them as a result.

Their compact size allows for greater versatility in mounting and attachments.

Choosing the Right LED Light Kit

The next step is selecting the appropriate LED light kits for your vehicle. There are many factors to consider, such as brightness and mounting options.

Lumens Over Watts

LED brightness is measured in lumens as opposed to watts. You'll want to do some research on the lumen rating of your lights to make sure they're sufficient for your needs.

For example, general home use LED lights should emit anywhere between 300 to 500 lumens. Meanwhile, outdoor agricultural lighting may range from 2,000 to 10,000 lumens per square foot.

Beam Pattern

The beam pattern of your lights determines overall visibility.

Spot beams are for focused, long-range illumination. Flood beams are best for closer-ranged, broader coverage. Off-road light bars illuminate a broad area at lower speeds for navigating more technical terrain.

Color Temperature

Color temperature refers to the warmth and coolness of your light. It's measured in Kelvin (K).

Warm temperatures sit between 1,000K and 3,000K. Daylight white, which is the closest to natural daylight at noon, is between 5,000K and 6,500K. Anything above that is bluish-white, which is better for specialty applications like foggy conditions.

Ideally, outdoor workplace lighting should closely resemble natural daylight. This helps provide maximum clarity.

Mounting Options

LED lights require matching mounting options. They can go anywhere on your vehicle such as bumpers, tailgates, or rear hatches. Look for kits with flexible mounting hardware that fits your vehicle's design.

Build Quality

A high-quality automotive LED light should have a die-cast aluminum housing and a polycarbonate lens. It should also come with a sealed, waterproof connector.

Avoid plastic components in high-vibration or extreme environments.

Installation Tips and Best Practices

Once you've selected your LED lights, installation is the next critical step. They won't function as intended if they aren't installed correctly.

Sketch out or tape off your planned mounting points. Use proper wiring and relays to protect your system. Connect your lights to a separate power source or use a switch relay so they don't drain your vehicle's battery when it's off.

To weatherproof your connections, use heat-shrink tubing and waterproof connectors. These will help prevent corrosion or short circuits.

Always test your setup and wiring before fully tightening mounts or rubbing cables through vehicle panels. Small adjustments in angle or height can make a big difference in coverage.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

There are a lot of things that can go wrong when you install LED lights for the first time. For tractors, some common mistakes include:

Over-lighting a single area
Ignoring local laws
Poor wire routing
Buying cheap kits

Over-lighting refers to using more illumination than is necessary. This can drain your battery and negatively impact the environment.

Some states and regions have restrictions on auxiliary lighting. Always check regulations before installing.

Exposed or loose wires can lead to damage or failure. This is especially common if you buy cheap kits from dodgy retailers. Budget lights often fail prematurely or offer poor beam quality.

Customizing With LED Light Attachments

One of the best things about automotive LED lights is their modularity. You can enhance or customize your existing setup with various LED light attachments.

Diffusers can soften the beam for area lighting. Lens covers change the beam color for fog or hazardous weather.

Magnetic bases allow for quick attachment without permanent mounts. This also means you have a lot more flexibility in where you place your lights.

Rotating brackets let you adjust the angle of your light on the fly. Remote controls or smart switches may integrate with those brackets so you can activate, rotate, and dim lights according to your needs.

Optimize Your Outdoor Workplace Lighting

At Tiger Lights, our light kit LED purchases come with everything you need to get started. What matters is that you buy one compatible for your machinery and hook it up correctly. Otherwise, you may run into part failure or inadequate lighting.

For those in need of agricultural and industrial LED lighting, look no further than Tiger Lights. You can use our part finder to find the right equipment for your job. Take a look at our stock online and reach out with any questions about your order.

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