Mining vehicle head light lamp failure rates??? Is it high?

[robsalv]

Prior apology for cross posting.


I'm an engineer in petrochem industry - not that that is relevant.

Somehow, a mate and I got into a "discussion" about light bulb filament design and whether you needed a different designed globe for the high vibration and continuous lighting service of a 24hr/day mining operation vehicle compared to a normal everyday road going vehicle.

So that made me wonder, what is the MTBF of headlamps for mining vehicles?? Days, weeks, years? And do they have a special globe design?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers

Rob


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"Life! No one get's out of it alive."
"The trick is to grow up without growing old..."

 

[Newmanite]

Gday mate
The mine where I work actually did a study on this for root cause purposes to justify going into L.E.D. for indicators(go figure) Where temperatures in the day reach above 45C ambient to -2C of a night in winter,a globe was estimated through data collected from maintenance requests for change outs would last between 6 weeks and 4 months.What was discovered for the actual failure rate was when maintenance washed the trucks down for service and repair the high pressure high flow water was directed onto the lenses and eventually leading to cracking and ultimately contamination failure.
After this was identified as root cause failur rates decreased and optimum time was around 8 months.
This is in an environment that operates 24 hrs/day lights on policy

 

[robsalv]

Thanks Newmanite!

It's amazing how often an "after thought" like cleaning can bring a design undone.

Much appreciate your post and provided info.

Hope the mining industry finds you well.

Cheers

Rob



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"Life! No one get's out of it alive."
"The trick is to grow up without growing old..."

 

[FOETS]

For underground vehicles particulary scoops lights are a big problem due to the vibrations and its a matter of days or hours to failure.
You can use a 12V rated lamp in a 24V fixture can help as the filaments are thicker.
All lights are doubled up so you can continue operating with a blown lamp.
Vibration mounts are critical for the lights
Sealed beams dont give the required light intesity so often Halogens are required.
We didnt test Xenons yet due their cost,

 

[robsalv]

Thanks Foets. That's an interesting piece of feedback.

Are the mounts somehow rubber insulated?

It's looking like "globes are globes are globes", i.e., you can't design or it's not cost effective to design a globe to be more resilient to high vibration scenarios.

Interesting.

Wonder whether this is a niche market opportunity?




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"Life! No one get's out of it alive."
"The trick is to grow up without growing old..."

 

[EdStainless]

LEDs
I just saw a demo of some 24V LED landing lights for light jet aircraft. These are serious bright.

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