SEVEN SECRETS TO BETTER LIGHTING & ELECTRICAL MAINTENANCE
Deborah Lockridge
Senior Editor
When a lighting rep checks out a box of parts a fleet has set aside for warranty claims, he's expecting to find a box full of lamps that don't work. But Grote reps were discovering way too many working lamps on the warranty pile.
"The trailer would come in with a lighting failure tag, so the technician would replace the lamp," says Chris Cammack, brand manager for Grote Industries. "When the lamp still didn't work, then they would decide it was a wiring problem. But they would never go get that lamp back out of the warranty box."
That's just one example of how little things can add up when it comes to your lighting and electrical maintenance procedures. Another is taking shortcuts when it comes to troubleshooting and repairs.
"The improper repair of lights using ice picks to troubleshoot, or using unsealed butt splices, or worse yet, insulation displacement devices to reconnect the power, can further damage the vehicle's electrical system," says Brad Van Riper, vice president of research and development at Truck-Lite. "When improper methods are used, it's almost like a cancer. It begins to affect other parts of the electrical system, and can really cause much more extensive problems than if you repair it right."
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1. Back to the Basics
Take time to make sure your technicians are properly trained in electrical system maintenance. Check with your lighting or electrical supplier to see what training they can offer.
For instance, Grote has developed a two-volume training manual called the Grote Know-How program. The first volume focuses on basics of electricity and wiring, explains Cammack. "It really steps the technician from the basics of what is an atom and how electricity works, all the way through to how that translates into a power system, and how all the electrical components work in the system."
The second volume focuses on troubleshooting and repair of electrical systems. "It gets down into the basic EAT principle," Cammack says. "Environment, Abuse and Time are the three main factors in failure of lighting and electrical components."
Both volumes are broken up into chapters, with a self-test at the end of each. At the back of the book, there's a master test you can send in to Grote in order to receive a certificate that the technician has completed the training.
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2. Protect Against Corrosion
Corrosion is one of the biggest enemies of the electrical system. It's an enemy that has become more dastardly in recent years with the adoption of new, more damaging anti-icing chemicals.
"There are rust and corrosion inhibitors for steel and some other metals, but not for the copper and brass" used in electrical systems, says Travis Hopkey, director of marketing for Phillips Industries.
Not only are new chemicals causing more corrosion, but corrosion itself is more problematic for today's electrical systems.
"Especially with all the computer systems, small variations in voltage can cause huge problems," says Steve Kaminsen, sales manager for Waytek Inc.
To help prevent corrosion, you should spec sealed wiring harnesses and lighting wherever possible. "Just the wheel wash from the spray that comes from driving a truck down the road in many cases can penetrate some of the older connection systems," says Truck-Lite's Van Riper.
"With the advent of light-emitting diode technology, there's an opportunity to create what we call a 'fit-and-forget' type of vehicle environment," Van Riper says, "where you can specify a full-LED trailer that includes a sealed wiring harness system, which should give you many years of trouble-free operation."
Peterson and Truck-Lite have started selling "hard-wired" LED lamps. "If you do have some corrosion, you can just cut and re-splice, put some heat shrink connectors on and you're good to go, instead of the corrosion happening at the lamp," says Mark Assenmacher, director of marketing at Peterson.
Maintenance steps to help prevent corrosion include protecting battery posts and terminals with anticorrosive spray; frequently washing equipment (but don't power wash, because water can be forced into areas with no way to escape); cleaning connectors every six months with water (not soap); and reapplying dialectric grease on plug and socket pins after every cleaning.
While cleaning is important to remove the corrosive anti-icers from vehicles, be cautious of soaps containing degreasers. When degreasers come in contact with electrical connections, it increases the corrosion reaction, according to Phillips Industries. Never leave soap residue on electrical connections.
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3. Care For Coiled Cord Connectors
Many truck owners overlook the coiled cables and seven-pin connectors that allow electricity to flow from the tractor to the trailer, according to Phillips.
First of all, make sure you're spec'ing the proper cord. Phillips reports that about half of the cords it sells are ones designed for non-ABS use.
"The problem with that is, every trailer made in the last eight or nine years is made with ABS," Hopkey says. A cord designed for a non-ABS trailer may be cheaper, but it won't last long when used with an ABS-equipped trailer.
Hopkey also says too many fleets try to use a shorter cable than they actually need. "Really, a 12-foot cable should be used just for dollies," he says. "Every tractor and trailer out there should use a 15-foot cord." If you're using a 12-foot cord, he says, and the connectors are on opposite sides of the tractor and trailer, a tight jackknife turn when backing into the dock could pull the cord out - if you're lucky. If you're not lucky, it's going to pull out the whole nose box with it.
You also need to take proper care of the connections.
"A lot of people leave them lying around on the deck plate, or bungee-cord it off to the side, sometimes hanging them right in front of the rear tires, so they just always take a pounding with sand, salt, whatever's coming off that tire," says Greg Kinsey, Phillips' engineering manager.
One simple tip to prolong the life of the cord and the connectors is to unplug it and flip it around every six months - insert the end that has been plugged into the tractor into the trailer, and vice versa. This will help reduce wear on the trailer end, which wears out from frequent plugging and unplugging, and helps keep the corrosion down on the tractor side, especially if you clean the connections with water and a wire brush and re-grease with dialectric grease before re-inserting them. These steps can more than double the life of the cord, according to Phillips.
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4. Don't Pierce Wire Jacketing
Never puncture a hole in the wire jacketing. This can not only damage the wire directly, but holes also create leak paths for contaminants to "wick" into the wiring system, ultimately rotting wires from the inside out.
"There are acceptable troubleshooting methods where you expose terminals or go into junction boxes or disconnect wires to check for continuity of the system without penetrating the jacket of the wire," says Van Riper. "Don't damage part of the integrity of the electrical system to make the troubleshooting easier."
On a trailer problem, check the seven-way connector first. You want to make sure you're getting power through the cord to the trailer components.
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5. Check Voltage And Grounds
As many as 60% of bulb failures are not as they appear, says Grote. Instead, the failures are caused by problems in the wiring system, such as poor grounding or other problems that produced a voltage surge that affected the lighting system. According to TMC, a 1% increase of the tractor system voltage to the headlamp system will translate into a 14% decrease of bulb life.
Voltage should be checked regularly to ensure the vehicle is operating within a safe range.
Always make sure the ground leads directly to the negative battery post. Grounding to the chassis or engine will lead to corrosion, poor contacts and faulty electrical operations.
"It's pretty common practice for a mechanic to try to trace the power side of the circuit," says Phillips' Kinsey, "and they poke a lot of holes in things, only to discover the problem is generally on the ground side. It's kind of the forgotten side of every circuit."
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6. Use Heat Shrink Tubing
Old-school connectors made of PVC and nylon won't cut it in today's sophisticated electrical systems and harsher environment, says Hopkey of Phillips Industries.
These kind of connectors allow moisture and vibration to affect the electrical connections. "With all the electronic components on trucks today, all the GPS systems and computers need clean, consistent power."
If a connection needs to be changed or a repair made, use heavy-duty, adhesive-lined heat shrink tubing or heat shrink terminals on all electrical connections.
For those unfamiliar with these connectors, they allow you to butt-splice two pieces of wire together inside a piece of plastic tubing. You use a torch or heat gun to heat up the shrink tubing, which shrinks down to hold the wires together. An adhesive inside melts and bonds the terminal to the wire.
"The best kind out there is called a crimp and solder connector," Hopkey says. "There's a solder ring in the middle, and as you heat it up, the solder actually melts right into the copper where you put the two connectors together. So you have negligible power loss, if any."
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7. Spec For Long Life
Good maintenance programs start with good equipment. There are a number of spec'ing decisions you can make that, while they may cost you more money up front, will save maintenance and replacement costs down the road.
For instance, you can get lamps designed with shock-mounted mechanisms to cradle the bulb and absorb the effects of shock and vibration. Baseless bulbs are suspended and able to endure heavy-duty applications better.
LED lighting has, in many cases, replaced incandescent lamps for clearance lighting and is becoming popular for tail and turn lamps as well. While they're still more expensive than incandescent lamps, the cost has come way down. "We're down to less than a fourth of the cost of what they were when we started putting the stop/turn/tails in our bodies," says Bob Chady, buyer for Johnson Truck Bodies. In exchange for a little more money up front, LEDs offer the benefits of lower current draw, resistance to shock and vibration, and long life, with many LED lamps rated at 100,000 hours.
For forward lighting, a few manufacturers are offering high intensity discharge, or HID, lighting. Instead of using a glowing filament as in a conventional lamp, HID uses ionized gas to generate light. HID substantially increases light output, allowing the driver to see road signs better, and offers a longer service life because there's no filament subject to vibration damage. However, they cost significantly more than a halogen lamp.
For lighting inside trailers and bodies, body makers and fleets are trying various alternatives to short-lived incandescent bulbs.
"We are putting a lot of fluorescents into the refrigerated bodies, but they've got temperature limitations," Chady says. "They don't work in very cold temperatures. They're also very finicky about voltage drops."
Johnson is also trying some HID lighting on its body interiors, and so far they're being well received, Chady reports. "The initial cost is relatively high," he says, "but they're extremely rugged." They can be used in any temperature and are more forgiving of voltage irregularities.
Beyond lights, you can get harness systems that exceed industry standards, eliminate splices, seal out the elements, provide a common ground and last the life of a trailer, according to Grote.
Maintenance continued...
