Lighting
Light towers are a critical component to night-time recovery work.
Let There Be Light! By David Cotsmire
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Note: David Cotsmire is VP of Marketing and Customer Service for Will-Burt Night Scan HDT light towers. Will-Burt is known worldwide for its light tower products.
ight towers are the ultimate tools when it comes to lighting up an accident scene or job site. The advent of the LED light allowed light tower manufacturers the ability to offer what was once only able to be installed on a fire truck with a full-size generator to be customized for the specific needs of the tow professional who works every day and night. A misconception about light towers is that they are too big or expensive for anything other than the outfit that has heavy wreckers and rotators. Thanks to the lightweight and compact design of folding light towers they can be used on any vehicle that has a roof! The roof surface on a standard rollback has more than enough area for a lightweight folding light tower. What benefits does a Night Scan HDT deliver? Simply put, it provides more light from a higher height. Break it down a bit further - light from a higher point allows the illumination to be focused and spread over a wider area. This gives you more coverage and provides a safer work site. Also, the light from this higher
Work the non-traffic side - Stay Safe!
vantage will not blind you. The light is created from above like the sun. This is also important if you are working a traffic scene, it will not blind oncoming traffic. A light tower also gives you the ability to rotate and tilt the lights, so you can focus on the location that you need regardless of the position of the truck or boom. Higher end light towers offer the ability to control two banks of light separately so that you can cast the light a full 360°. Light towers are available in two basic configurations: folding, which are designed to be installed on a flat surface and vertical which requires less surface area to install and are typically available in higher heights. Lights typically come in pairs to balance the load and disbursement of light. A light tower gives you the ability to take on nearly any job at night. We have seen examples of house demolitions, moving heavy equipment and providing emergency lighting for municipal emergencies. A light tower, which is always with the vehicle, frees an operator from relying on the fire
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AmericanTowman.com | May 2021 • 19
