# Ambulance Warning Lights



## jchow2156 (Jul 15, 2011)

What type of warning lights is everyone using now, Halogen, Strob or LED, and is anyone using lightbars.

Our new truck has the new generation whelen 9M series LEDS, man they are bright


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## ArcticKat (Jul 15, 2011)

Indeed, LED technology has come a long ways since your 1970s era calculator.  We haven't had light bars for over 15 years now.  You can see a picture of our ambulances on our company website.  www.kelvingtonmhs.ca.  The two on the right have rotating beacons all the way around with strobe flashers in the grille and fenders.  The one on the left is entirely LED.


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## lightsandsirens5 (Jul 15, 2011)

Our older rigs have combination halogen rotators/flashers. We have two rigs with all LEDs and one with...get this...halogen rotators, halogen flashers, LED units and strobe flashers. Ha ha!

The only thing I don't like about LEDs is they are very unidirectional. If you are dead on in the LOS, they are blinding. Perfect. But if you are a few degrees off, visibility is DRASTICALLY reduced. 

So I really like the rig with everything on it cause all bases are covered. Truly, no matter what angle you view that rig from, you can see it very well.


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## Tigger (Jul 15, 2011)

lightsandsirens5 said:


> The only thing I don't like about LEDs is they are very unidirectional. If you are dead on in the LOS, they are blinding. Perfect. But if you are a few degrees off, visibility is DRASTICALLY reduced.



That was definitely true of older LED modes, but I'd say that problem has been mostly remedied with the newer products like the OP speaks of. 

All are trucks are a year old or less and their LEDs are very visible off angle. Then for some reason, the new trucks came in with halogen flashers that are barely visible during the day from any angle. Someone checked the wrong box I guess.


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## TransportJockey (Jul 15, 2011)

All LEDs, including the lightbar.


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## WolfmanHarris (Jul 16, 2011)

All LED on almost all of our front line and spare trucks. Only exception is the POS I work on and it's identical twin from the same station. They're both 2007's and extremely high mileage (and mine was a lemon when it was new) but until the garage doors get widened, they have to do. Those one's are halogens.


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## JPINFV (Jul 16, 2011)

TransportJockey said:


> All LEDs, including the lightbar.




For the love of all that is good and holy, please have someone proof read your company's website. I've seen fly by night IFT operations with more professional websites (really, a discussion on 'EMS= Earn Money Sleeping?').


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## TransportJockey (Jul 16, 2011)

Heh I have already had that discussion with out supervisor who supposedly takes care of our website. One of the reasons I never post my services website really. 
But in NM, we are one of the few private 911 options, so word of mouth tends to work better than the website  Yay for such a small state (pop wise)


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## SFox3325 (Jul 20, 2011)

All of our rigs have halogen light bars.  The brush trucks have LED's in the front, and rear on the fenders.  The rescue vehicle had strobes on the front, sides, and rear with a smaller Code 3 halogen light bar (that I repaired).  I like the halogen's, and the strobes over the LEDs, because we can see them from all directions.  Stay safe everyone


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## svfd21emt (Aug 29, 2011)

Both of our ambulances have Rotating Halogen, Flashing Halogen, Strobe, and Wig-Wags. No LED's yet but they are on the way. Our firetucks on the other hand have rotating halogen, flashing halogen, Wig-Wags, Strobe, and LED lights.


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## svfd21emt (Aug 29, 2011)

svfd21emt said:


> Both of our ambulances have Rotating Halogen, Flashing Halogen, Strobe, and Wig-Wags. No LED's yet but they are on the way. Our firetucks on the other hand have rotating halogen, flashing halogen, Wig-Wags, Strobe, and LED lights.



All of our units have rotating halogen beacons on them.


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## frdude1000 (Aug 29, 2011)

The first response truck I run out of has a led lightbar on top with a small led dash light as well.  We got the lightbar off ebay new for a good deal, it is code 3 or whelen but it does its job well.

Our new ambulances do not have a lightbar.  They have LED grill lights and those square LED surface mount lights on the sides.

Our old ambulances have halogen light bars in addition to surface mount lights.


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## traumaluv2011 (Aug 29, 2011)

Two of our rigs have rotating halogens and strobes. I think our third (and newest) rig had an LED light bar and strobes. We don't take it out much, it's only for beriatric calls and motor vehicle accidents. 

As for my personal vehicle, I have a mini-phantom with 64 LEDs. Most of our squad has these. They are great!


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## Nerd13 (Aug 30, 2011)

We have rigs with all of the different configurations. I prefer the rigs with the LEDs. Driving them I notice that people pull over sooner in all conditions. Driving my personal vehicle I have twice now seen one of our rigs coming from about a mile away in broad daylight. If I see it coming and pull over soon enough that I feel awkward sitting there and waiting then the lights are doing their job in my opinion.


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## MrBrown (Aug 30, 2011)

Fire and Ambulance have red and white LED lights

Police are red and blue LED


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## clibb (Aug 30, 2011)




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## traumaluv2011 (Aug 30, 2011)

Here are the two with halogen (and our captain's car with halogens as well) and the second is the back of the LED one. I don't have any front pictures.


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## adamjh3 (Aug 30, 2011)

WolfmanHarris said:


> All LED on almost all of our front line and spare trucks. Only exception is the POS I work on and it's identical twin from the same station. They're both 2007's and extremely high mileage (and mine was a lemon when it was new) but until the garage doors get widened, they have to do. Those one's are halogens.



Define high mileage, we only have one truck that isn't within a few K of 300K h34r:

All halogen rotators/flashers here with wig wags on the headlights.  I've run hot only thrice in over a year, though. 

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk


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## Shelley Watson (Sep 5, 2011)

This is a wonderful post. Many forums do not ever consider to start a thread even for ambulance. This forum actually covers all the problems of medical professional.


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## volmedic85 (Sep 10, 2011)

I'm all for LED's, I feel they are safer for the responders, to be seen. The only down side is at night some units I feel are too bright for drivers passing by. It can be almost blinding.


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## Nerd13 (Sep 10, 2011)

volmedic85 said:


> I'm all for LED's, I feel they are safer for the responders, to be seen. The only down side is at night some units I feel are too bright for drivers passing by. It can be almost blinding.



I agree with you but I do find that after the bright flashy LED covered object has passed it seems as though my eyes can adjust quicker than they can if they're assaulted by halogen lights.


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## Cup of Joe (Sep 11, 2011)

volmedic85 said:


> I'm all for LED's, I feel they are safer for the responders, to be seen. The only down side is at night some units I feel are too bright for drivers passing by. It can be almost blinding.



Wouldn't It be great if they put a light sensor on the roof that could automatically dim the emergency lights at night, depending on ambient light levels?

Such an instillation would cost maybe $100 to the manufacturer?


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## ArcticKat (Sep 11, 2011)

Cup of Joe said:


> Wouldn't It be great if they put a light sensor on the roof that could automatically dim the emergency lights at night, depending on ambient light levels?
> 
> Such an instillation would cost maybe $100 to the manufacturer?[/QUOTE
> 
> ...


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## metro9 (Sep 19, 2011)

We use a Woodway strobe light bar with cheesy China-made LED's on the volunteer unit.  Augmented by a Whelen-like dash mounted red/white strobe system.

On the private units, everything is almost exclusively Whelen with clear EDGE light bars firing clear strobes and red/green LED's.


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## svfd21emt (Sep 20, 2011)

Ok, I agree with what you guys/gals have said about the good parts of the LED lights. But what about when your in an area where it snows? The LED lights/lightbars dont build up enough heat to melt the snow off of the lights. And if your a service that works on the interstate or highly used highway, and you have a motor vehicle accident and its snowing really hard? It wouldn't take to much time for thsnow to completely engulf your beacon and warning light. Just a thought. My service was going to switch to LED lights and beacons but then we thought about what I just posted and we have decided to just buy new rotating halogen beacons.  


P.S. We were talking about replacing our lights because our rotating halogen bars on our trucks intermittently work. If anyone is a electrical goo-roo, or knows some stuff about lightbars, feel free to post something that we could try so we don't have to buy new trucks. 

Thanks,


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## ArcticKat (Sep 20, 2011)

svfd21emt said:


> Ok, I agree with what you guys/gals have said about the good parts of the LED lights. But what about when your in an area where it snows? The LED lights/lightbars dont build up enough heat to melt the snow off of the lights.,



1. Snow doesn't stick to the light bar, freezing rain and ice fog might, but snow does not.  If the snow is wet and sticky it'll tend to fall off the light bar because it's too heavy.  

2. The light bar might be at room temperature when you leave the garage, but it quickly cools to ambient temps and snow will stick to it about as well as it would to the signal lights or hood.

3. The old halogen lights never got warm enough to melt anything either, because the rotating or the flashing gives plenty of time for the polycarbonate lenses to cool.  I can remember multiple times I've had to pull over and chisel a half inch of ice off the light bar.


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