SPMT lights ensure safe operations

Mammoet has successfully started using a new safety-enhancing lighting system on its Self-Propelled Modular Transporters (SPMT). The system provides excellent visibility underneath the moving vehicle and offers a multitude of advantages in operation, during maintenance, and to enhance safety. The SPMT lighting system has proven itself in operation on a number of Mammoet SPMTs and is destined to raise the safety level of our entire industry.

The SPMT lighting system has been developed on the initiative of Mammoet in cooperation with SCHEUERLE, the leading manufacturer of vehicles with hydraulically suspended pendulum axles. Based on a self-developed lighting system by Mammoet that could be magnetically attached to SPMTs, SCHEUERLE tested many different prototypes to find the best light source and the best positioning to prevent unwanted shadows.

The system eventually chosen by Mammoet makes use of the latest LED technology. LEDs require so little power that it causes no problems with the SPMT power supply provided by Power Pack Units (PPU). The LED light sources are installed directly over the wheels – one for each axle or 12 LED lamps per 6 axle lines of SPMT – and can be switched and adjusted as needed, ensuring an ideal scope of the light beam. Not only at night, but also in bad weather operators profit from the improved visibility of road conditions, vehicle position, and operating levers or valves. Furthermore, flat tires as well as any possible leakage of the hydraulic system will be clearly visible so they can be detected and fixed immediately.

The SPMT lighting system improves the operator’s control over the vehicles by making obstacles like stones, bumps, or holes on the transport route visible. At the same time, the system helps to reduce personal injury in two different ways. First, the operator can see persons approaching the moving vehicle. Second, people around the vehicle can see every movement, wheel adjustment, or maneuver and safely avoid it.

Friedrich Messer, head of approvals at SCHEUERLE, has tested the new lighting system at night and under difficult weather conditions and is excited about it: "If you haven’t seen the system in operation, you cannot imagine how huge the difference is. Like every ingenious solution, it’s so simple, yet so effective! Not only during operation but also maintenance and repair processes become so much safer and easier under ideal lighting conditions”.

The SPMT lighting system is available for all SPMT models and generations by SCHEUERLE and can be installed supplementary. For Mammoet the advantages of the lighting system in safety are so important that all new axle lines of SPMTs purchased by Mammoet will be fitted with this system as standard. Furthermore, Mammoet will purchase supplementary systems to install on existing SPMTs.