New Options for Trailer Interior Lighting
Episode Summary: Learn about new solutions for interior trailer lighting.
Episode 340: The team at SSR Lighting was encouraged to look into options for interior trailer lighting after safety concerns from companies like Ford. After trial and error and thinking through obstacles like forklift strikes, extreme weather, and batteries that can’t sit for months unused, they now have a great product that can light up the inside of any trailer.
In our That’s Not Heavy Duty segment we talk about another kind of lighting, custom truck lighting, some of which is against the law. Tell us what you think, should truckers be allowed to customize their trucks in this way, and should authorities just ignore custom lighting?
Links
Sponsors of this Episode
Heavy Duty Consulting Corporation: Find out how many “fault codes” your heavy-duty parts business has. Meet with us today. Visit HeavyDutyConsulting.com
Hengst Filtration: There’s a new premium filter option for fleets. If you’re responsible for a fleet, you won’t believe how much using Hengst filters will save you. But you’ve got to go to HeavyDutyPartsReport.com/Hengst to find out how much.
Diesel Laptops: Diesel Laptops is so much more than just a provider of diagnostic tools. They’re your shop efficiency solution company. Learn more about everything Diesel Laptops can do for you today by visiting DieselLaptops.com today.
HDA Truck Pride: They’re the heart of the independent parts and service channel. They have 750 parts stores and 450 service centers conveniently located across the US and Canada. Visit HeavyDutyPartsReport.com/HDATruckPride today to find a location near you.
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Transcript of Episode
Jamie Irvine:
You are listening to The Heavy Duty Parts Report. I’m your host, Jamie Irvine, and this is the place where we have conversations that empower heavy-duty people. Welcome to The Heavy Duty Parts Report. In this episode, we are going to talk about lighting. It is now October.
The days are getting shorter, the nights are getting longer. Lighting is a issue this time of year. Interior lighting in trailers is an ongoing challenge, especially when the trailer is disconnected from the tractor. And so I wanted to share with you an interview that we did with a client of ours, SSR Lighting Solutions.
Now this interview originally aired in 2023, so when you hear me talk about 2023, no I haven’t forgotten what year it is, it’s just that we recorded it last year, but it’s just as relevant in 2024 and beyond. So for those of you who’ve not heard the interview, this will be the first time you’re hearing it.
For those of you that are regular listeners of the show, it’s been over a year, so it’ll be good for you to hear that. Again, I really like this interview because we talk about the problem, we go into detail about that and he also goes into some real detail about the engineering that went into this innovative product. So I think it’ll be good for all of us to listen to that.
Again, hope you enjoy the interview. I’m very happy to have my guest with me today. My guest is Daryl Grady. He’s the Director of Engineering of SSR Lighting Solutions. Daryl is a shareholder and heads up the R&D development at SSR Lighting Solutions.
His career began in automotive. We won’t hold that against him because now he’s really motivated on trying to help heavy duty. So we’re very happy to have Daryl on the show. Daryl, welcome to The Heavy Duty Parts Report.
Daryl Grady:
Hey, thanks for having me.
Jamie Irvine:
And welcome to being heavy-duty.
Daryl Grady:
Yeah, thank you. Thank you.
Jamie Irvine:
Alright, so let’s talk a little bit about lighting. I remember many years ago, and unfortunately this is like 20 plus years ago, when all of a sudden the LED light became a reality and I remember talking to fleets about getting the LED taillights so that the light would show up faster and people would respond to it quicker and there’d be less rear end collisions.
This is going back 20 plus years. LED’s been around for quite a while in the industry and yet we still have issues related to lighting and that’s what we’re here to talk about today. So talk to me a little bit about where we are right now in 2023 as it relates to lighting, semi-truck and trailers and the trucking industry.
Daryl Grady:
Inside of the trailer, as far as LED lighting is concerned, we do see trailers that have LEDs in the ceiling, but when you do see those, the LED mounts, they have to be modified in such a way to have them installed. So they have brackets on the outside of ’em that are made to hold them in place and riveted in place.
And then of course the entire delivery system of the voltage and amperage is something that isn’t even tailored to the trailer at all. So you just have these lights that are installed and then the trunk cable that runs down the side is just, everything is aftermarket. It isn’t an actual complete device that is made specifically for inside the semi-trailer.
Jamie Irvine:
Is that because there is a bit of an attitude towards trailers, they’re just a box on wheels and so when fleets are specing them new, they’re not requesting this and then it becomes an afterthought where they think, well, maybe we need it so they have to add it in the aftermarket. Is that how that happens or why are we in this situation in 2023?
Daryl Grady:
I think it’s because an actual entire kit was just never up until this point addressed and invented. I’m running into people that it’s been a constant need, but when you do install it in a aftermarkets scenario, you’re collecting pieces so it becomes an arduous task. Therein lies the biggest problem up to this point.
Jamie Irvine:
Why would a fleet want to go to the extra cost of adding this lighting inside of a trailer? I think we all understand the importance of headlights and taillights and marker lights and things like that, but why would a fleet look at this and say, you know what, this is an investment that’s worthwhile because it’s actually going to create a positive impact for us. Walk me through that.
Daryl Grady:
So that’s an interesting question because as we were doing this kit, inventing this kit, we first got involved in it from an automotive with our background of course, but from a safety standpoint. Ford had a couple incidences of a worker being injured while inspecting a trailer. There was a large piece of wood and projecting at such an angle that it actually entered the person’s leg and that happened because they could not see.
So despite the fact that there’s a dock light at the back of the trailer, once a person or somebody enters the trailer, all it really does is illuminate the back of the person or the forklift. So that happened and then immediately or not long after that, somebody actually fell out the side of a trailer because trailers as you know now are all composite down the side.
So the large rivets had been sheared and the forklift went in with a load of racks and to kind of straighten it up on the side as they do, they kind of used the side of the trailer to get things squared and he went out the side of the trailer.
So even though the trailer was inspected, that was missed. So that is how we originally got involved with the lighting system. So they made a request that the lighting system be invented for safety and inspection reasons. What we found is as we were doing it, other reasons came to bear. People with multi-stop shipments needed to read labels.
We have a customer that services rock and roll shows, so they have our lights in the trailer, people are entering the trailer with their hands full and they need to be seeing inside the trailer without turning on and off switches. And then also the drop aspect. The other thing we had to invent was illuminating the trailer when it’s separated from the tractor.
There are light systems out there that there are no light systems that do that, but there are light systems that allow you to plug them in. But of course you can imagine the dangers of somebody going out with an extension cord around a dock situation, the businesses wanted to do away with that liability.
Jamie Irvine:
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense and safety is something that unfortunately there, I mean I don’t think that everybody thinks this way, but there’s certain people who think this way, they’re like, it’s just extra cost. It’s almost like they resist it because it’s almost like they’re resisting it, like paying an insurance bill or something. They just don’t want to spend the money.
But at the end of the day, if you’ve ever run a business where people can get injured that once they get injured, any money you save disappears and a lot more goes out trying to offset that situation. So safety is an investment, but it’s an investment that has a positive return on investment pretty quickly.
Daryl Grady:
And we were also looking into that cost and investment and so we wanted to make a device that could be resellable. So once it’s installed in the trailer, that is a positive that the trailer has this sliding system in it so that charge could be implemented during resale. Also, the fiberglass type trailers are more expensive to buy and harder to get rid of.
This is a solution for that too. So one of our potential customers we’re in talks with now, Ashley Furniture is actually looking at this system instead of buying their normal fiberglass roof trailers for those reasons. Also, if any damage happens to a fiberglass roof trailer, it’s much more of a hassle than the standard skinned trailer.
Jamie Irvine:
So when you were developing this solution, what kind of voice of the customer did you engage in? How did you work with the fleets and the commercial trucking industry to uncover potential pitfalls as you were putting the product together?
Daryl Grady:
The biggest one that was the challenge right out of the gate was make me a lighting system where I can drop the trailer and I don’t have to plug it in. So that led of course to a battery situation and then you have to think where do I put the battery and what kind of space do I have to deal with?
So we decided to put it in the nose of the trailer behind the, it’s normally plywood in the nose. And so I have the device right here and you can see how thin that is. And inside of there is not only the battery but a voltage regulator, a charging regulator, the charger pickups, so it can be run by solar or the truck or by itself. And so that’s the entire apparatus right there.
Jamie Irvine:
For those that are listening that aren’t watching this, it’s about the size of a tablet in the surface area, but it’s probably what about three inches thick?
Daryl Grady:
Not even. So it’s just under that actually. And so that’s the standard size of a semi trailer. So we had to make sure that it could be retrofitted into any existing trailer and of course if it’s being installed in the manufacturing level that it meant or complied with all the manufacturers as well.
Jamie Irvine:
I’m always fascinated to talk to people who engineer products. I want to learn how they went through the process. So trailers, I mean sometimes they’re in blistering heat, sometimes they’re in really, really cold and we all know batteries that when they lose their charge they don’t do well in the cold.
So how did you address the environmental changes that all these trailers are going to go through? And then also trailers will sit for a long time sometimes without being used and then all of a sudden they’re sprung into service again. So how did you address those issues?
Daryl Grady:
And the battery itself too has to be a non-spillable. So it is a glass mat battery and it is specifically designed, so we’ve had actual trailers with the kits on the road now for a little over four years to address those problems and to take readings. So there’s tests. We can do that in the automotive market where the tests are supposed to simulate two years of whatever discharging and charging.
Jamie Irvine:
Like to accelerate it so you don’t have to wait two years?
Daryl Grady:
Those are great tests, but nothing is as good as actually being out on the road. So we went through quite a bit of adjustments to address what you’re talking about, but the biggest one that we found was not allowing the battery to discharge below 10 volts. And that’s important.
So the battery has a regulator inside of it that once it gets to 10 volts, the whole system shuts off and it will not allow itself to turn back on until it’s hooked to the tractor again. And then once it’s hooked to the tractor again, it’ll run off the tractor and also the battery charger will kick in and eventually it’ll go to its full charge.
Now when it’s fully charged, all the lights in the trailer can stay on continuously for over four hours, but to allow that to go even further, what we’ve done, and I guess some people can’t see this, they can just hear, but this is a light, one of the lights and there’s eight in a kit.
Each light has a motion sensor, so the entire kit stays on. There is no on off switch. It’s always on. So if you walk near this lights, it turns on, but it only stays on for approximately about four minutes, maybe a little longer, and then it turns off.
So if you’re just working in a specific area of the trailer only those lights will stay lit. If you remove yourself completely from the trailer for over four minutes, the entire kit will shut off.
So even though we say the kit will stay lit constantly for a little over four hours, it’s actually much longer than that because the kit is regulating itself to only be lit when somebody is actually in need of the light.
Jamie Irvine:
That’s fantastic. We’re going to take a quick break. We’ll be right back.
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We’re back from our break before the break. Daryl, thanks for talking a little bit about the situation with trailers, interior lighting safety.
We think about the LED technology that’s been around for a really long time and this is just a problem that just hadn’t been addressed yet and you’ve done a really good job of describing some of the aspects of this product that you’re developing.
Maybe you could take a moment to describe to us kind of in more detail the way that trailers are currently lit and why it’s problematic. I know you mentioned it before, but I’d like a little more detail on that.
Daryl Grady:
Well, first off, most trailers don’t have any lighting at all, which is really problematic. You’re right. I see. I think in the future that they’ll all be lit. I think that this invention here is a step in that direction and maybe down the line there’ll be other kits offered, but I see in the future that they all will be, and in a dock situation right now, we’re still after decades still using the lamp that’s attached to the dock itself, the building that swings around and shines into the trailer.
And even though that can illuminates a trailer when you’re standing on the dock looking into the trailer, you can see fine. The problem is is the minute you step into the trailer or you take a forklift or product into the trailer, it’s just illuminating your back. So it immediately just becomes a giant shadow.
So the fact that we’ve been dealing with that technology for decades is kind of mind boggling. Although as we mentioned before, even though the LED’s been invented, there were some, the conditions inside of a trailer are so violent from day to day that a way to harness the LED and keep it safe in that environment has been a while coming and it’s finally here.
Jamie Irvine:
Yeah. Let’s talk a little bit more about that in the testing for this product. No doubt you looked at all these different environments, but talk to me a little bit about the temperature at the roof of a trailer and how that was a real problem you had to overcome.
Daryl Grady:
Yes. So you can imagine a trailer spends time, it could be in Lubbock, Texas all the way to Minneapolis, Minnesota. So these trailers go through huge temperature swings and the materials on the roof of the trailer. Also, you can imagine expanding and contracting constantly. And so when we were first trying to put LEDs onto the roof of the trailer, we had some catastrophic failures, but those were all learning experiences for us.
We wanted to pull data off of that. And finally, so what we had to do is, I know some people can’t see this, they’re just listening, but we had to lift the actual control board off of the ceiling enough and put a big enough heat sink between the ceiling and the light itself to keep that safe in all of those conditions.
And it took us a while to get to the right mix because of course the other challenge is is the light can’t stick down beyond the roof bows otherwise they’d be damaged.
So you have to keep it at a certain thin aspect to it, but also be able to achieve the heat sinking. And it took a while, but we got there. There’s a couple other interesting things, if I can too. Each light has a voltage regulator in it. So the lights at the front of the trailer is the same luminosity as the light in the back of the trailer.
That is another thing that you run into when you’re trying to make an amperage and voltage travel a 53 foot trailer, the light closest to the power source is brighter than the light that’s in the back of the trailer. Of course, we had to adjust that by voltage regulating each light. So when you go into one of our trailers, it is a consistent light all the way throughout
Jamie Irvine:
And you just think to yourself, oh, I just put some lights in a trailer. It should be easy. Yet you find out, no, wait a minute, there’s a lot of math and a lot of science, it needs to go into this.
Daryl Grady:
Yeah. And to endure the violence that happens inside of a, you can imagine what it’s like is it’s going down the road. It’s 70 miles an hour hitting, bouncing around, going into docks, all the temperature changes, the moisture changes. That’s another thing we had to address is make sure everything was water tight.
I think one of the crowning achievements though is making sure no matter who installed it, it would be installed correctly. That was a thing that we had to labor on intensively is to make sure no matter who installed it, it would be in such a way that it would not allow you to do it incorrectly. So that was a good one.
Jamie Irvine:
Yeah, that’s fantastic. I love learning about this and as we said, there’s a lot of science that goes into it, a lot of math, but there’s also some unique challenges when you’re making products for heavy-duty.
So for example, with a Class eight trailer, you’ve got forklifts running in and out of them all day long. What kind of hurdles did you have to overcome when you were developing the product and you were thinking about, okay, how do we make this work with forklifts zipping in and out of the trailer daily?
Daryl Grady:
Well, there’s three things that come to mind right away. As you were saying that first off the box itself, making sure that it was placed in the nose of the trailer in such a way where a forklift punching through the front of the trailer would not destroy the box.
So the box is the size it is and easily placed high up on the wall behind that plywood. So even if a forklift were to pierce its forks through the nose of the trailer, it’s fine. Second was if inevitably there’s going to be a forklift that goes through the roof of the trailer, you can’t stop that.
So we made the trunk in sections, the trunk cable in sections. So when that happens, you don’t have to replace the whole kit, you can just replace a portion of it. If the trunk cable gets damaged, also will all the lights still work after a forklift takes out one or two of them?
Yes. So we made sure we addressed that. But this one was a real pain for me was the on off switch. No matter what, I put an on off switch inside the trailer, it was getting damaged. I was using just passive touch switches like your mouse pad that thin and I just could not prevent no matter where I put it to a forklift was going to get it.
So eventually we moved to the motion sensor and just leaving the kit on all the time and little beknownst to us because we were just thinking in automotive terms that ended up being a big sell.
For example, the truck and roll people that do the rock concerts, those guys are going and out of the trailers with their arms full all the time. They can’t reach over and turn on a lighting system. They want to just walk in and have it turn on. But those three come to mind right away, forklift problems.
Jamie Irvine:
Right. And I can imagine mounting, it would’ve been interesting if you just used bolts or something. Wouldn’t that just shear them off every time?
Daryl Grady:
Yeah, if you step inside a well used trailer, there’s nothing but marks all the way up and down the entire side. And even automotive trailers have a plank of thick steel when you first go in the trailer because it’s just from hitting the dock plate. They’re constantly hitting the roof of the trailer.
So yeah, automotive racks, actually most industry racks are made to cube out. They want to get the most out of a trailer that they can, so their racking systems are going to go from floor to ceiling, which doesn’t allow a forklift driver a lot of room for error. That’s just the way it is.
Jamie Irvine:
So now that you have the product in the market, this is something that you mentioned could be retrofitted to existing trailers. What is the process that they have to go through to do the retrofit? Roughly how long does it take? Can an average technician do it? Is there any special instructions they need to think about?
Daryl Grady:
So anyone can visit our website and on the website is the actual installation manual. So anyone can visit that. And that’s an interesting question. The way it’s presented on our website, I would say two people would take about two hours. However that is, we’ve presented the cleanest neatest installation.
So always thinking in the automotive realm with the big automotive racks and the forklift drivers going in and out of there. In that installation, you see no wires whatsoever. So the wires from the lights and the trunk cable going down the trailer, we give you instructions how to actually install that.
So when you look up at the finished product, all you see are lights. Now different people have different needs, so if you just wanted to tape the wire up there and just have the lights, of course you could probably do the entire thing by yourself in 30 minutes. We went to the craziest scenario and then you can just work your way backward from there.
Jamie Irvine:
But a couple hours to retrofit the whole trailer. I think that’s a pretty reasonable timeframe. Now what about serviceable parts and replacement parts? So over time, things wear out, right? LEDs, the diodes burnout, batteries need to be replaced. They just don’t hold a charge anymore. So what is the availability on service parts?
Daryl Grady:
And you brought up a good point there too. So this is the lights and the lights has just a simple plugin here that can only go one way. That’s important too. So if somebody’s doing an installation, there’s no wrong way to do it. It only allows you to plug it in one way.
If one light were to get damaged or need to be replaced, the rest of the lights still work. It’s been addressed in such a way that, so let’s say some damage happens to a section. You just order one light from us and we’ll send it to you and you can replace that. We’ve also taken the main trunk cable and put that into three sections.
So let’s say something catastrophic happens just in the area of the trailer, you don’t have to buy a whole kit, the battery, four screws and the lid opens two terminals. It’s that easy and everything is warrantied for two years. But like you said, eventually I would expect the battery to be the first thing that starts to go on a ramp down as far as holding its charge and that can easily be replaced.
Jamie Irvine:
Yeah. Well, it sounds like you’ve put a lot of thought and effort into making this as easy as possible. And it’s so important because people’s safety, their bodily, you don’t want to have people having bodily harm come to them just because they’re there doing their job. And so I love the fact that it’s easy to install, easy to service.
That means it’s going to work and it’s going to be there when you need it to be there, which is great. Typically in like a 53 foot trailer, how many light fixtures do you end up installing in addition to the battery pack and the main trunk cable?
Daryl Grady:
With the 53 foot trailer, we found the number to be eight. Each light has outputs greater than a 100 watt bulb. That seems to be the standard. When people ask me questions about brightness, they always want it measured against the a hundred watt bulb so they’re brighter than a hundred watt bulb.
So imagine eight of those inside of a 53 foot van trailer. You have no problem reading. It’s much like an office. That’s what it reminds me of, like you’re just sitting in your office when that happens. We also chose eight because the entire package draws just over one amp at that point, and thus you get the long hours out of the battery when it’s dropped from the tractor.
Jamie Irvine:
That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. So Daryl, who is your ideal customer so far? Have you been working with a lot of little independent fleets? You work with the big mega carriers. Who do you find are the ones that have been adopting this product quickly?
Daryl Grady:
Actually, surprisingly both. So our ideal customer, we really don’t have one.
Jamie Irvine:
Well, you got to own a class eight trailer.
Daryl Grady:
So we’ve actually talked to Amazon for example, and we’re in talks with them right now. So I mean, ideally for a first customer that would be fantastic, but we’ve also got lights installed in a couple fleets where they only have four trailers.
In fact, one of those customers, I’m very grateful we had early on because they operate out of Flint, Michigan on a multi-stop basis. So they actually, they were great test bed for us if it could survive in that environment, that was a great R&D thing for us. So he was a big help, not only a customer, but we really relish the ability to be involved in that fleet.
Jamie Irvine:
So Daryl, let’s talk a little bit about the future. What’s the big dream for this product?
Daryl Grady:
I think this product or products like it, I think it’s eventually all semi trailers, all of them, right out of the manufacturer are going to be lit. It’s not even going to be an option because I think the need for it, especially as we touched on the safety and the liability aspect of things from the humanistic standpoint, I think it needs to happen. We’ve already achieved a way to make it easy to be part of the manufacturing process.
There’s hardly any modification that would need to be done at all. If you wanted to hide the wires completely, the roof bows would need a simple hole added because the roof bows that go across the trailer already hollow, 90% of it is already made for this to happen. So I suspect in the not too distant future that this kit or a kit like it is be everywhere.
Jamie Irvine:
One of the best ways to get the manufacturers to do anything is to have some fleets start specing it and they’re like, where do I get this from? And they tell you.
So hopefully some fleets are listening right now. We know that they are. Know some big fleets, listen, and they’ve actually adopted some of the recommendations of guests of this show. I have confirmation on that, and we know the OEMs are listening as well. So hopefully this helps those people all come together. Yeah.
Well, I just want to say thank you on behalf of the heavy-duty industry, right? We need new players to come in and look at things from different perspectives, leverage different technologies and bring great new products to the industry. So from all of us, thank you very much for your efforts on this. It sounds like this is going to be a very successful product for you.
Daryl Grady:
I think so as well. I think there’s a real need for it in the marketplace, and thank you for having us. Thank you.
Jamie Irvine:
You’ve been listening to The Heavy Duty Parts Report. I’m your host, Jamie Irvine, and we’ve been speaking with Daryl Grady. He’s the Director of Engineering at SSR Lighting Solutions. And if you’d like to learn more about this specific product for heavy duty, go to SSRlightingsolutions.com.
Well, I hope you enjoyed the interview with Daryl Grady from SSR Lighting Solutions. As I mentioned, they are a client of the Heavy Duty Consulting Corporation. We’re very happy to be working with them. There’s going to be opportunities for you if you are a distributor to sell this product in the North American market.
So make sure that you reach out to them as soon as possible. It’s time for That’s Not Heavy Duty in this edition of That’s Not Heavy Duty. I wanted you to consider the pros and cons of custom lighting on big rigs. Now in the show notes, we’re going to share the link to this entire video.
It’s about eight to nine minutes long. It’s from ET Transport where they go into their opinions. At least one of their drivers goes into their opinion about the pros and cons of customizing your lighting on a big rig.
But in that discussion, he mentions that truckers should be able to customize their trucks and that there are differences in laws between the US and Canada. But then he makes an interesting statement. He says that sometimes the fine for custom lighting or for even tinting of windows is like a hundred bucks.
And he basically says that truckers should just do what they want to do, customize their trucks the way they want, and if they get a fine here there, it’s really not that big in the grand scheme of things. It’s not that much money in the grand scheme of things. So instead of me telling you what’s heavy-duty and what’s not, I wanted to ask you your opinion.
Is this heavy-duty? Is this the way we should approach things? Should law enforcement just back off on custom lighting? Is it okay for truckers to just put the lighting they want and pay the fines and just move on? What do you think? I’m really looking forward to hearing your comments. Now, you could reach out to us in several ways. One on social media, especially on LinkedIn.
That’s where we spend a lot of our time. Two, you can put the comment in the YouTube video for this episode, or three, you can go to the show notes on your podcast player and click the text button and text us. We’d love to hear your thoughts on whether or not this is heavy-duty. If you’re listening to this episode on the day that it dropped, which is October 14th, 2024, I am in Florida this week at the MEMA Tech Conference.
Now, this is a big honor for me. First of all, I’m getting the opportunity to moderate several of the panel discussions, so I’m going to be moderating three sessions.
One is a mentoring session for startup finalists because they’ve got a startup competition. Two, I’m going to be moderating a panel on AI, how it’s a reality in the aftermarket, and I’m going to be moderating a panel on heavy-duty e-commerce data standards. In addition to that, I’m also going to be a judge for the MEMA Aftermarket Startup Challenge, and I’m mentoring one of the six finalists.
If you are interested in this, stay tuned to our socials on LinkedIn. I’m going to be posting some videos and some content for my attendance of the show. And if you want to participate in next year’s Startup challenge, make sure you head over to MEMA and check out the Tech Startup Challenge.
It is going to be awesome. Thank you for listening and watching our program. We really appreciate your ongoing support. If you haven’t already, head over to heavydutypartsreport.com. Hit the follow button and sign up to our weekly email. You get one email a week, no spam, just one email a week tells you all of our new content.
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