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Continental shines a light on mine safety with NightViu series

Posted on 22 Jun 2022

Continental is adding another yet another new innovation to its extensive product range for commercial and special vehicles in the off-highway sector with the NightViu lighting series.

This solution is being developed especially for applications in the construction machinery and mining sectors.

With perfectly uniform illumination at automotive level, the series provides much better visibility in the work area, improving safety and efficiency on sites, the company says.

The unique modular housing concept has a minimum level of component complexity and offers users more than enough flexibility to cover a wide range of lighting requirements, according to Continental. The new system also boasts highly increased lighting efficiency when compared with many systems previously available on the market.

Georg Kliewer, Head of Special Vehicles in Continental’s Automotive Aftermarket business segment, said: “Looking at the construction sector in its entirety and contributing to greater safety on the construction site with our solutions is an important goal for Continental. That’s why we’re delighted that our NightViu work lights significantly improve visibility in poorly lit, construction site scenarios.”

The work lights in the NightViu series feature an efficient reflector lens design with six powerful LEDs and four cover lenses. Offering approximately 100 lumens per watt, these LED lights have an enhanced light efficiency level compared with other LEDs for construction and mining machinery – so sensitive vehicle electronics are protected and short circuits caused by excessive power consumption are prevented.

Luminous flux options range from 1,500 and 2,500 to 3,500 lumens, while the light beams cover a wide variety of lighting scenarios for the work area around the vehicle, from close-range to far-field illumination. These beams have different lighting patterns, ranging from highly focused spotlight illumination to floodlighting and from a wide to an extremely wide illumination field.

“In Ultra-Wide mode, we still achieve a light intensity of one lux at a distance of 90 m, and that’s absolutely unique,” Chris Kosmala, who is responsible for lighting system development at Continental, said. Overall, this increases the brightness in the corners and sides or at the end of the illuminated area away from the spotlights.

Continental has also designed a unique housing concept that enables the three different luminous flux options and the four different light patterns to be freely combined without needing more than one housing design.

“In this way, the complexity of the NightViu series is kept in check, but we can still meet every conceivable requirement of our customers,” Kosmala said.

The modular approach also allows different light cones to be combined, reducing the number of lights required but still ensuring a highly uniform illumination and the avoidance of shadows, according to Continental.

The aluminum housings are designed for hard off-highway use and are protected against water and dust in compliance with the IP6K8 standard. The lights also withstand temperatures between -40°C and +90°C and pass vibration tests of up to 12 g RMS – verified through stringent tests in Continental’s certified quality laboratory.

The lights’ flexible installation system for standard or heavy-duty mounting also enables retrofitting in many different positions on vehicles, the company said.

The NightViu Premium work lights will be available in the second half of 2022.