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As a seasonal product, lighting towers usually appear in the fleet of rental companies. So for a lighthouse manufacturer like Trime, leasing is essential. Chief Executive Ray Caulfield said that in the UK, Trime's main market, nearly 90% of its sales go to leasing companies.
Ray Caulfield, CEO of Trime
He added that in the rest of Europe and the United States, about 60% of income comes from rent, while in Australia, the ratio is 50/50.
Caulfield is very familiar with the leasing industry; "I have been working in the leasing industry. For 13 years, I have been running a company called Errut, which provides concrete equipment for the leasing industry," he said.
After selling the company to Belle, Caulfield spent 20 years doing export work for Tower Light before becoming part of the American company Generac. Soon after, Caulfield left and founded Trime with Andrea Fontanella, the current director and general manager of the company.
It started with the launch of X-Eco in 2016-now Trime's largest seller-since then, Trime has been focusing on providing environmentally friendly products, and Caulfield has seen the industry's growing demand for environmentally friendly products. "Everything we do is good for the environment," he said.
According to Caulfield, compared to the standard VT1 models on the UK market, X-Eco's emissions have been reduced by 72% and fuel usage has been reduced by 72%.
X-Eco is Trime’s first lighting tower, launched in 2016
Since then, the company launched X-Hybrid in 2017, which combines diesel engines and batteries; in 2018, X-Solar Hybrid, equipped with diesel engines, batteries and solar panels; and this year’s X-Solar, which only uses Batteries and solar panels.
In the UK, for example, Caulfield said, cities are increasingly requiring machines to be electric so that they do not generate emissions on site.
"In terms of leasing," he said, "obviously, compared to renting X-Eco, you have to pay more for renting solar machines, and sometimes contractors won't pay for it. But they are forced by local authorities." So it seems to be driven by legislation.
He added that of the approximately 22,000 lighthouses on the UK market, approximately half are still VT1 types; “Therefore, there is still room for growth in the market because these machines must be replaced... so it’s a challenge for us and other lighthouse manufacturers. It has great potential in business terms."
Regarding the Covid-19 pandemic, Caulfield said that the UK experiences an economic recession approximately every 10 years, so he and his team have experience in dealing with rental companies temporarily halting the purchase of new equipment.
"During a recession, you usually start looking for more unaffected overseas markets... But of course, this particular recession is global," Caulfield said.
Therefore, although Trime still adopts a strategy of focusing on overseas—in fact, the U.S. market is a good choice for Trime—but Caulfield said, “We are looking for new products and new market areas—not necessarily a beacon. ." Although, he couldn't be more specific.
Caulfield also emphasized the importance of small leasing companies; "The one-person, one-depot business is very important to us, so our network has been well expanded to smaller leasing companies."
Caulfied estimates that there are approximately 2,000 such companies in the UK, and he said Trime is building this business.
Sunbelt Rentals in the United Kingdom (which had been A-Plant until its parent company Ashtead was renamed in early May) added a new solar lighting tower worth 400,000 pounds from Prolectric to its rental fleet earlier this year.
They were purchased by the company's railway business to support Network Rail's CP6 goal of reducing non-traction energy consumption by nearly 20% and carbon emissions by 25%.
Paul Price, Sunbelt Rentals Railway Director, said: "We have made an initial investment of 25 units and plan to purchase more inventory later this year. We expect these solar lighting towers will soon become an important product in our fleet."
ProLight does not require fuel, and its digital built-in remote control function allows operators to change settings remotely, storing critical data that can be monitored or evaluated over time.
It has a trailer-mounted unit with heavy-duty deep-cycle batteries, an array of three or four 330W solar panels, a 7.5m telescopic mast and four LED lights, which can cover 550 at a minimum level of 20 lux Square meter area and 10,000 to 40,000 lumens output.
The lighting tower will be used for railway renewal sites, including passages, welfare cabins, parking lots and track work areas.
Price said: "There is no doubt that these new technologies will completely change the rules of the game in our industry, and we need to continue to work hard to make the use of such technologies the norm.
"The environmental impact of running diesel tower lights overnight on large venues is no longer sustainable."
He added that in addition to carbon emissions, it is important to reduce air and noise pollution from neighbors on the line.
MHM’s ST-9 is powered by a lithium iron phosphate battery charged by solar panels
"In recent years, there has been an increase in demand for sustainable, low-carbon production tower lighting," Price said, "and Sunbelt is pleased to provide the largest fleet in the country."
The UK-based MHM factory recently launched three new lighting towers, all built in Italy.
The company stated that sustainability and the use of renewable energy are top priorities on its agenda. Therefore, two of the new products are solar powered.
X-Street models have an integrated lithium iron phosphate battery, which is charged by the device’s solar panels, which can operate in most weather conditions. The benefits of this setting are not limited to no carbon emissions, but also include the silence of the machine.
The lighting tower has a 50W LED light mounted on a five-section manual vertical tower. It is equipped with an automatic motion sensor. When it detects no movement, it will dim the light and increase the light intensity when movement occurs again.
MHM stated that a standard truck can carry 40 units.
Another new diesel-free lighting tower from MHM is the ST-9, which is also powered by a lithium iron phosphate battery charged by solar panels.
Leasing companies can choose to upgrade to vandal-proof, shatter-proof, and flexible solar panels to improve safety.
ST-9 is installed on a road trailer and has a 9m vertical mast and four LED lights.
For leasing companies that are still choosing diesel-powered lighting towers, MHM has developed a new DT-9 model, which is also suitable for road trailers.
The device has a 9m hydraulically operated vertical mast and four lamp heads, each with eight LED lights. According to MHM, the eight lights are designed to rotate in different directions to provide greater and more uniform light spread.
To facilitate maintenance, DT-9 is equipped with a large gull-wing door and "extra large" fuel tank, which can extend the operating time.
Significant changes have taken place in the MHM Group recently. The group is divided into three divisions: MHM New Equipment Sales Department, MHM Old Equipment Sales Department and MHM Re-leasing Department.
Mat Llewellyn, managing director of the group, said: "We created these departments to provide a clear identification for each of our services so that any leasing company that wishes to purchase or re-rent our equipment can quickly determine which option is relevant to them. "
Almand's Night-Lite GR series is described by the company as "workhorses on the job site"
The MHM Rehire division only employs recognized leasing companies, not end users.
Allmand's new lighting tower is described by the US-based company as a compact "workhorse on the construction site."
The Night-Lite GR series is powered by an air-cooled Yanmar diesel engine, which is said to be light in weight and low in maintenance costs. It can handle temperatures as low as -21˚C or as high as 40˚C.
The lighting tower is also equipped with a 170-liter fuel tank and four LED lamps with a total lumens of 195,592.
A 48-foot truck can transport 20 pieces of equipment, and Allmand claims that based on five years of service and industry residual value, the total cost of ownership per tower has increased by 12% compared to leading competitors.
At the Canadian border, the one-piece Beacon LED light tower from the manufacturer Lind Equipment recently won the Expert Choice Most Innovative Product Award at the Concrete World Exhibition.
The integrated Beacon LED light tower reduces the need to own three independent lighting assets by combining three independent lighting assets into a compact unit.
All-In-One has the ability to supply power from generators and electricity, and can be used as a diffuse and glare-free lighting tower.
Lind Equipment's integrated lighthouse LED lighthouse is used on construction sites
This of course means that the device can be rented out for a range of applications, which has obvious benefits for equipment utilization. The rental company does not need to own generator lighting towers, small indoor electric towers and balloon lights, but can have a unit to meet all these needs throughout the year.
Lind Equipment describes it as a heavy-duty, full-brightness lighting tower, rather than a diffuse, glare-free lighting tower. In fact, the adjustable and movable non-glare diffuser frame of the device can provide a mixture of diffused light and full brightness light at the same time.
Sean Vandoorselear, CEO of Lind Equipment, said: "The Beacon LED lighthouse series has won an amazing seven awards in just a few years-and we are just getting started."
Atlas Copco’s six HiLight V5+ lighting towers are being used in the Iscaycruz mine in Peru
Peruvian mining company JRC recently purchased six HiLight V5+ lighting towers from Atlas Copco to illuminate the Iscaycruz mine in Peru, which is located between 4,700 and 5,000 meters above sea level.
Julio Tello, JRC equipment manager, said: “It is very difficult to survive in this area, both in terms of personnel and equipment: we have worked with another manufacturer’s lighthouse for some time, but it was unsuccessful. The three-cylinder engine shut down after two hours of work. The lights are easily broken."
Due to the impact on the night shift, this resulted in heavy losses for JRC. Therefore, the company tested one of Atlas Copco's HiLight V5+ lighting towers on site and subsequently purchased six.
According to Atlas Copco, the HiLight V5+ model is designed for harsh conditions. Its standard configuration is a HardHat canopy, which protects internal components, and has a directional optical lens to maximize the actual light coverage while minimizing dark spots.
Each lighthouse has four LED floodlights, each projecting 350W of light. Therefore, HiLight H5+ can illuminate an area of up to 5,000 square meters, providing an average brightness of 20 lux.
Atlas Copco said that the lux level of LED lights will not decrease, and the life expectancy of the lights themselves exceeds 50,000 hours.
In addition, the HiLight H5+ lighting tower consumes less than 0.5 liters of fuel per hour and can provide 260 hours of refueling intervals.
"The acquisition of Atlas Copco's HiLight V5+ beacon with a two-cylinder engine changed our overall situation," Tello said. "This is a radical solution. So far, JRC's expertise has mainly been underground mining projects. However, Iscaycruz's operations have shown that we are very suitable for open-pit operations. This is why we are preparing seven mining projects in Peru and one in Mexico. The HiLight V5+ lighthouse is helping us to run such projects perfectly".
Nelson Batistucci, Atlas Copco's Andean Business Line Manager, said: "In order to provide our customers with the right solutions, we need to understand their needs well. In this case, considering working at extreme altitudes The challenge, because it is common to many of our mining customers in Peru, which helped us choose the right lighthouse for JRC."
Trime's new X-Mine Monster lighthouse
Trime's "monster" lighthouse
Italian manufacturer Trime has launched a new type of lighting tower aimed at the mining industry.
The world-available Trime X-Mine Monster is a lighting tower fixed on a wide-track chassis to make it stable in all terrains.
The device has a dynamic leveling system that can automatically tilt the mast when it is tilted, so that the tower remains vertical and the lamps are stable.
Thirty multi-directional adjustable 150W energy-saving LED lights are mounted on a 10m hydraulic folding mast, rotating at 240°. Therefore, X-Mine Monster can illuminate an area of up to 24,500 square meters.
It is said that the new lighting tower is easy to operate and easy to operate.
Remote control is carried out through the joystick operation console that supports Wi-Fi, and the maximum driving speed is 2.2 km/h.
For safety reasons, ground front lights are installed. The device has a 150-liter fuel tank and can run continuously for 94 hours. The 9kVA auxiliary power supply can also be used under 48V DC.
Trime designed and manufactured X-Mine Monster at the request of an Australian open-pit mining contractor who works 24 hours a day.
The contractor found that the traditional wheeled lighting tower was unstable and insufficiently illuminated. It turns out that they are also difficult to transport around the site.
Therefore, X-Mine Monster aims to illuminate areas that are difficult to access with traditional vertical lighting towers and illuminate the working areas above and below the excavator arms.
Matteo Tagliani, Sales Director of Trime, said: “When we receive special requests for customized machinery, we are always very open. “We will always listen to personal requirements carefully and strive to achieve satisfactory results for both parties. "