Methods and systems for controlling the activation of agricultural vehicle lighting

Abstract

An agricultural vehicle lighting system includes a plurality of HID lamps and a lighting controller. The HID lamps are configured to be mounted to the agricultural vehicle and powered by an existing electrical circuit of the agricultural vehicle. The lighting controller controls activation of the lamps and is configured to initially activate a first set of the lamps and to subsequently activate a second set of the lamps once it determines that the electrical circuit has the capacity to safely handle both the first and second sets of the lamps. The lighting controller may determine that the electrical circuit has sufficient capacity by determining when current drawn from the first set of the lamps drops below a threshold current level. Alternatively, the lighting controller may determine that the electrical circuit has sufficient capacity by delaying activation of the second set of the lamps for a time period corresponding to a current decay characteristic of the lamps.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.