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Heavy-Duty versus Industrial; what it means to us.

You'll see in the descriptions of our products that we use the terms "Heavy-Duty" and "Industrial" often. We're not the only ones that use these terms of course, but what do they really mean, and do these words mean the same to everyone? Sadly, there is no defined, commonly agreed-upon criteria that allows one product to be called Heavy-Duty and another to be called Industrial. In this post, we'll describe what we at Lind Equipment mean by these terms and how that can help you to buy more intelligently. We'll also give you examples from real customers who have chosen to go one way or another in their selection and how it helped them save money and work confidently.

Heavy-Duty: For a light to be considered "Heavy-Duty" at Lind, it needs to be able to take a higher level of physical abuse than would be expected at a job site. In other words, it needs to be able to go above and beyond what would be considered 'getting the job done.' For us, this means that the light can be dropped from chest height and stood on by a real person (>170lbs) and then emerge from that abuse in working condition without breakage. You can see from this video an example of some of the abuse that our heavy-duty lights will sustain. Of course, you wouldn't normally expect that a light would be treated this way, but that is precisely why a light that survives this abuse warrants a "Heavy-Duty" label from us. We've seen lights treated this way in the past, and know that there is nothing more frustrating than constantly having to buy replacement lights and interrupting the job at hand. One thing to keep in mind with heavy-duty lights is that they are not necessarily explosion-proof or intrinsically safe. For those applications, you need a specially designed light. See our primer on this if you have any questions.

Of course, one of the first questions when considering a heavy-duty product that comes to mind is "But don't I pay a lot more for heavy-duty?" From our viewpoint, that answer is not always 'yes.' It depends on how tough your environment is and how rough your workers are on their equipment. Often buying heavy-duty lights can reduce your overall expenditure through longer-lasting life and removing the need for constant replacements. Our of our customers was using a more commercial grade incandescent work light for inspection work on finished products they were making at their factory. The light would constantly break from being dropped by the workers as they were maneuvering around the product. A switch to our heavy-duty LED work lights allowed them to continue to have very bright light shined on the inspection areas, but also to save money by not having to buy replacement lights or bulbs on a regular basis.

Industrial:
For us, an Industrial duty light is one that is designed to meet the regular day-to-day abuse that comes from being on a job site. So, while we wouldn't recommend standing on these lights or dropping them from head-height onto concrete, our Industrial lights will certainly be tough enough for most environments. Often, we'll achieve this not only through durable design, but also through the addition of intelligent features that make the light easier to work with or less prone to damage. For example, many of our industrial work lights come with magnet mounts to allow workers to secure them out of the way when not in use, and in a safe location that casts uninterrupted light onto the work when in use.

An example comes from an oil refinery in Western Canada that was building an addition in a non-hazardous location. The workers had been using the cheap s-frame floor-sitting quartz halogen floodlights that can be found in many retail outlets. They were going through these very quickly and breaking them via kicking them inadvertently, or damaging them when loading them into trucks or storage areas. This company, through one of our distributors, starting purchasing our BD-MAG floodlights, which have an innovative magnet mounting system to keep the lights out of the way. And their durable construction allowed for moderately rough treatment without breakage. While the company paid more for our BD-MAG lights than they were paying unit for unit, our lights lasted much longer than the cheap versions, making the overall expenditure less. Lind's Industrial lights are often a reliable, economical choice for tough workplaces.

If you have any questions, or want to learn more about any of our products, contact us today.

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