LED light bars

[OtisBlkR1]

So I had a 12 inch LED light bar that I gave around $60 for on Amazon, another $18 for the harness, It was amazing and truly lit up the trail for only being 12 inches. With my recent purchase of my new UTV I purchased a 20 inch LED light bar for around the same price on Amazon and for pete's sake its like turning on the Sun.. This technology is amazing.. I no longer need the 4 off road lights in a cage on a roof.. I removed 4 100w lights and this 20Inch LED bar put them all combined together to shame.. I can only imagine what the 52 inch bars and what they do..

So I took my newfound amazement to the department store as my spotlight needed replaced, I bought a 550 lumen guide series single LED flashlight.. Unbelieveable.. although not quite as far reaching as my 10 million candlepower spotlight, it still exceptionally bright.. Im amazed.

So now I see a few on here talking about replacing factory halogen bulbs with LED'S ? this is very, very tempting. are there any reports of error codes from the cars computer ? any issues with glare ?

Otis.

 

[Neely97]

I have watched some videos on the led off road lights and they are truly amazing, and with much less draw on the alternator .

 

[HerrStig]

I think a LED headlamp bulb ought to go in a lens/reflector designed for it. It's not a point source like a filament.

 

[wrcsixeight]

LED bulbs in incandescent housings are a bad idea in on road use. The Glare to anybody on the wrong side of the light, no matter how the light is aimed, is horrid, despite the opinions of those who have done so and seek reassurance that their ideas are superior.

I have some inexpensive 6 LED spotlights for offroad use, and they are impressively bright, but also freaking obnoxious to look at even when well off to the sides of the vehicle, anybody who drives at me with their high beams on, or with obnoxious HIDs in incandescent housings, will receive their considerable wrath.

They only draw one amp each and are basically brighter than my sealed beam 6054's getting 14.5 volts on high beam, though the LEDs focus is narrower.

If your LED lightbar was assembled anything like mine was, take it apart and use some Silicone grease on the O rings and end caps and retighten evenly. Mine would have been a sieve if not inspected closely and massaged after purchase as some bolts were not fully seated, yet were extremely tight due to the dry assembly.

There is a reason they are so cheap, but the design itself is not bad, it just needs a little extra loving to become truly water tight.

 

[OtisBlkR1]

My light bar is on my UTV, so its only off road use. I read the reviews and tightened up the bits and pieces before install. Luckily for me my UTV sits in the garage and most of the water it see's is either a creek crossing or me washing it after use. I didn't have any issues with my first 12 inch light bar. (however thanks for the tips)

 

[MrHorspwer]

If you're after actual performance and not a specific "look", you will be sorely disappointed installing a LED replacement in a housing designed for an incandescent bulb.

An LED light bar is one thing. It is designed to act as a flood lamp. There's minimal beam shaping or focusing. It just pours a lot of light out in front of the vehicle, which is great for a trail or general lighting.

Think of a composite or projector lamp as a pair of glasses. My glasses help me see very well. But if I give my glasses to you, they probably won't help you much. We *might* have a similar prescription and they *might* help a bit, but it's more likely that they'll just make your vision worse.

That's like putting a generic LED replacement bulb into a housing designed for a single point incandescent bulb. The beam pattern and light focusing are dependent on the bulb and the reflector/lens working together. That's how they were designed and engineered... just like the lenses in a pair of glasses are designed for a very specific pair of eyes.

Manufacturers *try* to replicate incandescent bulb performance with an LED array. It doesn't work. It will certainly perform poorer in a general lighting sense for the driver and also has a high likelihood of increasing discomfort for other motorists.

 

[OtisBlkR1]

No sir, I could care less about looks. The HID system is coming out of my car, and im looking at other options. The factory H11 bulbs that I took out were just horrable, dull, dim, in the factory projector housing unit. Ive put up a post about what was the best brightest halogen bulb here on BITOG. I don't want to replace bulbs every 3-6 months, but there has to be something better than factory and not replacing bulbs so quickly.

 

[MrHorspwer]

If it were me, I'd convert the H11 to H9 and use Philips Xteme Vision in H7.

I've used the Xtreme Vision (and the Xtreme Power before that) and found them to have acceptable bulb life, especially in a limited use high-beam application.