Off-Road Lighting Types

Trekkindave

Trekkindave

New member
Hi Everyone,

I am starting to gather some information to begine building up my Wrangker JKU for light adventure use. I wouldnt exactly call it expedition worthy, but Im going to build it to my specifications for what I need.

My specific question for this thread is:

Can someone explain the difference between off road lighting options (fog/driving) with examples of light spread patterns. Also if possible, can you explain the benefit to mounting on the front grill guard vs mounting on the windshield or overhead rack?

I am adding a front end guard (keeping stock bumper and stock headlights) and have the space to either add two lights on the guard. I was considering adding a 20-24 inch LED bar on the front, but Im not sure what the type/spread of those bars is. My vehicle is typically a daily driver, and I commute to work 35-50 miles one way depending on the work site. I am labelled an "Essential Employee" by my Job type and can not call in sick to to weather or road conditions. I do occasionally off road on the beach for fishing and relaxation.

Opinions welcome, as well as fact based on experience with lighting.
 
C

chadlanc

Adventurer
We have the Rigid 60 inch bar on our Unimog (which is for sale) and its amazing. It's like turning on the sun its so bright. The combo version gives you distance and spread. It's also super easy to hook up.
 
Buliwyf

Buliwyf

Viking with a Hammer
Hood mounted lights are best used as flood lights angled out to light sharp turns. Pointing them forward tends to illuminate my hood too much and screws up my night vision. (school buses have their hoods painted flat black for a reason) Bumper mounted lights are the best place for your really powerful lights. Roof or headache rack mounted lights are terrible for most uses. They hide potholes in the road that are usually shadowed and grab tree branches. Special care and attention is needed for roof mounted lights to get the angle and color needed for desert racing.
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Flood lights or diffuser lens' are short range and light up a wide pattern close up. LED bars are also excellent at lighting up a wide area, but no range. Best for rockcrawling and tight woods. Realisticly, I need flood lights, not powerful distance lights. But they are a nice novelty for deer.
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Spot lights are a pencil beam with long range. Driving lights are usually just a second set of headlights mounted on the bumper that do little or nothing. An aftermarket driving light pattern would be halfway between spot and flood, like normal headlights just brighter.
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I recommend FYRLYTE adjustable lights and Lightforce lights. The FYRLYTES are pricier than I need, but offer insane output and a good flood adjustment. I like to have one flood on the right and my pencil on the left.
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I never really get any use out of extra lights until it stops snowing. Even rain can limit them. But it's nice having the option if you can use them. I avoid HID's because I frequently need to turn my lights on and off. I have them powered off a relay that gets switched by my highbeams. I just have a switch on my dash that turns off te option lights completely. I need to shut them down on the street to make sure there isn't any oncoming cars coming over the hill. You can't see them "glow" if your lights are too bright.
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I'm thinking about replacing my beaters with FYRLYTES, but $300 a piece.........that buys some serious truck upgrades. (like a Detroit for my front axle)
 
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Trekkindave

Trekkindave

New member
Thanks for the tip on the candlepower forum. I've added it to my reading list to browse around over there and get some information. Also, thank you for the honest opinion and the straight forward description of light types. Ive been web searching my tail off trying to find the information i was looking for.

Since posting Ive found h13 to h4 conversions for the JKU and think I may go that route, plus upgrade the bulbs in the factory fog lights while I am at it. Is there any benefit to changing the factory lights to yellow?

And to recap.... the LED bars are a good flood option.. so slower speed driving in conditions where i need to see ALOT close to the vehicle or light up a camping spot?
 
Hilldweller

Hilldweller

SE Expedition Society
Trekkindave said:
Thanks for the tip on the candlepower forum. I've added it to my reading list to browse around over there and get some information. Also, thank you for the honest opinion and the straight forward description of light types. Ive been web searching my tail off trying to find the information i was looking for.

Since posting Ive found h13 to h4 conversions for the JKU and think I may go that route, plus upgrade the bulbs in the factory fog lights while I am at it. Is there any benefit to changing the factory lights to yellow?

And to recap.... the LED bars are a good flood option.. so slower speed driving in conditions where i need to see ALOT close to the vehicle or light up a camping spot?
Click to expand...
H4 lights, even the best of them with the best bulbs, are limited by their design.
The single best headlight solution for the JK right now is the 90mm Hella bi-xenon kit that Rallylights dot com sells. Their H9 90mm Hella projector is the second best. ---- that's for actual performance, real world, daily-driver that sees some interstate.

For somebody that beats a JK without mercy, I like the Trucklite Phase 7 LED headlights. They provide adequate improvement over stock. The main reason I like them is that you never have to change a bulb again and they consume VERY little power. If you beat your Jeep, that's a good thing eventually.
JW Speaker makes a good LED headlight too but it costs a bit more. The photometry is better than Trucklite but it consumes more juice.
Peterson also makes an LED headlight but I haven't seen them in action yet; they have me curious...
Magwerks has one in development that should be very interesting as well but that's still on the horizon.

For H4 conversions, it's Cibie or nothing. Get them from Daniel Stern; it he's out of town you can get them from Coventry West but you'll have to source a harness. For bulbs you want the 70/65 Rallye or Phillips Xtreme Power; everything else is pretty much junk.

Stay away from yellow bulbs; there aren't any good ones. If you set up a dedicated foglight, a real foglight to use in fog, you might want to find one with a lens that's tinted to selective yellow. But you don't really need that...
Look at Hella Micro DE or their very nice 90mm foglight. Cibie also makes great foglights.
But I don't really think you'll need foglights.

Driving lights need a wide beam that doesn't have too much upward or downward wash. I like the Hella Rallye 4000 with a 100 watt bulb. Easy to source, not too pricey, easy to replace the bulb. Rig them to only come on with highbeams.

Trail lights. Touchy subject.
But this is where I like HID or LED. HID has much much more light; LED is more rugged. Dealer's choice but HID can be had for much less money so I vote HID. Look at the Optilux 4".
Northern Tool has a few LED floodlights that work well enough too.

I wouldn't waste my time or money on most of the big name big pricetag items. Are you ever going to drive a Jeep fast enough to use a Fyrlyt? No you're not. They're not legal on the road and that's the only place that I can see them being any value to a driver.
And Lightforce just makes so many stupid claims that I can't take them seriously. The only thing I like about them is that they're hard to break; I'd run them if I got them for free but that's it.
 
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MedicalCowboy

MedicalCowboy

Adventurer
I am currently running a 20 inch light bar and 2 hella rallye 4000 spot beams. The light bar is a combo beam so it has a rather good throw and illuminates to the sides as well. The Hellas are a pencil so it's a very narrow beam that reaches out beyond the LEDs. I highly recommend Rigid LEDs.
 
Hilldweller

Hilldweller

SE Expedition Society
The problem with LED lighting is that it looks brighter than it is. When people are subjected to acuity tests using LED lighting, they need more of it to perform at halogen light levels.


Quote from a DVN analysis of a technical paper presented in 2011 at the International Symposium on Automotive Lighting

Driving Vision News said:
"At higher luminance and adaptation level the LED lamps generate relatively greater subjective brightness impression. For the state-of-the-art high performance LED headlamps (low beam with 1,000 Lm on the road and 70 Lx/43,750 cd peak intensity), the perceived brightness is 20% better. For today's existing lower performing LED lamps (500 Lm in the beam and 35 Lx/21,875 cd peak intensity) the better brightness perception is only 10%. Detection distance is a different story: LED threshold detection appears to be significantly poorer than halogen. 30% more illumination is needed to detect objects inside or outside the light pattern at about 50 m distance."
Click to expand...

LED has its place but is still evolving.
 
T

telemike

SE Expedition Society
What would be a decent affordable set of lights to add to the front for use with low beams to give better daily driving performance legally on the road?
 
Hilldweller

Hilldweller

SE Expedition Society
Scoutn79

Scoutn79

Adventurer
FWIW I run fog lights and flood lights on my Scout. The floods are Procomp 5" round with 100W bulbs. The fog lights are a cheap AutoZone variety with 55w bulbs...definitely not enough power I need better ones as I found out last Elk season. The fogs are amber colored..this is for a reason. The white light of regular lights will reflect back into your eyes and make it hard to see but the amber light doesn't reflect and you can see MUCH better by running the fogs alone without the regular lights. We don't get very dense fog around here but we do get blizzards and that is where a amber/yellow color light shines (pun intended). This may not be legal BUT when it gets that bad I don't care. If someone tells you a fog light is white they are talking about flood lights, similar pattern (most times except for some) but different color.
I don't drive fast enough in the rough stuff to need driving or pencil beams but I do need to see up, down, right and left. They are all mounted on the bumper. The fogs wide to the side on the winch and the floods in the center above the winch.

You mileage may vary.

Darrell
 
SoCalMonty

SoCalMonty

Explorer
That's actually a common misconception...yellow/amber do not provide any benefit over white light in fog. As a matter of fact, producers of fog lamps have known this since at least 1938! Here's a good explanation:

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy99/phy99xx4.htm

...the important thing is the beam pattern and mounting height. Ideally, you want 18" or lower. I still prefer a yellow fog, but that's more to *BE* seen - white light and white-out conditions kind of blend together. The yellow does help you stand out a bit to other traffic.
 
SoCalMonty

SoCalMonty

Explorer
telemike said:
Ate floods different than fog?

Sent from my XT907 using Tapatalk 4
Click to expand...

Yes, if the lens/reflector is actually different. I've noticed some companies don't post beam pattern info, and/or use a generic beam pattern that's not really specific.

A fog pattern usually has a sharp cutoff on top. A flood will have spill all the way around, with no sharp cutoffs. Spot/pencil beams a narrower in focus, with more throw. It's hard to know exactly what you're getting sometimes, though, if they don't tell you details or post photos.
 
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