Another Light Thread.. Sorry

[Weekender41]

It's the quality of the light they put out.
The color temperature of the LED chips virtually all light manufacturers seem bent on using have exceptionally poor output spectrums (very heavy in the blue region, which our eyes do not process well).

As Bill mentioned, this creates glare in the foreground and the light simply peters out at any distance, doesn't matter what the lens/reflector pattern is.

If you want any kind of distance, stick with incandescent (halogen) or HID lamps (<4500°K).

Im looking now more at the rallye 4000 series halogen or the red ring HID ones. I like that large housing and easy to change bulbs or fix side to the hellas.

 

[Hilldweller]

I usually only suggest this to hardcore light freaks, but you you could source a PAR 56 bucket and stick in an H4 Hella/Cibie/Koito with some scary-bright Narva bulbs: http://store.candlepower.com/48nahiwamola2.html
My buddy Joel did this on his Jeep. Relayed them so that the aux light's lowbeam only could come on with the Jeeps lowbeam and the aux highbeam with the Jeep's highbeam.
Doesn't cost much at all, is a fun project for a light geek, and is very effective.

The Hella H4 ECE-compliant lamp is notorious for having a lowbeam that's a little too low and a highbeam that's a little too high. Sounds like perfect aux lighting to me....

 

[Tigglebitties]

Another suggestion would be to get some used Hella halogen light housings and go to the retrofit source and pick up a good HID retrofit kit with an external ballast. That'll give you the cheapest, brightest setup. I know many race teams that do that for their trucks. That allows you to get everything setup to your liking and allows you to troll through the for sale threads and Craigslist for a good deal too

 

[Tigglebitties]

http://www.theretrofitsource.com/ referenced above.


Also, if you buy the China made "red ring" hid's
Don't pay more than a hundred bucks each.
They're all the exact same item, none are perfect and many sit on distributor's shelves for long enough to get killer deals.
Outlaw LED had a couple left a while back- not listed on his website either- I just called and asked and he gave a burning deal to get rid of them.
Outlaw also gives ridiculous deals on LED bars and acc by the way... Good dude to work with.

 

[Joanne]

Im looking now more at the rallye 4000 series halogen or the red ring HID ones. I like that large housing and easy to change bulbs or fix side to the hellas.

I did a bit of research and ultimately followed Hilldweller's advice on the Hellas. Yeah, old technology but a pretty good price/performance tradeoff. I don't need the best, I just need a well built reliable light. Once I got them adjusted the way I like them, they really light up the desert. It doesn't hurt that they look pretty good either.

Joanne

 

[crawler#976]

KC Hilite #851 HID is my choice. Cost is reasonable at under 290 a pair. The pattern is a wide flat beam that, IMO, offers better distance than LED, yet provides plenty of fore ground light. I use an on/off/on switch to a relay so they can be dimmed with the highbeams or on by themselves.

I volunteer for BITD, so I see a wide variety of lights in use. Our vantage point at the Parker 425 allows us to see vehicles up to nearly 20 away. The LED's throw a ball of light, the HID's look like a long cone - some rigs look like a mobile ball park light tower...

Sent via gigawatt laser...