Trail lights
- Thread starter MOAK
- Start date
flyingwil
Supporting Sponsor - Sierra Expeditions
It depends on where you are referring to by up top. For the front light hoop I personally prefer the spot/flood combo. Up top, if doing windshield mounts or roof light mounts, you need to keep in mind the issues of hood glare and windscreen glare. Most of the rack lights I recommend are normally a spot, but again it depends on the driver and usage. If more than 2 lights are going uptop I normally recommend spots in the middle and floods on the outside.
MOAK
Adventurer
Thanks,, thats what I have concluded as well. Before we installed the hoop out front, we had two spotters in the center and two floods on the outboard of the top rack, the glare coming off the hood from the floods was nearly unbearable. My seat of the pants intuition said put the floods up front, and the spotters up on the roof rack, but, I always seek advise from more experienced overlanders.. Thanks
crawler#976
Expedition Leader
We're using two - and it's more than enough light. They are the KC PolyMax #851 HID Driving beam. Broad flat beam, yet it still has plenty of distance coverage.
88Xj
Banned
I would personally do a big led bar on the roof and 2 HID driving or Euro beams on the bumper. The LED will offer much much more light up to around 300ft or so. The HIDs on the bumper in spot or Euro/driving will light up even further so you get some more distance! Alot of people like doing it this way so you get the distance from the HID's but light up everything close from 0-300ft with the LED.
To do it cheap you can look at leds, I offer a 40" for 550. And then theres the Kragen HID's in a 55W version which cost around 90 each & are 7" with internal ballast. Similar size to the KC's posted above!
My advice is go floods or combo with every light. A spot light is only good if it is directly pointed at what you want to see.
I have two lightforce 170strykers with combo lenses that work great. I also have two kc spots on winshield mounts (jeep) that are pretty useless due to the small area they cover. My jeep is yellow and I was worried about the reflection and covering all the distances. In real use floods are the way to go trail or country road use. I want to know what is around me not what is in a very small spot hundreds of yard away.
The only way a rigid mounted spot is usefulness is center mount going down the road and that is illegal. Also light bounces off your hood no matter what pattern beam. I have my spots adjusted as to light up the ditches on either side of the road, I live in the middle of nowhere Wyoming in deer country, unless I just happen to see them in the pencil beam they are pretty much useless.
I have two lightforce 170strykers with combo lenses that work great. I also have two kc spots on winshield mounts (jeep) that are pretty useless due to the small area they cover. My jeep is yellow and I was worried about the reflection and covering all the distances. In real use floods are the way to go trail or country road use. I want to know what is around me not what is in a very small spot hundreds of yard away.
The only way a rigid mounted spot is usefulness is center mount going down the road and that is illegal. Also light bounces off your hood no matter what pattern beam. I have my spots adjusted as to light up the ditches on either side of the road, I live in the middle of nowhere Wyoming in deer country, unless I just happen to see them in the pencil beam they are pretty much useless.
88Xj
Banned
A true spot in my mind is also useless. I prefer to buy Euro or driving pattern which is still far distance like a spot, but much wider than 1 as well..so its the best of both worlds.
RubiconGeoff
Adventurer
In addition to upgraded H4 headlights, I have a pair of Warn W350F fog lights that provide a nice broad spread to light the sides of the trail. I have some PIAA 510 long-range lights but they're focused too narrow for trail use - they're simply to supplement the high beams on high-speed backcountry highways.
For actual nighttime rockcrawling usage (which happens more often than not, because by the time I get off work on a Friday night and get up to the mountains to find my campsite it's pitch black out) I needed better flood lighting. I hate the look of a vehicle covered in a ridiculous number of lights though, so I picked up four of the smallest, brightest flood lights I could find: Rigid SRM2 with the diffused lens. I have one pair mounted on windshield light brackets at the base of my windshield, and I'm fabbing up a tailgate-mounted bracket to put the other pair in back. With each light angled outward, I'll have a full 360° spread of light available, including down at the ground just beneath the doors so I can keep an eye on tire placement in the dark. With each light switched individually, they'll also provide terrific campsite illumination without disturbing other campers. And being LED, I can run them all night if necessary, and never worry about killing my battery.
For actual nighttime rockcrawling usage (which happens more often than not, because by the time I get off work on a Friday night and get up to the mountains to find my campsite it's pitch black out) I needed better flood lighting. I hate the look of a vehicle covered in a ridiculous number of lights though, so I picked up four of the smallest, brightest flood lights I could find: Rigid SRM2 with the diffused lens. I have one pair mounted on windshield light brackets at the base of my windshield, and I'm fabbing up a tailgate-mounted bracket to put the other pair in back. With each light angled outward, I'll have a full 360° spread of light available, including down at the ground just beneath the doors so I can keep an eye on tire placement in the dark. With each light switched individually, they'll also provide terrific campsite illumination without disturbing other campers. And being LED, I can run them all night if necessary, and never worry about killing my battery.