Barn Door for JK factory hardtops

[jscherb]

Take a look at the KC Highlights Flex, they are the first to brand them as far as I've seen.

These have similar specs and size as the Flex lights, but they're made by a different manufacturer. And they should be able to retail for half of the price of the Flex lights, or possibly even less (price was one of the reasons I liked them when I saw them at the SEMA Show ).

And these will have a number of unique Jeep-specific mounts, like the A-pillar mounts, and a number of other configuration options.

 

[GadgetPhreak]

These have similar specs and size as the Flex lights, but they're made by a different manufacturer. And they should be able to retail for half of the price of the Flex lights, or possibly even less (price was one of the reasons I liked them when I saw them at the SEMA Show ).

And these will have a number of unique Jeep-specific mounts, like the A-pillar mounts, and a number of other configuration options.

Awesome.


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[jscherb]

My friend "D" and I got together today to try some light locations on his Jeep. He's equipped his Jeep differently than mine, it's pretty cool (and towers over mine ):

His Gobi rack has four light mounting locations in the front, so we tried that first. The lights fit very well and are well protected by the top bar.

The lights with the silver bezels have a 10-degree beam spread and the black ones have a 20-degeee beam spread. Mixing them like this can provide an optimal light pattern, although some testing at night would have to be done to determine which lights to mount where, maybe the 10-degree ones should be in the center and the 20's on the sides instead of the opposite as we've done here. The bezels can all be the same color, these test units have different color bezels so we can quickly tell them apart.

 

[jscherb]

His Jeep has an "over the spare" rack on the back, so we tried a pair on some bolts on that rack. It's a great location for backup lights, also a great location for when he's towing his camping trailer - these lights will be good for opening and setting up the tent on top of his trailer.

In this shot he's angled them outwards, which will provide a wide area of light around each side of the trailer. Also in this photo, we put two lights up on the back edge of the Gobi rack:

A closer look at one of the lights on the back of the Gobi rack:

 

[jscherb]

He's got some rectangular LED lights he hasn't mounted yet, so we compared the size of the cubes to the size of these new lights. His lights seem to be unbranded - they have 6 LEDs which the best I can figure probably are 75-100 lumens each, so the total light output is maybe 450-600 lumens. The much smaller single-LED pods have an output of 1000 lumens.

Along with these lights he had gotten a pair of windshield light brackets, so I stuck one on my Jeep and put one of the lights on it. Being pretty small, this bracket is larger than needed to support this light, but it does work well.

Another good location for a backup light:

We gave some thought to how the lights might be mounted on the side rails of the Gobi rack for illuminating a camp site, I'll post on that shortly.

 

[Comanche Scott]

I was thinking about the lights on the hood/roofline/A pillars. One of the disadvantages to these locations is the glare that comes off the hood.
I wonder if the mount had a forward lip, that worked like a "cut-off", if that would eliminate/limit the hood glare.

Would be interesting to try with some cardboard. I don't know of a mount designed like this. But I haven't done much investigation. My favorite night lights are the stars, moon and campfire.

 

[jscherb]

I was thinking about the lights on the hood/roofline/A pillars. One of the disadvantages to these locations is the glare that comes off the hood.
I wonder if the mount had a forward lip, that worked like a "cut-off", if that would eliminate/limit the hood glare.

Would be interesting to try with some cardboard. I don't know of a mount designed like this. But I haven't done much investigation. My favorite night lights are the stars, moon and campfire.

I've been thinking about that too. I plan to do some night testing as soon as I make up some of the custom mounts. I'll definitely be watching for glare off the hood.

 

[rubicon91]

My favorite night lights are the stars, moon and campfire.

This is very true Comanche. I am interested in these lights not necessarily to light up the site and keep lit but more of a pull in at dark and be able to see backing up and unpacking in the dark. I actually had no desire to add any extra lighting to my Jeep however these are so small that a few in the back and maybe one for each side would be awesome. The whole thought on lighting up a campsite for me came from a trip I did this summer. We woke up on our last night at 4am and had to pack up in ankle deep water as the river had decided to rise unexpectedly. We were not directly on the river however the entire back side where we were at was wet. I will say it was a HUGE PITA packing at 4 am tired and with a flashlight. BTW I am "D" lol. Love when I get to hang out with Jeff and see everything he is working on. Keep up the great work my friend!!

 

[jscherb]

BTW I am "D" lol. Love when I get to hang out with Jeff and see everything he is working on. Keep up the great work my friend!!

Donny,
Always great to spend time with you - I enjoy our time and you always have good ideas to help me with my projects. Also glad to see you've lost your shyness and admitted your identity .

Decided to take a little mental health break before returning to the frigid north, took this photo today just below the Seven Mile Bridge in the Keys on the way to Key West.

I'll start back north tomorrow, but not until I've done some miles around Key West on my bike... it's hard to ride much this time of year at home.

 

[rubicon91]

Donny,
Always great to spend time with you - I enjoy our time and you always have good ideas to help me with my projects. Also glad to see you've lost your shyness and admitted your identity .

Decided to take a little mental health break before returning to the frigid north, took this photo today just below the Seven Mile Bridge in the Keys on the way to Key West.

I'll start back north tomorrow, but not until I've done some miles around Key West on my bike... it's hard to ride much this time of year at home.

Hahaha I knew you would make your way down there. Enjoy the riding today tomorrow it is supposed to rain. Safe travels home Jeff.

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[Jurfie]

You know, at first I thought "eh...these lights seem kinda cheesy". Personally, I'm not a fan of them put together in clusters or strips from an aesthetic perspective (though I do get the "form follows function" mentality), but individually used as you and Donny were trying them, I like them. Compact and bright, easy to tuck into a variety of locations, I can see adding a few to the rig.

Any nighttime shots?

 

[jscherb]

Donnie and I also thought about mounts to allow the lights to mount to the side of various racks to serve as illumination for camp sites. We tried them in various positions on the Gobi rack.

There are many different racks and places on them one might want to install camp lights, so designing only one or two custom mounts for racks probably won't serve all the applications. So here's what I'm thinking... there's an industry-standard mount called AMPs (http://www.mountguys.com/amps-pattern-mounts/) - it's basically a 30mm x 38mm rectangular bolt pattern, and it's used on all kinds of electronics like GPS's and other gear.

An adapter could be made to allow the light pod to bolt up to the AMPs standard, then there are hundreds of mounts available off the shelf that could be used. For example, here's a mount that attaches to a round tube like the side tubes of the Gobi rack. These could be used, plus a swivel arm which would allow the lights to be positioned exactly as needed for the campsite.

The ball mount on the left is an AMPs-compatible ball that would go on the light pod; the mount on the right is a basic mount that would accept the ball.

There are dozens of other mounts that accept that ball that could be used, here are a few examples. Some of these would work very well on the Gobi, and some would work well on larger bars - I passed a Jeep yesterday that had a rack with what appeared to be made of 2" tubing, some of these would fit that, and the one at the lower right would fit large roll bars and bull bars. In the upper left is a swivel arm, which would connect the light to these mounts, they come in a range of lengths.

There are lots more at RAM (http://www.rammount.com/components), on eBay and other places.

 

[jscherb]

You know, at first I thought "eh...these lights seem kinda cheesy". Personally, I'm not a fan of them put together in clusters or strips from an aesthetic perspective (though I do get the "form follows function" mentality), but individually used as you and Donny were trying them, I like them. Compact and bright, easy to tuck into a variety of locations, I can see adding a few to the rig.

Any nighttime shots?

So far I've only done this one quick night shot that I posted before. As soon as I get some of the mounts prototyped I'll do night shots with them to see that the illumination from various places looks like.

 

[AgentOrange76]

The lights are only 2.2" long and 1.7" high so they can fit in many small places, and they have mounting holes on the side and in the back, so they can be mounted in different ways.

It looks like the overhang of the fairlead in front of the bumper might be longer than the LED housing, so they probably would tuck nicely under there, although then they would be in front of the license plate.

Here's a crude photo-edit, I've put four of these lights on top of the fairlead, and two on each side of it...

This actually looks pretty doggone good. .....I wasn't really completely sold about these used for anything other than area lighting, but I kinda dig this. Thanks for drawing that up! Helps put the sizing in perspective, now I can stew over that and draw other options up in my head.....

Really liking what you and D have been working on, that looks great. And thats genius using the GPS mounts. Go pro mounts may also perform a similar function following that logic.

 

[jscherb]

This actually looks pretty doggone good. .....I wasn't really completely sold about these used for anything other than area lighting, but I kinda dig this. Thanks for drawing that up! Helps put the sizing in perspective, now I can stew over that and draw other options up in my head.....

Really liking what you and D have been working on, that looks great. And thats genius using the GPS mounts. Go pro mounts may also perform a similar function following that logic.

Ram makes a ball that goes into a GoPro mount, so if you're got GoPro mounts and wanted to use them for these lights you could use this: