Ideal light bar location

[eaneumann]

I'm looking to mount a light bar on either my front grill, same height as my headlights to clear my winch/bullbar, or my windshield frame. Currently I have two sets of Rigid LEDs on my windshield pillars. Spots facing forward and driving beams facing forward to the sides of the road. I'm mostly looking for usable light for expedition style driving. The Jeep is set up for daily driver/rock crawler/expedition. I more need the lights for long distance, fast paced travel on mountain backroads.

Price isn't really the issue, but I'd rather not buy a 50" Rigid for the roof if a 20" in the grill will give me more usable light. More worried about glare from the roof mount.

I appreciate your thoughts! I searched, but wasn't really able to find the information I was looking for. On the Jeep forums, it's all about overkill!

 

[drcoopster]

I'm wondering the same thing, except for a WK2. No bumper yet, but I think I'm going to go with the RRO brush bar setup to give me mounting options right in the front and center.

:lurk:

 

[kojackJKU]

I have the MBRP light bar, a set of HID retro'ed hella 500 driving lights and a set of hella 450 yellow fogs mounted under the 500s. works perfect for my location. for the GC, the RRO setup is perfect.

 

[Idahoan]

I've never been a fan of above windshield light bars or the windshield hinge lights. I think they make too much glare on the hood and windshield. Bumper mounted or above your winch would be my choice. Rugged ridge makes hood catch light brackets but I haven seen them on a JK yet.

If you haven't already upgraded headlights and fog lights, that may give you what you want.

 

[java]

+1 to bumper. I don't really like roof lights, and especially not with a LED bar. Too much light, the hood will blind you.

 

[Hilldweller]

....I more need the lights for long distance, fast paced travel on mountain backroads. ...

What you're describing are supplemental highbeams or driving lights, not an LED lightbar.
The LED products you have and are looking at are fine for slow-speed offroad driving but not suited for street and especially not for high-speed. The LED products tend to flood the foreground with light which causes an unfavorable pupil reaction for distance vision.

It might not be as tacticool but, a good set of driving lights will work better.
Mount a pair of these on your bullbar to augment your highbeams. http://www.4wd.com/Jeep-Lighting-Je...out&ppcfon=1&gclid=CP-qlPCBmL8CFU5afgodspkAOA
On a JK you'll need a capacitor and resistor inline from your highbeam circuit to trip your relay or you'll fry the relay pretty quick.
It's a good time to upgrade your headlights while you're at it.

 

[JeepinJon]

If you are looking for distance to supplement the high beams I would go with a Baja Designs OnX 15-21" (depending on what you can fit on the bull bar) in the spot beam pattern. You aren't going to get distance from Rigid as their optics and LEDs aren't optimized for the distance. The spots from BD are going to have a 10 degree center and 40 degree spill vs their drivign with a 12.5 degree flood and 40 degree spill. Their spots will get you 1 lux out to about 918' and the high speed spots will get you to about 1216' on a flat road.

 

[eaneumann]

What you're describing are supplemental highbeams or driving lights, not an LED lightbar.
The LED products you have and are looking at are fine for slow-speed offroad driving but not suited for street and especially not for high-speed. The LED products tend to flood the foreground with light which causes an unfavorable pupil reaction for distance vision.

It might not be as tacticool but, a good set of driving lights will work better.
Mount a pair of these on your bullbar to augment your highbeams. http://www.4wd.com/Jeep-Lighting-Je...out&ppcfon=1&gclid=CP-qlPCBmL8CFU5afgodspkAOA
On a JK you'll need a capacitor and resistor inline from your highbeam circuit to trip your relay or you'll fry the relay pretty quick.
It's a good time to upgrade your headlights while you're at it.

My headlights and fog lights are LED, so I was concerned with mixing different light types. I was reading on Candle Power forums about different light types being confusing for your eyes. Any truth to that?

Thanks everyone!

 

[Hilldweller]

My headlights and fog lights are LED, so I was concerned with mixing different light types. I was reading on Candle Power forums about different light types being confusing for your eyes. Any truth to that?

Thanks everyone!

Glare and color temperature annoy people at different degrees. I have LED headlights and fogs. In the past I've run halogen and HID together, as well as LED and HID, halogen with halogen, but never LED with halogen...
So, in other words, maybe. But probably not.

I like the benefits of LED. Good LEDs. If you can find a driving light that doesn't spill anything before the area where your headlights are shining (I'm thinking of the JW Speaker TSR3000), that's what I'd go for.
If you plan to use it on the streets I'd look for something with a DOT-friendly pattern.
It's not likely that you'd find that in a lightbar though. Unless you were willing to pay...
http://www.jwspeaker.com/products/auxiliary-light-bars/model-9049-6-module-rectangular-led-light-bar

Everybody's making new stuff, better stuff, all the time.

Regardless of what you get, are you ever going to be able to outdrive any good set of driving lights in a Jeep? You don't need a really really long throw pencil beam.

 

[JeepinJon]

I am of the opinion where I would want some controlled spill fo an increased comfort level while driving at higher speeds, but it shouldn't be where the light is focused.

A true pencil light will greatly increase long range distance, but at the same time you will lose all peripheral lighting benefits, and at speed I wouldn't be comfortable driving with this type of light only. These lights wouldn't help me spot a deer or other animal on the sides of the road or ditches, but they do give me a lot of distance.

A driving (or even spot patterned LED) can still give you the distance of 4 HIDs, but at the same time give you some spill so you can increase the comfort while you are driving. From an overlanding perspective though I would never be driving at the speeds to need this much distance from a light. At the same time I would feel more comfortable going 70mph down a gravel/dirt backroad with a quality LED driving light over a set of pencil beam lights.

 

[kojackJKU]

the light spill in front of the rig with those BD lights are wicked, go with the hella. Much better light. I have the 500s with a 55w HID conversion in them and they are awesome. no forground light blinding like the LED bars, as proven above with those shots. Cost effective, Long distance light with a great wide long beam of light.

I love my lights and they are probably one of the best budget setups on the go.

 

[JeepinJon]

the light spill in front of the rig with those BD lights are wicked.

It is all personal preference. I tend to prefer the BD LEDs and most of the time I do run them in the dimmed mode (50% power) because otherwise it is a bit too much light for a bumper mounted location. Mounted above the windsheild with a high speed spot pattern would probably eliminate this, but I also don't need a 51" LED at the moment. In the past with an HID pencil beam I would never hit the speeds needed to have the light be usable.

I would say that for most people on this forum they aren't looking for a light that they can drive 100+ mph on, but rather one to fill in the dark areas of the ditches and one to get a bit more distance than standard high beams. There are many ways to do this, and there isn't a one size fits all method of doing it. For some it is halogens, others prefer HIDs and others prefer LEDs.

 

[DallasJKU]

I've never been a fan of above windshield light bars or the windshield hinge lights. I think they make too much glare on the hood and windshield. Bumper mounted or above your winch would be my choice. Rugged ridge makes hood catch light brackets but I haven seen them on a JK yet.

If you haven't already upgraded headlights and fog lights, that may give you what you want.

I don't agree with this at all. I have a white JKU and a hood mounted 10" spot/Combo and A-pillar D2 driving lights. The combo is almost perfect for any extra light I might need. There is a slight glare, but I was used to it after the first use. They look good and work even better and for $600 they are a great combo.

 

[kojackJKU]

the only way I can run lights up high it when they are mounted back from the front of the roof. On my patriot, I had 4 55w HID hella 500s mounted on my roof rack behind the sunroof. worked perfect because they were aimed down the road and there was NO glare on the hood of the rig.

 

[Hilldweller]

The only time I ran lights up high was on a tractor and the grass was 6 foot high...