LED Light Bar Placement

[KYC]

I just got my 50" China LED bar.

I have a ladder rack on my roof and I need some input/advice on placement.


1) Bolt it on top of bumper. Cleaner looking install, no potential glare, and easier installation. Right through grill.

2) Bolt it to ladder rack bar. Looks cool, have more downward light (maybe helps with ditches), harder installation (drill a hole, or go in through front door pillar and firewall.


This is my first LED bar so I'm not sure what to expect.

What do you guys recommend?

 

[Bbasso]

Logic would say to put it higher for maximum usage of light...

 

[isaac-daiceman@hotmail.co]

Lower the light, the less functional it will be. I don't know what your using it for, but if it's to set up camp in the back country or use for extra light when you're expeditioning. I don't want it where my normal head lights are. If mud cakes your headlights thr light bar is a great tool *(if it's higher). Setting up camp is awesome with a high mounted bar. It's like the sun!

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[Arctic Travelller]

A 50 inch bar will put out a crazy amount of light, so mounting it higher or lower won't have much effect on what you see down the road. My 40 inch, mounted on the bumper is so bright if you turn it on on pavement(illegal and not recomended), the light reflected back from street signs is blinding, but when you turn it off, suddenly your in the dark again, and have lost any night vision you might have had. I mounted it down low to avoid reflections from the hood, but since I never had it up high I don't know how big an issue it would be. It's probably simpler to mount it low at first, but if you don't like it, you could move it later, but I suspect it will work just fine on the bumper.

 

[Jasper Jones]

I mounted my 30" bar in the factory bumper opening of my 2011. While it is a near perfect fit and makes for a very clean look, I wish I would have mounted it higher.

The bar is insanely bright, but with it being so low, it casts some very long shadows from very small things. Slight bumps in a dirt road end up with a shadow that looks like a huge pothole.

Having the bar on the roof would help minimize the shadow effect.

 

[Petrolburner]

I put my 40" curved light bar way up high. I thought I wanted to have it at more of a downward angle but I ended up tilting it higher to fill in above my HID headlights for super long distance driving. The curved bar helps light up the ditches regardless of being pointed up or down. It lights up the hood and wipers as you can see but it doesn't bother me much. I'd like to have another LED light bar mounted down near the height of the headlights so I could tie it inot my brights and use it on the highway. I can't use the high mounted bar on the highway safely since it's so much higher than my eyeballs, it can be blinding oncoming traffic miles away and I can't see them because my eyeballs are lower and a hill might be blocking my line of sight. My light bar is 400 watts and listed as 40,000 lumens. It is blinding from miles away. It's great for driving in the dirt at night in Baja. I found I could go faster at night because of the shadows created in the dirt. I was better able to gauge the size of the bumps and rocks and keep my speed up where able and see when to slow down when necessary. The reflection of light off of road signs sucks. It's really best to use in the dirt.

Light bar alone

And here it is with the HID lights on high beam plus the light bar. I ended up rotating the bar up a notch for even better distance.

 

[Kevin108]

For the most light, put it up high and set back a bit. Otherwise the down wash will reflect off your hood and you'll hate it.

Thought a low placement isn't bad, especially if you can do a stealth installation.