I have HID retro's in my hella housings and they work great, I get focused light, not scatter all over the place. I did run HID in the stock jeep housings and that was just horrible, pulled them back out in one night. That had scatter, but my Hellas are fine. Plus, I get great lighting for spotting moose. I don't care if someone had halogens in their 500 or hid. Having them on with halogen coming towards me would send me into a fury. No matter what bulb you use on the road, you do NOT keep your driving lights on coming towards other drivers. if you do, your an **********. so whatever you have on your rig, have them hooked to the high beam switch. That way you can run bright lights and see what you need to see. I have quick start HIDs and they warm up almost instantly. NO more waiting. FYI.
Time to upgrade my lighting setup!
- Thread starter wreckdiver1321
- Start date
wreckdiver1321
Overlander
Cool, sounds like I'm on the right track as far as the Hellas then. I'm looking into what exactly to do about the lights in the bumper. Might have to find a way to fit the Hella 90mm driving lights.
At this point I kind of think I need to just buy the Hella Euro beams and see how they do.
Hilldweller
SE Expedition Society
I think that Hella has a 90mm fog module too. It might only be an H7 though ---- which you can get with a nifty H7 base/H9 burner (same filament placement). It's a 65W.
If so, you'd get the fog pattern you're after, a respectable amount of light, and decent pricepoint.
Call Ray and/or Dave at SMS and see if they have a doodad for mounting the 90mm lights in 4" holes. If not, remind them of how many ARB and other bumpers there are out there and the potential market...
They're real good people and are tinkerers. You'll have fun chatting with them.
wreckdiver1321
Overlander
I'll give them a call, they come highly recommended.
I'm not necessarily interested in a fog pattern. I just want something that has a good amount of side to side spread for trail duty. I know I could retrofit the Hella 90mm fogs into the ARB bumper, but I'm looking into options that might throw the light a bit farther. Which is why I was looking at the IPFs, since people have said they are somewhere between a fog and a driving lamp.
Hilldweller
SE Expedition Society
Are you looking to use them in fog or just on the trail?
If just trail, get some ridiculously-bright HID or LED floods. Just know ahead of time that they're not good for anything but slow-speed trail ...
And with your criteria maybe the IPFs aren't so bad.
Virgil and Alaric are experts at on-road lighting. Off-road is something that they're starting to wrap their heads around better. Their performance metrics are based on street speed.
If just trail, get some ridiculously-bright HID or LED floods. Just know ahead of time that they're not good for anything but slow-speed trail ...
And with your criteria maybe the IPFs aren't so bad.
Virgil and Alaric are experts at on-road lighting. Off-road is something that they're starting to wrap their heads around better. Their performance metrics are based on street speed.
wreckdiver1321
Overlander
It's mostly for trail lighting. We don't get much fog at all out here.
I think the IPFs would be a pretty good way to go. I hear they project fairly far, and they are a perfect bolt in. I think it would augment the Hellas pretty well. I think I'll start off by doing the Hellas and the IPFs. If I feel like I need more lighting, I can always do this:
wreckdiver1321
Overlander
So, to actually finish this thread off, I decided on the IPF fog light kit from ARB. I'm pretty happy with the extra lighting I get from that, so I'm happy there. Then I ordered a set of Hella 4000s. I had researched my options to death, and really didn't get a clear idea of how each beam pattern would do for my uses, so I kind of figured that I'd have to find out on my own. Having anecdotal evidence and light spread charts is great and all, but I won't know if it fits my needs until I've got the light in the wild. So, to combat the problem of animals coming out of nowhere on twisty mountain roads, I opted for a combo setup to cover all the bases. I bought one Euro beam and one cornering beam Hella 4000. This type of combination lighting is very common in Australia, and I think it's worked very well for me here.
I actually did the wiring properly too.
So I ended up with a pretty good result. Remember, where I need these lights is on winding mountain roads at night where the deer and elk like to jump out at you from the blackness. I also wanted some additional trail lights. Here's how it looks:
Low beams:
High beams:
High beams with IPF fogs:
And high beams with IPF fogs and Hella Rallye 4000s:
I tried to not have a huge hotspot in the foreground, and I think I pulled it off fairly well. What little hotspot you see in the photo can be alleviated by switching to low beams, but when driving I don't think it's really necessary. The extra usable distance I gained was pretty great, pretty much doubling what I was getting before. As you can also see, the side to side lighting worked out fantastically. Overall, I'm pretty happy with it.
I actually did the wiring properly too.
So I ended up with a pretty good result. Remember, where I need these lights is on winding mountain roads at night where the deer and elk like to jump out at you from the blackness. I also wanted some additional trail lights. Here's how it looks:
Low beams:
High beams:
High beams with IPF fogs:
And high beams with IPF fogs and Hella Rallye 4000s:
I tried to not have a huge hotspot in the foreground, and I think I pulled it off fairly well. What little hotspot you see in the photo can be alleviated by switching to low beams, but when driving I don't think it's really necessary. The extra usable distance I gained was pretty great, pretty much doubling what I was getting before. As you can also see, the side to side lighting worked out fantastically. Overall, I'm pretty happy with it.
for trail i use a set of ARB Intensity (Clones for now) spec'd at 8k lumens each in a flood patten and a set of 4.5 VisionX Light cannons in spot pattern.. which i can change to Flood or driving patterns with lens covers...
All are keyed to the headlights (but not high beams only) and basically only come on for trail work..
All are keyed to the headlights (but not high beams only) and basically only come on for trail work..
wreckdiver1321
Overlander
I can certainly do that fairly soon.
I very highly recommend the Euro beam/cornering beam combo for all-around light. The 4000 fogs are good but very, very short range. And honestly I don't think a person needs any more than those two for any purpose really. Throws light really far and is a really good trail lighting setup as well. Gives you tons of side-to-side light.
Interesting. I was originally going to do a set of those Intensity clones, as I wanted to try LED lights and they looked pretty cool. But I started researching halogen options and for the price and performance it was hard to turn down a pair of Hellas.
IF I had the space, I would be running the 4000s. The 500s do really well too. When you install an HID system into the hella housings, the ROCK. I think hella had that in the back of their mind when they designed the reflectors. Doing that works GREAT. a 35w system will give about the same as a 100w halogen light, but less power consumption and a nicer color output granted you keep them at 4300k. The 55w is in another league in terms of output. I had 130w Halogens in my 500s before switching to 55w HID, and the difference is literally night and day. There is just awesome amounts of light in the perfect spot with them. I recommend them for the budget conscious driver wanting a great light for a great price. They whip the Chinese HID and LED Lights.