Light system set up review

boo471

Adventurer
Last night I decided to test out the light system and bumper for the first time. I have never really wheeled during darkness before so that was something new to me. And knowing that you are all by yourself, your alone in the car, no other trucks on the trails and barley any one else in the entire national forest except yourself and a few hunters made the trip a little more thrilling. Knowing that if somethings goes wrong you only have yourself to fall back on.

I tried to not doing anything to crazy so I never really got to smash my bumper on anything. But I did notice that I did get a lot better clearance going over boulders when there was no longer a front bumper to hit the rock before my front wheels started climbing the rocks. So the bumper did great on the clearance side. Durability test will have to come at another time when I have someone else with me or have a winch installed.

The lightning system overall worked great. I must say that I am extremely impressed with my 2x 9" HIDs mounted in the front. They are the euro beam version and not the spots. The reach of the lights is similar to my HID converted high beams (they reach pretty far) but the beam pattern on does 9" HIDs is great. Not only is the reach great. Its a broad beam that will light up the forest on the side of the road so you can easily spot any wild life wanting to cross the road several hundred yards away. In speeds over 15mph these lights where in a different league compared to my LEDs. The HIDs worked great on the trail as well. But did not throw a beam wide enough to give you a great overview of your surroundings. The best set up for a trail truck would probably be to combine these 2 HIDs with 2 smaller (i.e 6") HID light bars to give you a wider beam pattern. But on a gravel road or any back country road these 2 lights is everything you will ever need. I am extremely happy with the performance.

The 42,5" LED light bar on the roof produce a scary amount of light. To much light actually. It has a very wide beam pattern and gives you a great overview of the trail in front of you. But it produce so much light that anything with in 30 yards (bushes, signs, your hood or whatever) will almost hurt your eyes because they are so bright. I would recommend you to get one or two small LED light bars instead of a beast like this. It is overkill for pretty much any application but it will work pretty good on the trails. But in any speeds over 15mph it is just pure dangerous driving with this thing turned on. That is my personal view of it. Other people might think these big light bars are perfect.

My LEDs on the side on the other hand was perfect to have for trail riding. They gave me a decent amount of light to see what I had on the side of my truck. The 2 10W LEDs mounted further back on the rack is a lot stronger and has a more concentrated beam pattern then the 2 19W LEDs mounted in the front. Mixing the 2 together actually gave a very good light set up.

All lights mounted on the truck including the HID converted lights are 6000K lights.

Here are some shaky shoots on the side lightning:
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Here you have my different lights turned on (Not pitch black outside yet so it wont give you a accurate view of how bright they actually are.
Low beam (HID converted)
DSCF2884_zps2d647bfb.jpg

Low beam (HID converted) + High Beam (HID Converted)
DSCF2885_zpse6711cc8.jpg

Low beam (HID converted) + High Beam (HID Converted) + 2x 9" 55W HIDs
DSCF2886_zpsc70294bc.jpg

Low beam (HID converted) + High Beam (HID Converted) + 2x 9" 55W HIDs + 42,5" 230W LED light Bar
DSCF2887_zps04e9c07f.jpg


Here you can see that the set up is a little to much when you get close to a bank or a bush. Its just WHITE and you can barley see shadows or lines of anything:
DSCF2900_zps1a53bfd1.jpg


Here are some random picture from the ride:

About to start a decent down a steeep hill
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A belly shoot!
DSCF2890_zpse3148860.jpg

Some of the trails in Uwharrie can feel a little claustrophobic when you have high walls of mud surrounding you.
DSCF2894_zpsee53cb2a.jpg

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Airing up getting ready to head back home:
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She is slow but she gets the job done:
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When you are alone in the dark forest it makes you behave in the most strange ways.
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It was a beautiful night:
DSCF2911_zps19b0e09a.jpg


Overall I am very happy with the light set up. I do wish that I would have gotten 2 smaller LED light bars instead of this monster. Its just to much light all over the place for actually being useful. At least it looks cool.
 
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java

Expedition Leader
Thanks for the pics! I love the 7" version of the HID's you have. With my HID lows and those with the "euro driving" beam its perfect for back roads and whatnot.

How do you think your impression of the light bar would be if it was on your bumper? I feel like you would get a lot less glare at eye level.
 

boo471

Adventurer
Thanks for the pics! I love the 7" version of the HID's you have. With my HID lows and those with the "euro driving" beam its perfect for back roads and whatnot.

How do you think your impression of the light bar would be if it was on your bumper? I feel like you would get a lot less glare at eye level.

The HIDs are awesome. Some of the best lights I have tried. Im thinking trowing my LED light bar out the door and mounting 4x4" euro beam HIDs on the rack instead.

I think mounting it on the bumper would help. But the problem is the amount of light it throws. I think less lumen's would be my choice. Mounting it on the bumper will remove some glare on the truck, but your kind of forget about the glare on the truck after a while. The problem is when a branch from a tree pops up in front of the truck. It just reflects so much light that it is blinding. Half the juice this thing puts out would probably be perfect. But bumper mounted, yes. Probably much better.

Man that just looks mean!!

Lol, yeah I know it's a little over the top :)
 

Hilldweller

SE Expedition Society
You know that none of that is legal for use on public roadways, right?
Getcha a big ticket in many areas these days...
Fine for offroad parks though.
 

boo471

Adventurer
You know that none of that is legal for use on public roadways, right?
Getcha a big ticket in many areas these days...
Fine for offroad parks though.

I know that 2 high beam extra lights is legal here in NC. And that's about all the law's says about it. At least that is all that I have been able to get out from the law about it. If you got any more they should be covered up. I have clear covers for my HIDs. So I could paint them black and mount on top of the HIDs and technically I should be good. Since technically its only my LED light bar and the HIDs that are additions to my high beams if your looking at the law book (I know the LED light bar has a few too many watts). The other lights are additions to... well, side lights and reverse lights.

Fill me in if you got any more knowledge on the subject.

Anyhow the only light that I would use on a public but remote road would be the HIDs (which are legal) the rest is strictly for trail use.

//Marten
 
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Hilldweller

SE Expedition Society
You'll usually get away with "driving lights" in most states if they're wired to defeat when you turn off your highbeams.
The LED bar isn't legal anywhere on the road though and some states/cities will insist on a cover.
And the HID "conversions" aren't legal unless they're complete units, cover, everything, from a donor vehicle. Somehow I'm doubting that.

Here's an excellent forum to find out what works and what's legal for vehicular lighting.
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?87-Automotive-Motorcycles-Included

Unfortunately, most of what's on the gear-head forums is nonsense (at best) and dangerous (at worst).


Here's my old Jeep with legal LED lights; the smaller ones would need to be covered in many areas but the large ones only came on with the highbeams and the fogs with the lowbeams. The small LEDs were floods and only for trail.

TruckLiteDrivingLites010.jpg
 

boo471

Adventurer
You'll usually get away with "driving lights" in most states if they're wired to defeat when you turn off your highbeams.
The LED bar isn't legal anywhere on the road though and some states/cities will insist on a cover.
And the HID "conversions" aren't legal unless they're complete units, cover, everything, from a donor vehicle. Somehow I'm doubting that.

Here's an excellent forum to find out what works and what's legal for vehicular lighting.
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?87-Automotive-Motorcycles-Included

Unfortunately, most of what's on the gear-head forums is nonsense (at best) and dangerous (at worst).


Here's my old Jeep with legal LED lights; the smaller ones would need to be covered in many areas but the large ones only came on with the highbeams and the fogs with the lowbeams. The small LEDs were floods and only for trail.

TruckLiteDrivingLites010.jpg

Thanks for the update/links and that's a nice looking jeep!

Yep the HID conversions are not complete units so I know does are illegal. But reading up on that type of conversion very few states/cities seems to take does kind of conversions to seriously. Still illegal but apparently not as severe as other type of light add-ons/conversions. The HID extra lights are legal, kind of (I just need to wire them up with the high beam. Which I tried once but that negative grounding on the Japanese cars got the better of me and I gave up). But I might just give that another shoot. The LED light bar has not given me any issues yet. But as you can read above I am not to fond of it anyways so I might get rid of it and get 4 more HID's that I can cover up when not on the trail.

I have been pulled over and no trooper has made any comments about the light set up. They have just looked at the car... A LOT of looking but haven't said anything about the rig.
 
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Hilldweller

SE Expedition Society
Ray at Rallylights dot com can build you a harness for your lights that will let you trigger them from your highbeam switch. He does nice work.

Do some reading on the Candlepower forum though. The HID conversions can be pretty dangerous.

As for driving lights, I'm more of a fan of halogen or LED (legal ones like JW Speaker or Truck-Lite); they come on to full intensity right away and have beam patterns that are safe and effective.
I'm a super big fan of the cheap-n-stinky Chinese HIDs for offroad use. They're very very bright, very cheap, and don't use much juice. LED lightbars and smaller LED offroad lights have their place ----- they have a low power demand, are easy to mount, are robust ----- but I think their popularity right now is driven by their "cool factor" rather than by any actual benefits.
 

JamesW

Adventurer
This is for the pajero,but being Japanese it's probably the same,they are also negatively switched

wiringMK2spots.jpg


I've the half size version of your light bar on my front bumper,i'm quite happy with it. I'm the kind of guy that opens everything I buy,and found a screw rattling round inside it,which could have been fatal,but otherwise I can't really fault it. But I am tempted by some of the cheap-o 4" hids so I can stick the light bar above the windscreen. If you do opt for them let us all know how you get on :)

I'm not sure about the States,but over here you can blaze away with as much light as you fancy on the high beams,but just the dips must be your normal headlights. You aren't going to be driving against anyone with your high beams on anyway. The lads on that candlepower forum take themselves a bit seriously don't they :Wow1: Just because something hasn't got an E mark doesn't make it an instant deathtrap! :sombrero:
 

Hilldweller

SE Expedition Society
...The lads on that candlepower forum take themselves a bit seriously don't they :Wow1: Just because something hasn't got an E mark doesn't make it an instant deathtrap! :sombrero:
One of the downfalls of being an expert...

They're often harsh but always accurate. Great resource.
 

boo471

Adventurer
This is for the pajero,but being Japanese it's probably the same,they are also

I've the half size version of your light bar on my front bumper,i'm quite happy with it. I'm the kind of guy that opens everything I buy,and found a screw rattling round inside it,which could have been fatal,but otherwise I can't really fault it. But I am tempted by some of the cheap-o 4" hids so I can stick the light bar above the windscreen. If you do opt for them let us all know how you get on :)

I'm not sure about the States,but over here you can blaze away with as much light as you fancy on the high beams,but just the dips must be your normal headlights. You aren't going to be driving against anyone with your high beams on anyway. The lads on that candlepower forum take themselves a bit seriously don't they :Wow1: Just because something hasn't got an E mark doesn't make it an instant deathtrap! :sombrero:

It's similar laws back home in Sweden. You can drive around with a Christmas tree on your roof flashing away as long as you shut them of when your meeting cars. But I'm a guest here in US now and of course need to adapt to the laws they have here.

Thanks for the diagram. I actually gave it another go earlier and was able to find that damn ground cable. Took me about two hours. But now both the HIDs and the LED light bar are connected to my high beam. That's how I wanted it from the beginning but didn't have the passions to fiddle thru all the wires to find the high beam ground.

One of the downfalls of being an expert...

They're often harsh but always accurate. Great resource.

I do appreciate the information and feedback. As you can see above I did rewire my lights today. I found that rigid sell light bar covers. I'll buy a set and see if they fit my light bar. I don't mind covering that monster up when I'm not on the trail.
 

boo471

Adventurer
Holy brightness dude! I love all that light, you sure can make the trail easy to see in the dark!

Lol, yes it sure gets bright. Still a bit sketchy driving in the dark. But that is definitely a driver issue and not a light issue :smiley_drive:
 

boo471

Adventurer
Do some reading on the Candlepower forum though. The HID conversions can be pretty dangerous.

Sure. But the GX has projector head lights. So when I checked my beam pattern it had a lot less spread/flood compared to my halogens after converting. And after re aiming the lights I'm pretty confident that I will not get any one more blind than I did before the conversion.
 

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