LED Spot Light Only Light Bar

[LeadWings Member Find all posts View Profile Close LeadWings]

I am after a spotlight to help with country night driving. I prefer the form factor of a light bar, ie in preference to traditional “round” spotlights.

I currently have a (cheap) LED light bar, but find it is good at putting light in the near field (i.e. immediately around/in front of the car) but has no “throw” – ie is no good for seeing into the distance. In fact, I find it makes distance vision worse – there is too much light in close, so your eyes adjust and you can see less further out.

I have seen a couple of light bars that seem to be designed as spotlights – some even have different lens configurations. Anyone have any experience with these? Do they work OK?

https://www.stedi.com.au/21-5-inch-s...light-bar.html
https://www.gemteklighting.com.au/co...gtd6-osram-drl

[Guest Close Guest]

Basically all light bars are crap for any range at all. <50-80 mtrs = OK.
I've tried a bunch of different brands from cheapies to expensive, none have been any good IMO,
I just did a 1000 km drive back from my cabin last night, fitted a STEDI LED bar at a mates insistence that they were awesome, and he gave me one to prove it.
Yeah they are great if you want to see the top of a silo! More light went up/down than anywhere in length..
It basically couldn't overpower the Hi beam of the car I was in which has a good hi beam existing distance throw.

It offered a very small amount of sideways coverage to the sides and a little bit of fill. Being around 5700-6000 kelvin it was a pure white light (Daylight) and offered very poor depth perception.
I run all my other vehicles with 4300 Kelvin lights to get depth perception.

Over all the specsw on these things say it all, under about 100mts they are OK, even closer they are good. But over 100mtrs forget it, all smoke and mirrors in my experience..
The chart one of them supply says it all.. TECHNICAL SPECS:

Distance	10m	100m	200m	300m	613m
Lux	4,700	36	12	4	1

Do you know how dim 1 lux is? or even 12 lux...
Daylight is 10,000-25000 Lux, Full Moonlight is about 1 Lux

If you want distance go a HID or Halogen SPOT. If you want best of both worlds and can fit it, fit a LED bar and HID Spots. (Lightforce make a combo but $$$)..

Anyone that says a LED bar is ok for long distance hasn't really driven long country trips at night with them. I will say the instant on compared to HID is good however.

[LeadWings Member Find all posts View Profile Close LeadWings]

Thanks Piggy, this is just the sort of feedback I am after. Which model Stedi was it you had out of interest?

[Corigator Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Corigator]

Dare I question Piggy, but my 28" 18,000 lumen Stedi bar lights up the road pretty well. I also have a couple of HID's to fill in the extra distance.

Piggy is correct, however. LED still doesn't match HID for distance. The problem with HID is that it takes a while to warm up.

[Mule Member Find all posts View Profile Close Mule]

Basically all light bars are crap for any range at all. <50-80 mtrs = OK.
I've tried a bunch of different brands from cheapies to expensive, none have been any good IMO,
I just did a 1000 km drive back from my cabin last night, fitted a STEDI LED bar at a mates insistence that they were awesome, and he gave me one to prove it.
Yeah they are great if you want to see the top of a silo! More light went up/down than anywhere in length..
It basically couldn't overpower the Hi beam of the car I was in which has a good hi beam existing distance throw.

It offered a very small amount of sideways coverage to the sides and a little bit of fill. Being around 5700-6000 kelvin it was a pure white light (Daylight) and offered very poor depth perception.
I run all my other vehicles with 4300 Kelvin lights to get depth perception.

Over all the specsw on these things say it all, under about 100mts they are OK, even closer they are good. But over 100mtrs forget it, all smoke and mirrors in my experience..
The chart one of them supply says it all.. TECHNICAL SPECS:

Distance	10m	100m	200m	300m	613m
Lux	4,700	36	12	4	1

Do you know how dim 1 lux is? or even 12 lux...
Daylight is 10,000-25000 Lux, Full Moonlight is about 1 Lux

If you want distance go a HID or Halogen SPOT. If you want best of both worlds and can fit it, fit a LED bar and HID Spots. (Lightforce make a combo but $$$)..

Anyone that says a LED bar is ok for long distance hasn't really driven long country trips at night with them. I will say the instant on compared to HID is good however.

Well then, more than happy with my Stedi light bar on a long country trip at night. Outperforms in throw relative to original high beam on the 120 by a factor of 10. There is a 2km straight on the road I live on and the Stedi easily lights up the tree at the end. No they are not the same as a dedicated HID spot but they make for seriously relaxed night driving

[juz Member Find all posts View Profile Close juz]

My 42 inch single row Stedi bar mounted to my roof rack lights up the road really nicely. Coupled with my 9 inch LED spotties I feel I have great vision and confidence when driving at night. I have driven from Victoria to Frazer Is and Central Australia and the LED bar served me well on both those trips.

[Guest Close Guest]

About 4 months ago I was involved in a certain not named independent company test of LED bars and the ratings/distance/LUX measurements etc etc.
I stand by my comment of compared to HID (And some Halogen) ,LED is nowhere near as good. Great for close in fill, but if you want to see any further than a couple hundred metres with clarity, HID/Halogen.
Leadwings, the bar I was loaned as a ST4K-60L Which was one of the best bars they had he claimed. LED had its pro's: Instant on, and wide/high spread. But just not distance. To me thats a huge issue.

[Kygar Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Kygar]

About 4 months ago I was involved in a certain not named independent company test of LED bars and the ratings/distance/LUX measurements etc etc.
I stand by my comment of compared to HID (And some Halogen) ,LED is nowhere near as good. Great for close in fill, but if you want to see any further than a couple hundred metres with clarity, HID/Halogen.
Leadwings, the bar I was loaned as a ST4K-60L Which was one of the best bars they had he claimed. LED had its pro's: Instant on, and wide/high spread. But just not distance. To me thats a huge issue.

Hi Piggy, I'm shopping for driving lights for my 2018 GXL. Have you had experience in how the LED spots perform?
I'm seriously considering: https://www.stedi.com.au/stedi-type-x-led.html
Would appreciate any thoughts you might have.

[Atherton Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Atherton]

I guess piggy the question arises as to how far you want to see down the road- Realistically 300 meters is heaps of range for most people. A car traveling at 100kph covers approximately 30 meters every second. If you've got say 300 meters that's ten seconds worth of vision (assuming all you are driving on is straight roads with no corners). I live in the bush and my experience is that the sort of thing you want to see (animals for the most part) generally will jump out at you within about 5-50 meters of the car (giving you fractions of a second to respond). I'd love a set of HID's but they're for the most part still very expensive. My 140 dollar a pair LED spotties from 4wd supacenter put out a phenomenal amount of light, and handle submersion in water and corrugations fairly well (I've owned mine for about 6 months now with no drama). That's not to say that I wouldn't upgrade in the future- but for the short term they do a great job. As a final note, you're right of course when you say that a lightbar and HID's are the ideal combination, but it'd be hard to mount them all on the bullbar legally as well- you'd be pretty short on room on most bars (assuming you have 7-9inch spotties and a decent sized lightbar)

[Guest Close Guest]

Hi Piggy, I'm shopping for driving lights for my 2018 GXL. Have you had experience in how the LED spots perform?
I'm seriously considering: https://www.stedi.com.au/stedi-type-x-led.html
Would appreciate any thoughts you might have.

Same same different shaped housing. Have a good look at the individual LED and it’s reflector. Bar/spot all look pretty well the same.
STEDI do a new drop reflector type. But in reality it is doing away with LED drivers (that make the light) and going to a better reflector with less LED power output driving into said reflector. Less reflectors on the light so to speak.. again the lux readings after say 80 Mtrs say it all again..
If your not needing much distance (<100 mtr) LED will be fine. To get an LED to give any more than say 3 seconds of usable light at 100kph is however asking a lot. Most rally drivers know you can easily outdrive a LED spot/bar at night and not a lot use them. Even sponsored drivers of certain light manufacturers.

What most forget is they are relying on their standard headlights to give them depth of light penetration. I have a vehicle currently with a32” decent brand LED bar and it has a decent Hi beam, flicking the LED bar on makes nil improvement to distance. It lights up shitloads above you and 10-30 Mtrs in front however.

I would say but a cheap set of kings LED spots or a bar that everyone raves about to try, before dropping bigger coin on brand names. Then decide for yourself. Ultimately a decent HID or halogen spot and an LED bar is best of both worlds.

There really isn’t all that much difference in the output as recent testing proved. Some cheap brands outperformed well marketed expensive lights.
The testing I was involved in used up to 40 Lux meters for each individual test at distances of up to 1000 Mtrs if the light performed well enough. Findings haven’t been officially released yet so I can’t say much more.

There will always be healthy argument about LED lights. It’s like the old diesel vs petrol thing. Or the BFG fanboys plugging that the K02 is the best thing since Moses. (Used them too and would never go back to them again).. everyone however has their own opinion. Some love them.

[Kygar Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Kygar]

I see 4WD Supacentre have now released a "better" set of 9" LED spotlights.
Double the price and they have finally published lumens and lux//distance for these and the old ones.

https://www.4wdsupacentre.com.au/pro...pair-ip68.html

[LeadWings Member Find all posts View Profile Close LeadWings]

So I bit the bullet and ordered a 32" double row light bar from GemTek. These have the LEDs mounted pointing down/up so they can get a longer/deeper reflector and a more focused beam than an LED with a lens mounted around it. Got it for under $200 in the end of year sales. Comes with wiring loom. https://www.gemteklighting.com.au/co...ight-bar-osram

Turned up quick, and overall quality of bar and fitting kit is good, with a couple of alternatives mounts/brackets and stainless bolts etc. This fitted nicely on the Toyota alloy bar I have installed.

After using, it is a vast improvement on the stock high beams. Excellent light in the mid range (50 - 300m dropping off to 500m) and nice width of beam - gives a wider beam that the factory high beams, good for spotting skippy off to one side in the padocks. Light is noticably "white" compared to the high beams which look more brown if you switch between them. Doesn't put heaps of light into the near field blowing out you distance vision.

Way better than the cheap 22" Kings light bar I had installed (which are sold as a combination spot/flood).

So for less than $200 very happy, and would recommend it. No it won't give you 1km that a dedicated pencil beam HID spotlight will, but definitely gives you a big improvement in range from the factory highs so that you can see roos and give you more time to stop. And I would say the extra width in the mid field is probaly better than pencil beams for roos off to the side more (eg in station country).

[Pradosaur Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pradosaur]

Maybe its just the road and tracks I drive but for the better part I don’t find too many roads where I get 1km straight road where there isn’t a vehicle coming from the opposite direction. The dirt tracks I travel you’re not travelling that fast to warrant the extra distance. Again the tracks I take switch left right up down so the extra distance from my perspective is redundant...albeit the thAt said there must be plenty of lengthy straight roads / tracks based on the popularity of HIDS.. I cant help thinking though, that there is a large degree of “look at me” compensation going on with the toorak tractors BUT horses for courses I guess. It’s none of my business how someone spends their hard earned $$$$

[Progknife Banned Find all posts View Profile Close Progknife]

I agree with you, it is better to buy an expensive lamp.