Advice with off-road lighting

[josh]

I am looking to install 4 lights on my accessory rack (forward facing). I've looked a the Hella and Piaa mainly and trying to look at the somewhat small size (compact) as clearance in my garage is tight as is.

Any advice or words of wisdom with which brand, size or model anyone recommends?

-Josh

 

[techboydino]

What size and budget are you looking at? how many lamps?

Ive sold dozens of sets of PIAA 510's. They are only about 4" and have both driving and fog. They are an excellent compact light thats not too expensive.

If you go with Hella, stay away from the cheap lamps and go with the Rallye or Freeform series, the others are a little ***** and in the same catagory as KC's.

 

[nwoods]

I agree with Techboydino. You should also consider the LightForce 140 Lance or 170 Striker lights from http://www.sierraexpeditions.com/ (click on Lighting).

Do you have the Xeons on your truck now? If so, you are not going to see a significant difference. Your stock headlamps are amazingly bright as it is. However, you can set up a useful combination of cornering lights and fog lights to supplement your headlamps, and it's always good to have a rear mounted work light as well.

My LR3 has the stock halogens, but I replaced the H7 low beam bulbs with Xeons (and ballast kit) and I'm much happier with them. Some time back, I flushed a ton of money down the drain on the Land Rover off road lights. What pieces of crap! They are only 55w halogens. The are dimmer than my Surefire 6P flashlight.

If you are really looking to improve your lighting in a functional way, whatever you put up there needs to be fairly large and HID. Something like this:

 

[Houm_WA]

I would also recommend doing a mix of HID and Hali. I like the way the two technologies "enrich" the color of the illumination. HID is great, but the color is saturated and so the color rendering of objects it illuminates is not as good as a typical Halogen. Also, I don't believe they are as good in fog.

Here is what I'd say: If you have Halogen headlamps, get HID off-road lights. If you have the Zenon headlights, go Hali on the off-road lights.

That's my $0.02

Nathan, I bought those darn LR OFF-road lights too. You're right, they're not very bright, especially since they're wired to work only when the brights are on....heck you can barely see them with the HIDs and the Halogen fillers (high-beam) both illuminated....but at least you can aim them, and that could be something useful.

 

[umbertob]

Here is something original I hadn't seen before in auxiliary lights technology, recently posted on our RRS forum (apologies for the large pictures, not mine):

http://www.visualeyes.se/brands

Before/after

I wonder if they'll catch on. On paper, it sounds like a great idea: No need for a roof rack or bumper mods, no dirt, no stolen lights, no branches knocking them off... But they do cost a fortune.

 

[Houm_WA]

Uh....

What are the pics supposed to be representing? The top photo does not look like what I'd expect from the BMW lighting system. The cut-offs aren't discrete enough and the light is too yellow.

I'd be concerned about having a truly flush fitting with this luminaire and my windshield. A light leak here would make external vision take a hit.

 

[AdvRide]

The company Baja Designs make some nice HID lights for all kinds of applications.

http://www.bajadesigns.com

They even have the HID's with the ballast inside the housing so you don't have to worry about finding a place to mount those as well. I have seen the 4" Fuego models mounted on a motorcycle and I am considering those for mounting on my front brush guard.

Go take at look at what they have. They are on the pricey side, $399 each but they are race rugged.