Thread: Driving Lights - D3/RRS

I'm using one of these.... ML240X .... on the roof rack. Turns night into day with really good spread. So much better to drive by than HID's in the twisty stuff. HID's may be better for spotting skippy 800m up the road, but too easy to miss the one about to jump out 20m away.
You could get similar result with this one.... ls240x quad .... mounted on the bull bar.

Ian

I don't know what light pattern the RRS high beam produces, but the D4 high beam provides a very useful (if only it wasn't in the trees) wide, flat beam that lights the verges well. Therefore converting the D4 high beam to HID (with the globe slanted) is very worthwhile. I fitted an ebay 50/55W kit, using 1 high beam supply wire as the trigger wire for a relay that powers the HID ballasts. I opted for the 3000K yellow globes for best visibility in rain but 5000K would have been my 2nd choice for best all-round light.
The HID high beam is slow to light-up if not used recently, but if dipped for oncoming traffic it responds quickly enough to be able to see through the spray if used whilst still alongside a passing truck.

Graeme, has your RRS got QH or HID headlights, my D3 had QH which weren't nearly as good as my previous D3 with BiXenons (HID I think) so I bought a new set of BiXenons (from UK much much cheaper) and they are just "plug and play" A massive improvement.

My new D4 has the halogen lights, and while the low beam is fine, the high beam is a disappointment. (The only disappointment in a staggeringly good car).

I have HID's in my Oka and I plan to change back to halogen, with LED extras as suggested by Owl. To me, the HID's are just too complicated. They certainly do poke out the light, but I suspect long term reliability in off-road conditions.

Also - and this is debatable - white light from a filament type globe (halogen or whatever) has every colour of the spectrum combined to make up white light. HID's have a segmented spectrum with a 'white' look, but some colours are missing. I find for all the brightness of HID's it is actually easier to see with the conventional halogens on my Defender. LED's suffer the same thing, but combined with halogens I think they would do the trick.

I would be very glad to hear from anyone with more knowledge on this subject.

Cheers all,

Paul

Hard one for me to comment because after the woeful lights on the D2, the bi-xenon's on the D3 are impressive.

I did read somewhere (maybe on here) that someone had a air-con compresser failure on their D3 and was told it was the spotties on the bullbar restricting airflow that caused it to overheat...not sure about that, as you see more than enough 4x4's of all makes with spotties mounted infront of the grille.

I do see a A/Con post on here with a similar statement, but think the one I read was elsewhere.

Would be interested to know if anyone beleives this as will look at putting some on mine when I fit a front bar..

Cheers Ean

I'm running a couple of old Rallye 2000 Hellas and they are adequate. I have two relays mounted on a piece of aluminium which is screwed to the lower mounting holes for the Fuel Burning heater in front of the battery box. Sense for the relays is taken from the passenger side factory driving light with a wire spliced in as usual, been runing happiily for 3 years.
I dont have a seperate switch for the driving lights but it is easy to incorporate by either switching the earth for the relay coils (1 wire to cab ) or switching the +ve sense ( two wires to cab).
If I was going to buy new lights today I'd have a look at the Lightforce XGTs if you want big lights or maybe the smaller lightforce units if you want a good xenon in a smaller package. Ace on the forum can do good deals on the lightforce units and they are sometimes on special at Autobarn.

Regards,
Tote

Originally Posted by Wilbur

I have HID's in my Oka and I plan to change back to halogen, with LED extras as suggested by Owl. To me, the HID's are just too complicated. They certainly do poke out the light, but I suspect long term reliability in off-road conditions.

Also - and this is debatable - white light from a filament type globe (halogen or whatever) has every colour of the spectrum combined to make up white light. HID's have a segmented spectrum with a 'white' look, but some colours are missing. I find for all the brightness of HID's it is actually easier to see with the conventional halogens on my Defender. LED's suffer the same thing, but combined with halogens I think they would do the trick.

I cannot understand any complication with fitting HIDs. I also think that if the HIDs arent working as well as halogens then perhaps the colour isn't right. I'm very happy with the excellent penetration and lack of glare from my 3000K HIDs. HID globes will outlast filament globes 10 fold and even more-so when used off-road.

Originally Posted by Graeme

I cannot understand any complication with fitting HIDs. I also think that if the HIDs arent working as well as halogens then perhaps the colour isn't right. I'm very happy with the excellent penetration and lack of glare from my 3000K HIDs. HID globes will outlast filament globes 10 fold and even more-so when used off-road.

Agree with you there Graeme...

I'm thinking he's got a colour range not suited to his vision!!!

Its well known that we struggle with whiter light as we age... Maybe he runs around 6000k and would do better heading down to 4500k or 3000k as you have mentioned.

And yes, HID globes will easily outlast a filament globe... Biggest killers of filaments are vibration and heat...