Thread: LED Spotlioghts

*Grabs popcorn
*Pulls up a chair...

Notwithstanding comments from the peanut gallery...

LED chips are sold at a rated wattage that is almost never achieved in the actual lamp unit, so I would expect the power consumption of these lights to be half or less than the rated value of all the chips added up. Finding out the actual current draw is an eye opener which is why only the honest sellers mention it.

LED colour is usually given as 6500K on these things, this will give you loads of glare but not a lot of actual seeing things. Anything reflective such as road signs and eyeballs will show up brilliantly, low contrast things, not so much. I'm waiting for 5000K rated chips to filter into the automotive lighting field, from what I've seen of this type of LED they are a good compromise for night vision.

Finally most LED lights on the market are good at wide spread but bad at range. 30 degree wide beams are marketed as "spot" beams but they are anything but. There are just a few deep reflector optic lamps coming up that have a 10 degree beam which is a lot better.

Personally I'd steer clear of cheapie LED lights, wait a while and better ones will come on the market at an affordable price.

Hello, Peanut Gallery here...

What is not mentioned is that efficiency of LED emitters as they drop down the temperature spectrum begin to become much less efficient.. so much so that their Lumen per watt output starts to come back in line with 'older' technology.

The driver for an LED emitter is the thermal management component - and where there is a huge market difference between cheap and premium products - poor thermal management may look good at first but often fails quite quickly or perform inadequately (Rigid Industries is a global leader in high end LED lighting).

Running a LED requires downrating them, they never run at the theoretical maximum - as they will burn out - and they never produce the theoretical output of light..

The current market is flooded by 600+ watt light bars that when wired up draw 10-15a.
These are only then utilising 180w (or there about) of their 600w capacity. And are therefore only producing less than a 3rd of their claimed output.

I've mentioned it many times and it's bloody important - you need to have a broad CRI to enable clear vision as well as reducing the Tyndall effect - or scatter - critical when driving in dusty or damp conditions. This is where the light is scattered or reflected back rather than reaching its desired area. (Think like driving in fog on a larger scale).

Whilst not a fan of the limitations of HID (start ups etc) at least there is the ability to purchase a 4500k HID bulb - and whilst it's CRI isn't quite complete, it is far better than something about 5000k and far better than any LED driving light.


C'mon Snoopy... let's go for a walk...

Originally Posted by CraigE

Has anyone on here genuinely bought 7" 9" Round or LED lights off Ebay and their genuine thoughts.
.....

Not round.
My thoughts re the round type is that they restrict airflow to the radiator more than a slimline light bar does .. so I went with a light bar instead.

THIS TYPE OFF EBAY

strangely tho, I got mine for $99, so mine could be a earlier model. Same specs, other than the alloy body and brackets on the one in the link are different(better, in the ebay light).
Mine has an annoying two bolt mount system.

Thoughts re the lights ability:
Around town, they seemed OK. Not as bright as I hoped for, but very usable.
I replaced a rectangular 2x 100x Cibie pair that a past owner had installed prior to me getting my D1.
The rectangular Cibies basically covered up the entire radiator area, so having a lowline slim light bar sorted that(just in case!).
Light output compared to the (high CRI ) 200 watt Cibies lights is at least double, I reckon much more .. in terms of human vision.

As I said tho, around town, deserted backstreets and so forth, they didn't really appear to be a bright as I thought they would be.

BUT! ... out on the open road they made a massive difference(again compared to the halogen Cibies) mainlyu in terms of the whiter(cooler, higher Kelvin temperature).

If anything the Cibies may have had a bit more in terms of distance, but it's a moot point, and not really what I was after anyhow(I don't drive fast enough at night to need 1 lumen power @ 3klms!

My main concerns were:
1/. the ability to see more(higher Kelvin value) and brighter
2/. less power drain(given the above requirement)
3/. slimline form to minimise airflow to the rad
4/. cheap(like I said, I got mine for $99 .. in fact I also got a partly broken copy too, with a broken mount bracket, for another $30($129 for the two .. it only needs me to get off my @$$ and make up a bracket to suit, which should be easy).

parting comments:
* would I do it again(knowing what I know) .. for sure.
* use a proper switch, as the cheap-z-crap switch supplied is useless as .. also get a proper relay for it(again cheapie crapola supplied). wiring and plug is decent quality tho.
For the switch, the previous owner had/installed a front fog light switch.
Note that it's not the same as the rear fog light switch.
Rear fog switch is push for on/off, where the switch doesn't stay down(and doesnt' have a built in indicator light.
The front fog light switch is a push(down, and it stays down) type switch with an orange light to indicate it's active. Push again and it springs back up, for off.
Very neat, up on the instrument cowl .. looks very pro. Except that they didn't use a plug to connect it and if I gently try to pull the instrument cowl off, the wires come off the switch. I had to chase up a wiring diagram to work out how it wires up again.
Current draw is only 7a which works out to just over 100w all up, but that's not a problem for me .. what it actually does in the real world is all that counts.

Sometimes theory is all well and good, but if it doesn't translate into real world usage scenarios, then it's advantage is only in literary purposes!

My suggestion would be, if the price is right and you really want round, then just do it.
They'll work a treat for 'ya(or your son).
But I would recommend looking into those 15w/chip light bars instead, and only for the slimline/airflow factor.

I've got two 7" sets from 4WD Supercentre $165 per pair IIRC. Just check when you're ordering that they have them in stock, or you may wait for a few weeks for the next container to arrive. Check online as they have specials fairy regularly.

Working fine, no issues with them. Get the wiring harness at the same time, ($25) literally plug n play.

They are surprisingly good lights over a reasonable distance, very good on bush tracks, allied with a lightbar for a bit more spread of light closer in.
They are NOT long range driving lights, but they do add considerably to the light output of your normal high beams.

Hey Tombie, you going to share that popcorn???

Sure... popcorn for all...

And Peanuts from my Gallery collection...

To really see stuff you want to see at night I wouldn't go over 4300 k, whichever way you do this. There is a considerable amount of 'variation' in the bluishness of these lights being sold around 5000k.


Too much into the blue / surreal, signs just dazzle you and you get a bit sick of it. I'm talking 100 kmh on roads you can do that or more, based on experience with HID headlights and HID inserts in Narva driving lights.

Sure its bright, but..............

The driving lights are fine, hooked up to the high beam switch in my pos, but the headlights are now back to halogen with schmick wiring and relays, and Wipac reflectors.

DL

Thanks for all the replies.
Waiting and buying a set of HIDs is not an option atm.
As said just looking for a mid range set for my sons D2 as I owe him some money from Christmas.
Looked at a second hand set of HID's on gumtree in Kwinana for $100, but I reckon they are stolen so wont be buying them (no mounting hardware). Been doing some security work around Kwinana/Naval Base and blown away with the dodgy stuff that happens there.
Might look at the 9" units and maybe a 23" bar for now. He can buy HIDs when he can afford them. Air flow is the only thing that concerns me a litlle with the D2 compared to the Defender.
May throw a set of blue covers on them and see if that helps with glare.
Price for what seems to be the same lights varies a fair bit.

I am running Hella Rallye 4000's on the Defender and want to upgrade the guts to HID at some point.

Cheers
Craig