Off road lights----functions and selection

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Duck Commander
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Flood lights: By definition these are an artificial light providing even illumination across a wide area. Usually the preferred location is top of the SUVs. They cover a wide area enabling the driver to see in front and around him. The spread angel is approximately 100 degree. Well suited for bashing the dunes at night.
Why the mounting point at the top?
The answer is the high mounting point protects them from road hazards and the top location is best suited as it raises the beams allowing for greater projection of the light forward.

Fog lights provide a wide, bar-shaped beam of light with a sharp cutoff at the top, and are generally aimed and mounted low. They may be either white or selective yellow. They are intended for use at low speed to increase the illumination directed towards the road surface and verges in conditions of poor visibility due to rain, fog, dust or snow. The reason being is; you want to illuminate the ground without getting any light reflection off of the moisture (fog or rain or snow) and back into your eyes. For this reason, you do not want the beam of light to cross your field of vision at all. Keep it as close to the ground as possible so there is no reflection back to you. They light up a wide path from left to right, but not very far down the road. You can't see far in fog anyway, but what they do is help you to see the surface in front of you and the sides of the road left and right.

Driving lights: These lights are the mixed breed of high beam stock lights and the beam is straight ahead than the Day lighters. Most suitable for the straight driving, but for the offroad while climbing the dunes, these will just appear as spot light and having very less benefit.

Pencil lights: are best suited for high speed where the priority is to see a long stretch of road ahead but it will not give you light on the surrounding areas as the concentration is just on one spot.

Light emitting diodes (LED)
LEDs are being used with increasing frequency in automotive lamps. They offer very long service life, extreme vibration resistance, and can permit considerably shallower packaging compared to most bulb-type assemblies. LEDs also offer a significant safety performance benefit when employed in stop lights, for when power is applied they rise to full intensity approximately 200 milliseconds (0.2 seconds) faster than incandescent bulbs.
LED lights are best suited for night dune bashing and you guys can see it in our club almost4x4’s ALSHAMSI rig.
Best suited location is top of the rig.



All of us having different ideas and knowledge based on our experience and priorities.

But the above mentioned are some basic concepts regarding the lighting systems and can be further refine by research and suggestions of the club (almost4x4)’s members.




:028:
Wasif Ahmed
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Interesting Shafiq.

You missed out the HID ( Hi Intensity Discharg) lamps tha CCFL ones and the HID Projector headlams that are the current rage on cars / trucks.

The the next thing to consider is the light temprature which governs the colour of the light.

And then you have the Euro Beam pattern vs the flood pattern.

Light are a complicated choice like tires and they have to be chosen depending on requirments of the individual concerned.

For Offroad night drives I personally would recommend a roof mounted LED light bar, the best are the Vision X and the Rigid Industries products. Ramy Trading also sells a good product (AOR) lightbars and I think Mebar is selling Baha Design bars.The Chinese bars from AEV are not worth looking at

The LED light bar is an expensive option but it really gives you that extra bit of vision you need at night......other than getting night vision goggles......wonder how these would work on night drives, imagine doing night drives without lights !
Duck Commander
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wow, I read alot of research done by you, and you are always having very knowledge on off roading stuff.
First I am getting the three slim KC lights for front and later on may be I will go for LED. But I will ask you what to select as always I am seeking your advice, isnt? LOLz
Wasif Ahmed
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shafiq jan;1584 wrote:wow, I read alot of research done by you, and you are always having very knowledge on off roading stuff.
First I am getting the three slim KC lights for front and later on may be I will go for LED. But I will ask you what to select as always I am seeking your advice, isnt? LOLz
Yes Shafq...and from no on I wll charge you for the advice and take a commission on all the parts isource fro you ...this way I can upgrade my ICON to stage 3
Duck Commander
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Hahaha, I think both of our cars will be there on the line for stage 5 not 3, becoz extented front shock with reservoirs and piggy back are called stage4 or 5 as i understood from talking with guyz in dubai.
Next time I will pay u 50% commission\
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