Hoard97XJ

Has anyone heard anything about these? What else do I need to buy with it? Links would help, thanks.

JackJare9455

someone is bound to jam them for being Chinese knock offs... but I think it's silly to spend over a grand on a light bar..

I say go for it.. I am going to toss one on my truck in the near future

andrewmp6

Only bad thing i see is ip67 which means its water resistant not water proof.To get one water proof ip68 or higher is what you want.Try talking to some of vendors see if you can get a good one at a good price.

macgyver35

I have some similar lights. I can tell you a couple of things.

1) That thing might have actual Cree LEDs (Great) or it might have SMD LEDs (Okay) or some no name brand (who knows?).

2) It won't put out anywhere near the claimed 24,000 lumens of light. You'll most likely get somewhere in the 6000 to 10,000 lumen range depending on how many lumens per watt those LEDs can produce. I'd say 50 lumens per watt on the high end.

3) Nearly ALL LED lights and light bars are in the 6000K to 6500K color temperature range. They sue those LEDs because they are cheap. This irritates me because it would only costs the manufacturers about $1 to $1.25 per LED to get ones in the 4000k to 4500k range which are MUCH better. The downside to anything over 5500K is that they put out a very "blue" light that has terrible CRI. CRI, or Color Rendering Index means how well the light from those LEDs illuminates objects in their "truest" colors based on how they look in normal daylight. I can tell you that at night, green tree leaves will look a gray-blue color, stops signs will look purple, and basically all colors will be a bit off. Because of this, your eyes won't pick up details as much.

All that being said, they do put out a lot of light for the money and the power draw. I do get some use out of mine on occasion. But I have a light bar on the front of my Jeep, and the light output is so bad compared to my bi-xenon headlights that I don't really use it much. I have a $60 flashlight with a Cree XM-L neutral tint LED flashlight that puts out more usable light than my "72 watt LED light bar". I have some smaller ones that go on my roof rack that I use for area lighting right around the XJ. The one on the rear is great for dealing with a trailer at night. Also, anything over 6000 true lumens is overkill. Your stock headlights put out about 625-700 lumens each. So at 6000 it's like having 10 headlights mounted up top.

The closer you can get to the 3800K to 4500K the more "usable" light you'll get, all things being equal. If you can't do that, at least try to find something in the 5000K area.

These are what I use for area lights on the sides and rear of my roof rack. They work very well for that.


The one you linked to, given the price, is hard to pass up, especially when there aren't many better options out there in the affordable range (I've looked for over a year).

Full disclosure: I'm a long time member of www.candlepowerforums, and I have owned dozens of high-end LED flashlights that cost anywhere from $25-$200 each. I know a bit about LEDs and what kind of light they put out and the pros and cons. My entire house, including the outdoor landscape lighting, has been converted to LED.

CrawdadSlim

Why no led headlights?