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Lighting Guidance


Mark D

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Hi all. I’m at the stage now where I would like to upgrade the lighting on the truck. 
I don’t anticipate a huge amount of night drives, but do go camping often so need some guidance pls on type and brand. 

I realise the front fogs on a raptor look great, but do they give a good spread?
Are the integrated light bars worth it, or are Spot lights and A pillars better?


There is such a variety for the truck whether the DM lights, to mid range F150LEDs and Diodes, to top end Baja. 
Something mid range would suit ideally. 
Any advise would be appreciated. Cheers. 

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1 hour ago, Mark D said:

Hi all. I’m at the stage now where I would like to upgrade the lighting on the truck. 
I don’t anticipate a huge amount of night drives, but do go camping often so need some guidance pls on type and brand. 

I realise the front fogs on a raptor look great, but do they give a good spread?
Are the integrated light bars worth it, or are Spot lights and A pillars better?


There is such a variety for the truck whether the DM lights, to mid range F150LEDs and Diodes, to top end Baja. 
Something mid range would suit ideally. 
Any advise would be appreciated. Cheers. 

I am currently in a similar boat that i want to obtain some information and experiences. In the past i have used different cheap Chinese LED beams from Tobys, Auxbeam, etc... which were a great bang for the buck so far, but came to realize the wattages and lumens they advertise are completely off.

An example:

I recently measured the amps that my Chinese 320W LED bar was drawing with engine running. The LED bar was only drawing 10.5 Amps which would mean ( 13.5 Volts x 10.5 Amps = 140 Watts). Although the LED bar itself works great, we need to stop staring too much at the advertised values and look more at real life reviews from other users (or Youtube :) ).

Baja, Diode, and Rigid are all top brands which would mean they will last for years, be fully waterproof, and the lenses should not fade too soon (which is a concern on the chinese cheap ones).

As LED technology was still constantly changing the last couple of years, i found peace in the fact that i was willing to upgrade them every couple of years. I still have 2 LED bars lying around which are 3 years old and don't perform at all like the newer ones.

location wise it does indeed depend on what you are aiming to do:

- Leading drives (a good flood light with side shooters aka ditch lights might be good).  

- Camping (good overall lights, less focus on wattage and strength).

On a Raptor there is lots of space and lots of options. 

Dragon Mart has Toby's or other brands, and recently found a shop in DM (S&D Autoparts) who are selling a brand called "Apca" which in fact are chinese as well, but look much better built and the finish looks almost like Baja Designs. I am also keen on giving them a try. Noticed them on @Mahmoud Taha his ride last weekend as well.

The Baja Designs Squadron are small fog lights but very powerful. You can probably even get them installed inside the bumper, or use them on the A pillars as ditch-lights.

@Karthik Raptor i think has a great light setup as well from what i can remember. And @Alex Raptor can probably also give good advice on that.

 

 

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"Go as far as you can see; once you get there, you'll be able to see further."

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7 minutes ago, Frederic said:

I am currently in a similar boat that i want to obtain some information and experiences. In the past i have used different cheap Chinese LED beams from Tobys, Auxbeam, etc... which were a great bang for the buck so far, but came to realize the wattages and lumens they advertise are completely off.

An example:

I recently measured the amps that my Chinese 320W LED bar was drawing with engine running. The LED bar was only drawing 10.5 Amps which would mean ( 13.5 Volts x 10.5 Amps = 140 Watts). Although the LED bar itself works great, we need to stop staring too much at the advertised values and look more at real life reviews from other users (or Youtube :) ).

Baja, Diode, and Rigid are all top brands which would mean they will last for years, be fully waterproof, and the lenses should not fade too soon (which is a concern on the chinese cheap ones).

As LED technology was still constantly changing the last couple of years, i found peace in the fact that i was willing to upgrade them every couple of years. I still have 2 LED bars lying around which are 3 years old and don't perform at all like the newer ones.

location wise it does indeed depend on what you are aiming to do:

- Leading drives (a good flood light with side shooters aka ditch lights might be good).  

- Camping (good overall lights, less focus on wattage and strength).

On a Raptor there is lots of space and lots of options. 

Dragon Mart has Toby's or other brands, and recently found a shop in DM (S&D Autoparts) who are selling a brand called "Apca" which in fact are chinese as well, but look much better built and the finish looks almost like Baja Designs. I am also keen on giving them a try. Noticed them on @Mahmoud Taha his ride last weekend as well.

The Baja Designs Squadron are small fog lights but very powerful. You can probably even get them installed inside the bumper, or use them on the A pillars as ditch-lights.

@Karthik Raptor i think has a great light setup as well from what i can remember. And @Alex Raptor can probably also give good advice on that.

 

 

im using Tobys few months ago, and happy with them right now.

 

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@Mark D I have them all on my raptor, the most effective are the rigid cubes in the foglights, albeit mine are now altogether in an aftermarket bumper, followed by the LP6 Baja's on the bumper 2 white and 2 amber. The ditch lights on the A pillar are XL80 ambers and are very bright, you don't need those if you go bumper mount, and are not good if you are following in a convoy as they blind the person in front, I don't have any experience with any other brands apart from Rigid and Baja and they are great, and easy to wire into the up fitter switches on the raptor

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I'm in the process of an overlanding build, which will take another year as I do incremental upgrades to see what works and what doesn't. Personally, I prefer the one-at-a-time upgrade to see deficiencies before throwing the kitchen sink at it.

For lighting, you can definitely go too far, and we have some members here who could initiate close encounters of the third kind with their arrays 👽

I would separate your lighting needs into two sections: Auxiliary Driving Lights and Camping Lights

1. Auxiliary Driving Lights
are any additional lights that aid your visibility off-road to drive better. The three most common mounting points for these lights are the Bumper, A-Pillar and Roofline.

a)      Bumper
The bumper is one of the best places to increase forward visibility because that’s where the headlights are, and are in your direct field of actionable vision.

  • Fog Lights are a great first step to swap out. The housings are already designed so there is limited amount of cutting involved. Mounted low to the ground, and angled outwards, these will give you great spread directly in front of your car for up to 50m. Warm temperature fog-lights such as amber or yellows are a good choice as they don’t reflect off the sand being kicked up as much.
  • LED light bars mounted on the top of the bumper trim or within the grilles are a great location to get a great forward flood spread.
  • LED/Halogen Spotlights can be mounted using bashplates that have integrated bars to mount them. You’ll see many drivers here with F150s mounting Baja LP6/LP9s in this way.

b)      A-Pillar
Smaller (4 to 6 inch) auxiliary lights are commonly mounted on the A-pillar either using the pillar frame or the side mirrors, or through brackets emerging out of the hood. Commonly called side-shooters or ditch lights, this location raises your lights higher up and is a great place to mount lights pointing off to either side. Here, you have to think about terrain.

There is a reason why so many drivers in the desert have ditch-lights, and that is because we’re seldom driving on a trail. Since we’re carving out our own path, riding up and down ridges; lateral visibility greatly improves how you react to the surroundings.

c)      Roof-line
Lights mounted on the roofline usually either as a bracket from the A-pillar or on a roof-rack provide the highest point for mounting your additional lights. Usually done using light bars (preferably curved), they will throw the light far and wide.

However, lights pointed this high up will bounce off your hood as well as severely impact wind noise on the road. If your car is a daily driver, I would advise against this option.

 

2. Camping Lights
There are two flavours to camping lights – fixed and portable.

a)      Fixed Camping Lights are traditionally mounted on roof-racks. Additionally, some drivers are also now using LED light strips under the side rooflines. Since your car is not a full wagon, this option will not work so well.

b)      Portable Camping Lights are what you should rely on primarily. Through telescoping stands, you can connect them to portable lithium ion batteries.

Beyond all of this, amperage management is something you have to take into account too. Asking your car battery to supply the power for all of these lights for long periods of time or overnight while you camp is a recipe for disaster. If you don’t have a secondary car, and your battery goes dead, there will be nobody to jumpstart it. Hence, whatever lights you add on, please keep a tab on your voltage and amperage draws as well.

Edited by munkybizness
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@Mark D as you already know mate, I have the Toby's mounted on custom pipe bumper and also a couple just about the hood. They are perfect for me 😎  and I must say the lights on the A-pillar makes a huge difference wrt side view (although they look bit weird)

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I hardly use these lights maybe 10 times max in a year, so I went for the cheaper option. 

Edited by Karthik Raptor
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@munkybizness check out claymore lights for the camping lights, they have a magnetic mount or a 1/4 20 tripod mount so you can move them where you need them, I'm using those now on my chase rack they have all sorts of levels and colour warmth and are USB c charging and can act as a powerbank, I also put the rigid camp lights that throw out light at 45 degrees from the side pods, 

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My Tundra has Rigid lights on the front and Baja Designs on the rear, have 2 Rigid radiance bars (20”), Rigid fog lights which came stock with the car, and the D-SS Pro floodlights on the A pillars. The rear has the Baja Designs S1 spotlights which are activated only when the car is engaged in reverse as the stock reverse lights provide no where near enough light to reverse in complete darkness. I will say that Rigid is my absolute favorite company when it comes to off-road lighting, they have quick and helpful support teams and the build quality is just out of this world, up close you can see what I mean, they are just beautiful. I would say at-least get the A pillar lights first as they do make quite a difference when it comes to lighting a large area, then go ahead with light bars mounted on the bumper, these will completely change the game and will light up everything, especially in foggy or dusty conditions, they are just great. I am not planning to mount roof bars as they wind noise is crazy as I’ve heard from others on the forum and I wont be buying them now, maybe sometime later on. These will illuminate more than low mounted light bars, simply put, the whole area will be almost as bright as day. Theres not much to talk about for the rears as they just provide lights for reversing but they are small and do the job well.

Basically, even though companies like Rigid are expensive and your looking for something mid range, they are definitely one if the best if not the best Off-road lighting company in my opinion, they are built very very tough. If you can, buy nothing but Rigid, KC or Baja Designs, these are popular for again, the quality and reliability of many years. Trust me, you will be much happier with brands like these. You can look into KC for roof mounted lights mainly. And Baja Designs make decent, small sized spotlights.

But be careful with battery draw as MunkeyBizness mentioned, my Tundra runs on the stock battery but when ignitions on and engines off, power drains rather quickly, not as much as a damaged battery, but it definitely takes a toll on the battery’s life span. I will change the battery soon and will update if its any better. 

Edited by Harshal
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4 hours ago, Alex Raptor said:

@munkybizness check out claymore lights for the camping lights, they have a magnetic mount or a 1/4 20 tripod mount so you can move them where you need them, I'm using those now on my chase rack they have all sorts of levels and colour warmth and are USB c charging and can act as a powerbank, I also put the rigid camp lights that throw out light at 45 degrees from the side pods, 

Just checked out the Claymore lights. I’m digging these! Thanks for sharing @Alex Raptor 🙏🏽

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